Hotels in Todos Santos

Is It or Isn't It? The Real Story of the Hotel California

It's every hotel owner's dream: You can check out any time, but you can never leave. Despite an unequivocal denial by Eagles frontman Don Henley, the legend persists that the 1976 hit song "Hotel California" was inspired by the Todos Santos hotel, and the story has spawned its own tiny Todos cottage industry. A wedding planner calls the hotel "such a lovely place" for your destination wedding, with "plenty of room . . . [for] living it up." Across the street, tourists quaff drinks at Tequila's Sunrise. Henley says the song was inspired by 1970s L.A., and that the hotel in the lyric is a metaphor for the drug culture. Hotel owner Debbie Stewart is coy; she points to Todos Santos's "dark desert highway" and the next-door "mission bell," and suggests one of Henley's co-Eagles may have once stayed here even if Henley didn't. But, she admits, deserved or not, the hotel's fame is only half the rent. "We're really happy it brings people to the door -- but those people will take a picture and then go away. We still have to keep them here."