I don't crate my dog, even when I leave her in a hotel room. I travel with her a lot. Would your dog be okay without the crate? You can get a seatbelt harness for your car if you want.
If you can do this you could take your car and stay in the hotel when needed - I take my dog for a long walk before I go out and leave her with a couple of treats and her bed.
We crate ours at night and during the day. She does great most of the time when we're around to supervise, but there are certain things she still does that I don't trust her out when we're not at home (like sneakily pick the edge of the carpet, super naughty).
The biggest reason we'd be taking the crate is because we're staying in other people's houses, and I don't want the risk of her getting into something dangerous or destructive when I'm not watching. Plus it limits the dog hair shedding radius. She is crate-trained and stays pretty quiet when she's in there.
We do have a seatbelt for the dog, the problem is the crate is so large in order to fit it in the trunk of my sedan the back seat needs to be folded down.