It seems like every hotel room on the face of the earth has a long round bed pillow these days. I am never quite sure what to do with them. So I’ve come up with a list for my own personal amusement. And so, without further ado, the top five best things to do with a round hotel pillow:

1. Wait until your travel partner is sitting and quietly watching TV. Casually secure one end of the pillow. Yank and then proceed to pummel your friend, spouse, significant other with aforementioned pillow.

2. In the event that you receive a king bed when you were gunning for two doubles, the round pillow can serve as a makeshift bed barrier between you and your snoring coworker, annoying sibling, friend or frenemie.

3. Longing for some summertime fun in dead winter? You’ll have to wait a few months until you can hop in the pool with one of those silly foam noodle toys, but you can simulate the experience year-round using one of these puppies and an ordinary hotel bathtub.

4. Construct a fort using your bedding and this versatile round pillow as the central support. Then do whatever you would normally do with a fort.

5. Try bending it in half. Then bending it in half again. And one more time. You can’t do it, can you? It’s a great upper body workout we frequent hotel guests have come to know as the Pillow Method.

To find out which Arlington, VA hotel will allow you to accomplish all of these exciting activities, click the pic.

Okay, this hotel wins my personal award for Best Hotel Elevator (now there’s an award category you haven’t heard of before). Elevators generally don’t get a lot of love, but this one sure got some special attention from the folks who designed this hotel in New York’s Times Square. To find out where you can view this standout people mover, click the pic.

If swimming is your favorite way to exercise, it’s always a treat to stay at a hotel that has a pool with a lap lane. This 42-foot indoor pool is part of a Seattle luxury hotel’s impressive health club. Along with aquatic diversions, the facility boasts over 10,000 square feet of fitness space, men’s and women’s locker rooms with saunas, massage services and a Jeremy Todd Wellness Spa & Salon. Wanna know which hotel it is? Click the pic.

Looking for a hotel workout with a spectacular view? One Chicago hotel with a penchant for modern design and boutique service boasts this view from its onsite fitness room. It’s enough to make you forget how much you hate working out. Thanks to one recent visitor for adding this shot to the site. To find out how you can workout out with this view during your next visit to the Windy City, click the pic.

The two-day Fusion concert scheduled for Feb. 13-14, 2007 at Las Vegas’s Aladdin Hotel and Casino is a pretty cool concept: Gather some of the most popular music acts from the U.S. and China and feature them on one stage right in time for the Chinese Lunar New Year. The line-up includes big names like Kanye West and Gnarls Barkley, as well as Chinese acts from Jackie Chan, A-mei Mayday, Zhang Zhen Yue and Supergirls. Tickets range from $55.24 to $179.05 through Ticketmaster.

We’ve blogged before about the Fairmont Boston Copley Plaza canine ambassador name Catie, but we’ve only recently obtained her head shot for publication. Thanks to a recent TravelPoster who visited the hotel and uploaded this photograph, we can all admire her dashing good looks!

Hey, we’ve all been there. You casually glance out your hotel room window only to see a scene like this waiting down below. How did all that stuff get there? And what is it? Is that a sink?

It’s a good thing there’s so much more to do in Manhattan than sit around enjoying the view from your hotel room.

The presence of an old school barbershop right inside a hotel is just the sort of retro perk that could turn an average hotel stay into something a little above-average. Don’t laugh - classic barbershops are coming back in a big way. Women like mani-pedis. For men, there’s the close shave and a hot towel on the neck. Right? Anyway, to find out which moderately-priced midtown Manhattan hotel houses this true blue barbershop, go on and click that pic.

Now this sends me back to the good ‘ole days when recess and sandwiches sans crust were de rigeur. Despite its cozy appearance, this isn’t a children’s library. It’s a reading room for guests at a downtown San Francisco boutique hotel. In addition to books and comfy modern seats, the library offers free high-speed wireless Internet access, a service that is complimentary throughout the hotel. To find out which hotel this is, click the pic.

For a mid-range hotel, that’s a pretty big vanity area. If you like to spread out while you primp or happen to be one of those people who actually unpacks during a hotel visit, this Los Angeles International Airport hotel offers a spacious closet and vanity combo - plus an extra sink outside the bathroom. That’s always helpful when you’ve got more than one person staying in the room. To find out which hotel this is, click the pic.