Teerman Lofts

I was visiting family in the area, and Holland was (a) in between my brother to the north and my sister to the south and (b) reachable by train from Chicago. (I didn't want to have to rent a car.) I was booked in the Tulyp Hotel but received notice about construction going on next door. With an Expedia discount, staying at Teerman Lofts was a bit cheaper and a lot nicer. It was an easy 15-minute roll of the suitcase from the train station, and the December weather was unusually mild the evening I arrived. My room was the Ontario, which is spacious, quiet, comfortable, and bright. It looks south out over the Hope College campus and the iconic Pillar Church. It was great to have a full kitchen at my disposal, although I ended up using it mainly to make coffee, keep beer and cheese cold, and prepare really simple things. Downtown Holland is cute and full of places to eat, drink, and shop for doo-dads. It has no grocery stores or even convenience stores, however. None. There is a sad Family Dollar and a BP station about a 20-minute walk south, but neither has anything that isn't microwaveable or processed to within an inch of its life. If you are carless like I was, you need to take an Uber or the local transport (MAX) to a Meijer or the like to get real supplies. A somewhat saving grace for me was that just a couple minutes from the lofts is Readers World, where you can buy a range of local and national newspapers.