The Motel Inn, located in San Luis Obispo, California, United States, was the first "motel" in the world, and the origin of that word, from "Mo-Tel", which is a play on the word "hotel" by combining the words "motor hotel". It opened on December 12, 1925, and closed in 1991. The Apple Farm Inn, located next door, is expanding and incorporating parts of the original hotel that are still standing into additional rooms.

San Luis Obispo is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, in the U.S. state of California. Located on the Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly halfway between the San Francisco Bay Area in the north and Greater Los Angeles in the south. The population was 47,063 at the 2020 census.