I am all about weird, spooky, secret things: Bigfoot, the old town referred to as Helltown in my neighborhood that's now part of a national park, hidden doors, that sort of thing. Those offbeat, secret places and discoveries often can be found in hotels, and stumbling across something strange is exciting ... for me at least.

I recently went to a speakeasy in Akron that is attached to a Courtyard by Marriott, which is probably the weirdest thing about it, since Courtyards often have a basic lobby bar. My boyfriend and I recently moved and are finding things to do in our new area, so I found this place via a Google search.

When you walk up, it's literally just a giant Courtyard by Marriott hotel in a trendy neighborhood. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But to the left of the entrance, there's a newsstand, and that may or may not be how you enter the speakeasy. And there may or may not be an old telephone booth inside that takes you into the hotel. "Secret" entrances aside, I will tell you it has fantastic craft cocktails.

The Cleveland/Akron area can be a bit dull at times with its freezing cold weather or 90-degree days in the summer with humidity and Cleveland sports things that I have zero interest in, so it's always fun to find something secretive or weird, like a speakeasy or an abandoned town.

Many hotels have secret passageways, libraries, haunted rooms and more. While it's cool to keep these things as secretive as possible, it's also a good idea to get the word out by building an intriguing story.

For example, in 2019, The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas had a secret bar called Ghost Donkey that could be found by completing a scavenger hunt through the hotel's food hall and finding a door marked with the bar's logo. The bar/restaurant served tequila drinks and nachos for a time.

Maybe your hotel doesn't have a secret, but it has an offbeat or otherwise interesting element. Take the Library Hotel in New York. Each of its 10 floors honors one of the categories of the Dewey Decimal System. That's unique, and I am sure there are a lot of nerds out there who would love it.

Your job is to find those people. Given today's vast options in targeted marketing tools, I'm sure you can find that audience into whatever your weird, offbeat and intriguing offering may be.

Am I missing out on other secret hotel things? Email me, find me on Twitter @HNN_Danielle or on LinkedIn.

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