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The Best Sausalito Hotels
What are the best Sausalito hotels? Twice each year we survey a wide range of blogs, travel sites, online forums and ratings sites, then summarize and interpret the data to create this ranking of hotels in Sausalito.
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The majority of Sausalito’s hotels are listed on Hotels.com, and it’s easy to compare prices there for your selected dates and see any discounts or special deals that are being offered. We frequently see prices on Hotels.com that are significantly lower than the numbers below from our spot surveys. As a result, we sought them out and Hotels.com is now one of our sponsors.
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| Rank | Rank | Hotel Name | Score | Score | Heat | Location |
| This | Prev | (See note below re pricing) | This | Prev | ||
| 1 | 1 | Inn Above Tide ($385) | 100 | 100 | 392 | Downtown |
| 2 | 2 | Cavallo Point Lodge ($569) | 95 | 95 | 787 | Fort Baker |
| 3 | 3 | Gables Inn ($245) | 89 | 93 | 518 | Downtown |
| 3 | 5 | Acqua Hotel ($219) | 89 | 89 | 330 | Mill Valley |
| 5 | 4 | Hotel Sausalito ($265) | 85 | 92 | 250 | Downtown |
| 5 | 6 | Casa Madrona ($299) | 85 | 84 | 654 | Downtown |
| 7 | 7 | Mountain Home Inn** ($195) | 82 | 82 | 161 | Mill Valley |
| 8 | 7 | Pelican Inn* ($215) | 81 | 82 | 308 | Muir Beach |
| 9 | 9 | Holiday Inn Express ($186) | 78 | 76 | 1000 | Mill Valley |
| 10 | — | Tamalpais Motel ($99) | 61 | — | 132 | Mill Valley |
* The Pelican Inn is located in Muir Beach, which is part of Sausalito’s 94965 Zip Code.
** The Mountain Home Inn is close to the border of Muir Woods, which we cover in this website.
Note: We score on a curve, and the hotels at the top of this chart are exceptional by any standard. Holiday Inn Express in Mill Valley had the lowest ranking this time for a “non-Motel.” We have had friends and business guests who stayed there and considered it to be “basic, but nicer than most similar places,” so don’t equate that 78 score with it being a bad hotel.
Insiders Tip: Many websites show The Waters Edge Hotel and the Tiburon Lodge as being close to Sausalito. Despite their proximity “as the crow flies” they’re each a good, long drive away around Richardson’s Bay. This is why websites have to be edited by human beings instead of robots!
Prices listed are examples of best available price per night for a 2-night weekend stay for 2 adults, booked via the hotel’s website about 6 weeks in advance during the winter season. Weeknights will be priced lower, and special promotions with AAA, certain credit cards etc. may offer lower rates. Taxes are extra and vary by location. Many factors affect these spot checks so use them to judge the general rate class of a hotel, not its actual rates.
The following hotels either did not make the Top 10 in our most recent survey, or we had insufficient data to evaluate them:
Marin Headlands HI Hostel — We do not rank the HI Hostel at Fort Barry in the Marin Headlands (inside the GGNRA) because comparing hotels and hostels is the proverbial “apples and oranges” comparison. We list the Hostel so visitors know it’s an option, and in our most recent survey it was a popular spot.
Travelodge Motel Mill Valley
America’s Vest Value Inn Motel Mill Valley
The four Downtown hotels are all within walking distance of the Sausalito Ferry Pier. To give you a wider price range we also include the closer hotels in Mill Valley.
Insiders Tip: If you’re tempted to book a cheap Mill Valley Motel to get a bargain, take the time to look around online. You may get reservations at one of the (better) places listed above for just a little more money.
Note: The Alta Mira Hotel, once the Grand Dame of Sausalito, is (sadly) no longer in operation, and the facility is now a rehab hospital. Many computer-moderated sites continue to list it as a hotel.
How to interpret our numbers:
The top hotel for the quarter ALWAYS is given a score of 100, and all other hotels then receive a score “graded on the curve” of the top rated hotel.
We also list the “Heat” for each hotel, which signifies the amount of attention being paid to that business on the web. The highest Heat rating is automatically adjusted to 1000 and all other hotels are graded on that curve. The score is weighted to emphasize recent online activity. A hotel with a Heat Rating of 500 is generating twice as much online attention as one with a rating of 250. Historically this number changes quarter to quarter as different hotels run promotions, and several different hotels have led in this Heat reating over the eight years we have done these surveys.