Those soulless US motels are good for the soul | Emma Brockes

They may be a favourite of serial killers and runaways, but a night in a rest stop where no one knows your name is better than therapy

I was in California last week, in Los Angeles for a night, where I stayed in a chain hotel in Beverly Hills, and then in San Jose, where I checked into an airport motel. The latter was situated on a traffic island between interstates, one running towards Oakland, the other in the direction of San Francisco to the north and LA to the south.

It was a transitional place, the kind where no one stays for longer than a night or ever returns to, and where, for dinner, you have the choice of walking along the freeway to a branch of Chipotle, or using the vending machine in the lobby. More pertinently, it was the kind of place that features in American pop culture as a rest stop for serial killers, runaways and those with no final destination in mind.