When you have travelled the world as much as me, there is one thing that you know is always going to be a given – that hotels are a must.

Now, if you must stay in a hotel, then you usually either want your normal comforts or you look for something different to what you already have at home. Something better, sometimes something just different.

Canberra, ACT. The city is rarely, if ever, associated with tourism. Politics, public servants and pornography are usually what springs to mind when its name is mentioned.

But not for hundreds of guests last weekend, as Australian Capital Tourism hosted a second round of recruits who were shown the much-maligned city's hidden secrets in an attempt to overthrow its image problem. More than 30,000 everyday Australians applied for a free getaway to the nation's capital, with only 500 selected for the massive famil. The catch? We were all selected on the strength of our social media presences and had to share our experiences with friends and followers online.