If you're like me, choosing a hotel in a strange town makes you nervous. The Internet might be great for rates and accommodations, but the listings can't give you a feel for where those hotels and motels are located and what their neighborhoods are like.

Last year, I made reservations with fingers crossed for hotels in Little Rock, Arkansas; Jackson, Mississippi; and Dallas, TX. I don't know those cities and so the hotels' sddresses might just as well have been written in Sanskrit.

Fortunately, the hotels I picked (with one exception) were all in nice areas and were to close to either shopping or areas of historical interest.

Here are a few guidelines for choosing a hotel in Denver.

First, hotels with a Quebec Street address were all built near our old Stapleton Airport. Today, what was Stapleton is now homes and chain stores such as Office Depot, Best Buy, and so forth. This means hotels with a Quebec Street address should be okay. However, Quebec Street is east of downtown Denver, putting it 45 minutes to an hour from the mountains.

If you want to stay out west, the Holiday Inn, Lakewood, is at 7390 W Hampden Ave., which puts you much closer to the mountains than the hotels on Quebec. And Days Inn West is in Golden, a fun, little city west of Denver and is practically in the mountains - if mountains are important to you.

Loews Denver Hotel at 4150 E Mississippi Ave. is about 20 minutes southeast of downtown Denver and very close to I-25, our main thoroughfare north to south. The neighborhood is good and there is shopping nearby.

A couple of my favorites are Four Points by Sheraton on Colorado Blvd. It's just five minutes away from Cherry Creek Mall and 15 from downtown Denver. I like both its price and location. Another I would recommend is the Hampden Inn and Suites at 4150 E. Kentucky.

Any hotel is Centennial, CO is probably okay. Centennial is a newly incorporated city on the south side of Denver. Hotels in Centennial you might want to check out include the Candlewood Suites, and Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites South.

Hotels in Englewood are also okay, assuming you stay southeast and near the Valley Highway (I-25). This would include Courtyard by Marriott, Destination Hotels and Resort, the Fairfield Inn by Marriott, and Homestead Studio Suites. Most of the hotels in Centennial and Englewood are easily accessible via I-25 and are situated in landscaped business parks. Great shopping can be found about 20 minutes away at the Cherry Creek Mall, or Park Meadows Mall.

Hotels that have a Peoria St. or East 32nd St. address are probably out by Denver International Airport. There's nothing wrong with them but they are a considerable distance from both shopping and downtown Denver. They're fine if you're just spending a night in Denver before flying on to another location.

Finally, if you feel like splurging, downtown Denver has some great hotels. I like the Westin Tabor Center, the Oxford, the Grand Hyatt Denver, and Denver's great, historic Brown Palace Hotel.

Hotel addresses to stay away from? To me, this would include any hotel or motel with an East or West Colfax address (below 15000 West).

The Denver metro area has more than 470 hotels/motels. If you stick to the national chains, you probably won't go wrong. But here are at least some pointers that might help you make a good decision.