By Lilit Marcus, CNN

This week in travel news: the original “motor hotel” sits abandoned, the world’s busiest airports are ranked, and how to move abroad without messing it up.

Birth of the motel
Hotels and guesthouses have existed for centuries. But the motel was born in 1925 when an architect named Arthur Heineman came up with the idea for a “motor hotel,” shortened to “motel.”

 
 
The concept was simple but effective: Now that more and more people had cars and were going on road trips, they needed places where they could stop and stay the night along the way. Thus Heineman paired low-cost rooms with small garages where guests could safely park their cars — all for $1.25 a night.

The Milestone Mo-Tel was located in San Luis Obispo, California, which CNN Travel named one of the best towns to visit in America last year. It’s located midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and rooms at the motel had modern-for-the-time conveniences like hot showers and indoor carpeting. The design was inspired by the nearby Spanish mission.

The original Milestone Mo-Tel, later called the Motel Inn, closed in 1991 and has been abandoned, but Heineman’s idea still lives on 100 years later.