When we head out on vacation, where we stay ranks rather high in importance. As well it should. Our home away from home merits close consideration after all. Factors such as budget, proximity to local attractions, amenity rewards and overall comfort dominate the criteria as we comb the usual purveyors for appropriate accommodations.

There are some however, who seek hotel rooms of a different colour. Notoriety, infamy, historical import and the aura of celebrity draw these people to rooms that offer far more than mints on the pillow and mini-bars. As the locations of some odd, shady, tragic and rather dull behaviour to be quite honest, these suites – what celebrity stays in a room after all – have become defacto pilgrimmage sites for people with too much time and money to blow, loose screws and dreams set on careers as unofficial biographers.

15. Room 1410, The Mark Hotel, New York City

To earn status as a bona fide Hollywood badass, the most salient merit badge involves the sheer destruction of a hotel room beyond recognition. Johnny Depp did his Boy Scout best in 1994 to turn his suite at The Mark Hotel into the interior decor equivalent of an Edward Scissorhands coif. With help from then arm candy Kate Moss, Depp beat the room like a plow mule and was sent a bill for almost $10,000 to cover the damage. The felony criminal mischief charge would haunt him forever, but not as harshly as the claim that the vandalism was the fault of a pet armadillo.

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14. Sanderson Hotel, London

The incessant train wreck that is Amy Winehouse, with avid participation by husband Blake Fielder-Civil, took her horror show to the swish Sanderson Hotel in August of 2007. On the lam from a rehab clinic in Essex, the adorable couple’s version of domestic bliss came with $18,000 in room and property carnage, much of it in the form of blood stains.

13. Room 100, The Hotel Chelsea, New York City

The bohemian home of record in Manhattan, present hovel to aspirant dysfunctional artists, appears on our list because of a fire that Edie Sedgwick set. Well that and the fact that Sex Pistols frontman Sid Vicious may have sent a knife through the abdomen of girlfriend Nancy Spungen in room 100. But first Sedgwick. The socialite, heiress and barbiturate lover who drove Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan mad, for different reasons mind you, mistakenly set her room ablaze despite the prophetic wisdom of fellow Chelsea border Leonard Cohen, who told Sedwick that her elaborate candelabra displays were bad luck. Vicious and Spungen of course, had a more notorious stay in the Chelsea in October of 1978. A stay that made Dennis Hopper look like the Pope. The sad drug binge that led to the bloody murder of Spungen made the Chelsea infamous and Vicious potential jail bait until his own untimely death four months later.

12. Wynn Las Vegas

Back in 1966 when billion dollar man Howard Hughes was at the apex of lunacy, his stay at the then Desert Inn in Vegas became the most notorious bout of germophobia and agoraphobia in Hollywood history. From the confines of his suite, Hughes bought the hotel, shut down the entire ninth floor and went into the urine storage business.

11. Room 524, Ritz-Carlton, Sydney

INXS frontman Michael Hutchence left his mark on the world with hit songs, gyrations and smoky looks. Sadly, as many now conclude, the rock icon had a penchant for autoerotic asphyxiation. It all went awry for Hutchence in room 524 of the Ritz, now the Stamford Plaza, whether or not the fatal suffocation was via suicide or base sexual pleasure.

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10. The Oriental Penthouse, Bangkok

Rock history can be unkind. The shark jump that Billy Idol’s career took in Thailand back in 1989 however, was his own fault. What began as a mega bender in the penthouse of the Oriental hotel in Bangkok devolved into a now legendary three week escapade of unholy diversions. The damage to the room and subsequent party tab ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

9. Room 217, The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colorado

In a fit of nocturnal inspiration, horror novelist Stephen King wrote the treatment for The Shining in room 217 of the Stanley Hotel in Colorado. King and wife Tabitha were in Estes Park on vacation but there was no rest for the writer at the Stanley. The hotel gave him the creeps. Perhaps alcholic delusions were the logical explanation but whatever the truth, reports of paranormal activity have been rife ever since.

8. Room 16, L’H?tel Paris, France

“My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go,” was what Oscar Wilde had to say about the decor in room 16 at the then H?tel d’Alsace in Paris. Despite the wallpaper, Wilde did his best to enjoy the freedom Paris gave him, in stark contrast to life in conservative Britain. The hotel was the site of his best debauchery, not to mention his death by cerebral meningitis, on November 30, 1900. Of course, another hotel room in The Cadogan in London, site of his bust for “acts of gross indecency” has a notorious connection to Wilde.

Photo credits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7