Best Of Tucson®

Best Place to Rent by the Hour

No-Tel Motel

STAFF PICK: Had the Sugar Hill Gang been from Tucson, "Rapper's Delight" would have surely celebrated the virtues, or vices, that one might explore at the No-Tel Motel. The lyrics to "Rapper's Delight" may have read something similar to the following: "Everybody go, 'No-Tel Motel, watcha gonna do today' (say what?) / 'Cause I'm 'a get a fly girl / Gonna rent a room 'n' / Just 30 dollars I'm gonna pay."

As you may have guessed, dear reader, No-Tel isn't shorthand for "no television." Each room even contains the luxury of a queen-sized bed that can come in standard motionlessness or, for the more adventurous, with heated wawa action. No, not the instrumental effect of the wah-wah that produces the sound of a crying baby as the bell of a trumpet is opened and closed when playing jazz, though you may cry with an infant's delight at your vibrating mattress. With these sorts of amenities we can only assume that No-Tel is in reference to the manager's discretion; he's a man so tight-lipped that he hung up on us several times when we were trying to ascertain what was included in the bill. You may find a cleaner place, but one so economically priced with such convenient parking and a pool, we think not. No-Tel may be one of Tucson's best-kept secrets.