Best Hotel Locations When Looking for an Apartment in KL

Best Hotel Locations When Looking for an Apartment in KL

Trying to determine where to stay when you first move to KL can be frustrating.  For me, searching blindly for hotels online provided information overload. So many questions popped into my head:

1.       How long should I book a hotel, since I don’t know how long it takes to find an apartment (I will address apartment hunting in another post)?

2.       What is the best location for a hotel?

a.       I wanted to be central enough to take public transportation around the city to visit the different apartments (especially since I didn’t know which part of the city to live in).

b.      I also wanted to be around tourist attractions so I could start exploring the city when I’m not looking for apartments.

3.       What is a good price range for a hotel?

a.        I heard that Malaysia was a cheap place to live, and there were many hotels that seemed extremely-affordable in USD, but I wanted to make sure that I didn’t stay in a dangerous location and wanted to room to be clean.

Well, let’s go in order.  I decided to book a hotel for a week and half, not knowing how long it would take me to solidify an apartment.  I used Expedia, and researched hotels with lenient cancellation policies.  I found a great hotel in Chinatown that only required 24 hours to cancel (Swiss Inn).  I figured that once I found a place and put down a deposit, it would take a day or two to finalize everything. In that timeframe, I could then cancel the hotel without any major penalties.  (For me, it ended up taking a solid week to get a place, so I was happy that I booked it for over a week.)

In reviewing Swiss Inn, my husband and I were overall really happy with our choice.  For around $30 USD a day, you can’t beat the value.  We had a huge room with a window, extremely helpful staff, and a better-than-expected breakfast buffet (free) that included fresh fruit, French toast, chicken sausage, eggs, cereals, toast and local favourites (either stir fry noodles or nasi lemak (rice with spicy sambal sauce, peanuts and cucumbers)). The hotel seemed safe and relatively clean.  On the downside, our widow overlooked the Petaling Street Chinatown night market (pictured).  There was music blasting from about noon till 2-3AM every night, so it was hard to relax mid-day and go to sleep at night. However, you do get what you pay for, and for that price, I would still recommend the hotel to others.   On the plus side, we got to explore Chinatown, buying fresh fruit from local stalls, and needed toiletries from the discount stores. We also were able to see many of the tourist attractions (like Central Market, KLCC, Masjid Jamek, etc.) all within a small walk or short train ride from our hotel (separate post on tourist attractions).  There was even a hostel right down the street where we could get laundry washed for RM6 per KG. 

In looking back on this approach, the only thing I would have changed to make things easier would be to book directly with the hotel, rather than through a travel website.  This is because to cancel a hotel you booked through an online agent, you have to contact the online help desk to receive your refund.  Usually this isn’t hard. However when you are traveling overseas, it’s difficult to call internationally to the travel website to reclaim payment for any days you didn’t end up using. Although Expedia staff were more than helpful at processing in return, in the future, if traveling internationally try to remember to stay local as much as possible. It’s always easier to work with the front desk of a hotel than an international online company.  

Now that I live in KL, I can attest that the two best areas to use as a base are Chinatown (where I stayed) and KL Sentral.  Chinatown is great because you have more than one public transport train line running through the area (I used Pasar Seni as the apartments I was looking for were along the Petaling Jaya Rapid LRT line). * As a note, many buses run through the Pasar Seni stop, so this can be an alternative to the train lines. There are also taxis that are easily accessible (separate post on taxis in KL).In addition to where I stayed, there are really cheap backpacker hostels and hotels/motels that can meet any budget.  The major downside about Chinatown is that it’s noisy at night, as they have daily night markets that go way into the wee hours of the morning. Additionally like many Chinatown areas around the globe, as the streets gets crowded at night there is an increased risk for pickpocketing, so it’s important to keep all your personal belongings close by and be on higher alert.  With that said, in my experience Chinatown in KL did not seem unsafe, and I ventured around by myself during the day, and always with my husband at night.   

If you have a bigger budget, the other place to stay would be KL Sentral (either the Hilton or Le Meridien).  KL Sentral is the ‘Grand Central’ of KL.  Almost every train line and a majority of busses leave from KL.  There is an express train from there to the Airport, and there is always a line of taxis ready to serve you.  The hotels are a bit pricier that Chinatown, but if you are with children and want something a bit safer, or want to stay somewhere quieter and more secluded from the hustle and bustle, these are the hotels for you.  Their staff is warm and friendly and both hotels get great reviews (although I’ve heard the Hilton is slightly nicer than the La Meridian).  KL Sentral is one train stop from Chinatown (Pasar Seni), so it’s as convenient as Chinatown without many of the downsides. *As a note, the picture shows KLSentral with the two hotels attached (at the top).  This picture comes from google images, and is not a picture I took.

If you have any specific questions on where to stay, including other areas not mentioned, please let me know. I will respond to your post in a timely manner.