Los Angeles

Any business traveler or hollow-souled divorcee can tell you that LAX hotels serve a useful if grim purpose. For airport overnighting that'll make you schedule a 6:50am flight on purpose, check out Custom Hotel.

Soft-opening today, Custom's a 12-story design hotel that's black on the outside but colorful on the inside -- like a goth with "Steal My Sunshine" stuck in his head. The hub of each floor is a creatively themed common room (i.e.: a conference room that looks like an outdoor summer day; a cardio room done up like a horse race track), while the hub of the hotel is 4 bars -- the most notable is made up like a meadow, complete with wooly, sheep-shaped stools, which you will guiltily mount, two times. The soundproofed guest rooms are stacked with standards like Egyptian-cotton towels and iPod docking stations, and also incorporate subtle touches, like a mini-bar that's stocked with booze and balsa-wood model airplanes, a combo that'll result in many broken balsa-wood model airplanes.

Opening at the end of the month, even the pool's got extra touches: a backyard-bbq menu, and stadium seating -- a perfect place to bone up on your upcoming presentation, while asking the universe if you and Bernice still have a shot at making it work.