“Four hundred dollars for a room at the Courtyard? Are you kidding me?! For that price we should be at the Waldorf-Astoria!”

This was one side of an airport lounge cell phone conversation I overheard while on a recent trip and I had to ask after she hung up. “New York City?”

“Yes,” she said with a resigned sigh. “I travel a lot. Here, Europe, Asia—but prices in that city never seem to make any sense.”

If you take a look at lodging prices across the U.S., they often seem to defy logic. In many cases, however, it comes down to density and demand. New York City has high real estate prices, high taxes, and higher labor costs than most cities. So it’s very hard to find a bargain on a hotel room. San Francisco can be even worse. Get into the mid-level cities with lower demand, however, and prices can seem too low to believe—for a chain hotel room that’s nearly identical.

Here’s a look at nightly rates for a random weekend in mid-May, 2012, all for hotels located in the city center. This is after most college graduations and before the summer break, so we’ll presume these prices are relatively normal. These rates are all before taxes and annoying add-on fees like a charge for Wi-fi.

Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf - San Francisco

Hyatt (Grand or Regency)

Palmer House Hilton in Chicago

San Francisco – $464
Los Angeles – $390
New York – $379
Washington, D.C. – $299
Chicago – $279
New Orleans – $199
Milwaukee – $179
Tampa – $143

Hilton

San Francisco – $405
NYC – $354
New Orleans – $229
Milwaukee – $159
San Antonio – $151
Omaha – $148

Hampton Inn

NYC – $339
Chicago – $329
New Orleans – $209
Miami – $199
Milwaukee – $139
Tampa – $127
San Antonio – $118
Omaha – $84

Hampton Inn Miami

Courtyard by Marriott

New York – $409
Washington, D.C. – $289
Los Angeles – $189
Milwaukee – $179
New Orleans – $159
St. Louis – $159
Omaha – $119
Tampa – $109

This divide extends from the bottom all the way to the top. The Ritz-Carlton is $599 a night in mid-May in Washington, D.C., but only $299 in St. Louis.

Just going out a bit from the center can make a huge difference of course. While many hotels in central Washington, D.C. are $300 or more, Courtyard Crystal City was just $89 and the Hilton at Tyson’s Corner was a screaming bargain at $74. That difference will pay for a lot of Metro passes!

Tim Leffel is the author of four travel books including The World’s Cheapest Destinations and Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune: The contrarian traveler’s guide to getting more for less. He appears frequently in the media as a value travel expert and blogs on the cheapest places to travel in the world.