Visiting Charleston - where to stay (city hall, hotels, bus)

[nivi0101]

Hi there,
I was wondering if I could get some advice from Charleston locals. I have work in Charleston downtown for a week and am looking for the cheapest (and safe, of course) way to stay and travel while there. I do not mind a 20 mins or so bus ride to downtown. I will be working all day and so parking downtown will be very expensive. The downtown hotels, too, seem to be very expensive. Is there a "park and ride" into the city option? If I decide to stay in a suburb, which areas should I try to concentrate on as far as hotels go?
Would appreciate any input/ advice.
Thanks

[flyonpa]

http://www.ridecarta.com/shared/docs/589/cart%20system%20map_effec_1008.pdf (broken link)

That is a map of the bus routes, I would look for where you will be working and find a bus route that goes by/close to it back track it out of downtown and look for H/Motel that on the route and just keep your car parked at the hotel.

[nivi0101]

Thanks so much. I will be working near City Hall - so directly on Routes 20 and 30. Finding hotels on the route will be a little more tedious but will keep working on it. The other option is taking a bus into downtown and getting the trolley - which may be more time consuming but I am on a tight budget here.
Any ideas as to which areas I can concentrate on?

[flyonpa]

If you load google Earth, and turn on the 'hotels' overlay you can drag the map along and the hotel on the map will showup along the route.

[nivi0101]

Wow - did not know that. Thanks a ton!