NS
Natasha Sokol
Sep 29, 2026
BEST HOTEL OF OUR ENTIRE 9-DAY TRIP. Hands down. ♥️
This stay wasn’t even planned! On September 23, after finishing the Queen Mary Graveyard Shift Tour and Pirates Dinner Adventure during the final stretch of our Southern California vacation, my partner and I realized we simply weren’t ready for vacation to end. 😂 We still had to drive home to Northern California, so we spontaneously decided to add one more night somewhere in between.
THANK GOODNESS we did, because we found Holiday Inn Selma-Swancourt.
Of the three IHG hotels we stayed at during this trip, this one absolutely kicked butt. Not even close.
We’d only stayed at Holiday Inn Express properties before and were shocked that this full Holiday Inn was actually CHEAPER than the others while being significantly nicer and more comfortable.
The excellent service started before we even arrived. We called because we were coming from Long Beach with roughly a four-hour drive ahead of us, and someone wonderful explained that we could arrange an early check-in for a small fee. Everyone we encountered afterward—from the phone assistance to in-person check-in and checkout—was incredibly friendly and helpful.
The hotel itself is BEAUTIFUL. The exterior has so much character, and whoever designed the lobby and rooms actually understands color, space and comfort. Nothing felt like generic hotel furniture thrown into a box.
We stayed in Room 323 and LOVED everything about it. Exceptionally clean, wonderfully cold AC, beautiful calming colors, and even the carpet felt cushioned under our feet. The king bed was AMAZING—easily the best and most comfortable bed of our entire vacation. After some uncomfortable hotel beds earlier in the trip, this one felt heavenly. 😂 Having a bathtub was another wonderful little bonus.
I have some accessibility/mobility issues and really appreciated that getting from the parking lot to the lobby and then to our room didn’t feel like an expedition. Everything felt manageable and easy to navigate.
They even have ROOM SERVICE! We didn’t order anything, but having that option was such a cool surprise.
The ONLY thing we could even remotely complain about was the spa/hot tub being down.
That’s literally it. 😂
Things temporarily break, and when everything else is this good, I’m certainly not going to pretend that ruined our stay.
Then this hotel unexpectedly gave us one final vacation adventure.
Someone recommended that before heading north we explore nearby Kingsburg and stop at Katie’s Kitchen for Swedish pancakes. So the next morning, we DID!
We had the Swedish pancakes at Katie’s Kitchen, explored Draper Street, checked out the old jail and the wonderfully distinctive Swedish-themed downtown, saw the water tower, and bought a really cool magnet featuring it to remember our unexpected adventure.
We had absolutely no idea when we spontaneously booked a hotel in Selma that we’d discover this adorable Swedish-influenced town nearby and add an entirely unplanned experience to the end of our vacation.
Now we actually WANT to come back. We live in Northern California, and I could genuinely see us driving down specifically for a little Selma/Kingsburg getaway and staying here again.
That’s probably the biggest compliment I can give a hotel that was originally supposed to be nothing more than a last-minute place to sleep on our drive home.
We stopped because we didn’t want our vacation to end.
Instead of simply giving us one more night, this hotel somehow gave us one more adventure. ♥️
Room 323 was wonderful. Beautiful property, phenomenal bed, exceptionally clean and comfortable room, great AC, excellent service, surprisingly good price, easy accessibility, and a location that introduced us to somewhere we never would have explored otherwise.
Of the three IHG hotels we stayed at during this vacation:
SELMA WON. 😂♥️
Not even a competition.
10/10. We would absolutely stay here again.