Let’s start with a truth you’ll never hear: Hotels know you’re going to take items. Some laugh it off, some silently sigh, and others even inventory based on how much you are going to take. Tamara Allen, who runs a small independent hotel in Las Vegas, even fully admitted she stopped leaving tissue boxes in rooms—because they disappeared faster than peanuts from the minibar.
The “Ending” You Should Read First
If you want to avoid any awkward surprises (or worse, surprise charges on your credit card), the best action is simple: just ask. Every hotel has its own guidelines for what is permissible and what is tabu. Some are more lax than others and treat the tiny amenities as souvenir selection, and others are decidedly not. It is very simple to work around the system if you keep this one rule in mind. You will leave your hotel with extras and no drama whatsoever.
So, What Is Fair Game?
Take the fluffy robe and the hair dryer; those are off limits. But here is the list of items you can freely grab and toss into your suitcase:
- Toiletries: those little bars of soap, little shampoos, little lotions, shower caps, toothbrush kits. Any one-pack item. Even if it’s not used, hotels want you to take it, if they don’t, it’s just going to be discarded.
- Slippers: slippers are normally individually packed and just for personal use and no plans for washing or reusing, it’s certainly cool to take them with you, this is definitely an item with a lower impact to the environment to take than to leave.
- Tea, coffee, sugar packets: everything provided in your hotel room is usable by you and can also be put in a backpack for later. Just don’t take advantage of the communal tea area in the lobby.
- Pens and notepads: those branded pens are simply little mini-billboards for the hotel. Take it, use it and boom – you’re advertising for them without even knowing it.
Oh, the Other Weird Little Things
Another category of the “free” stuff are all the extra little things that pop up here and there: cotton buds, sewing kits, shoe polish sponges, laundry bags, nail files! Honestly, they fall in the category of “complementary items” and nobody is looking for them back.
Why Hotels Don’t Mind (Most of the Time)
According to Ousman, a general manager in Chicago, a lot of hotels have contracts with suppliers for their toiletries, and by the time free soap, shampoo, etc. gets to a guest, it has cost the hotel very little (sometimes nothing). When guests take them home, it almost seems like part of the marketing plan. Some things become an issue when people take items that clearly weren’t intended to leave the hotel, like pillows or the TV remote (yes, this happens).
A Quick Reality Check
Not everything in your room is “free.” Towels, robes, electric kettles, pillows – those were for rent, not a souvenir. If you walk out – they may charge you a lot more than the value of the mini-bar items you tried to avoid.
Hotel rooms are conceived to feel somewhere in between comfort and convenience. Part of comfort is filled with little items designed to make you feel at home for a night or two. And if those little items make their way into your suitcase back home, that’s fine—as long as you know where to draw the line.
Yes, take the soap, take the pen, take the slippers and pack them. Nobody will miss them. But if you want a hotel employee silently side-eyeing you at checkout, you can leave the robe where it is.
