How to Learn to Love Staying in Hostels

So here’s a confession. I originally started this blog in my twenties, but I’m in my thirties now.

These days I earn more, I own a pretty nice handbag made of real leather, and sometimes my joints feel stiff in the morning.

Based on all of the above, you might think “Mia, surely now that you’ve got more savings and you can afford the *slightly* finer things in life, you’ll only be staying in hotels when you travel, right!?”

Well, dear reader, I’m here to tell you, you’re wrong.

I plan to continue to stay in hostels for lots of my future trips, for as long as they’ll have me. In fact, for my upcoming trip to Africa and South America, I have already booked some nights at hostels.

I love that hostels are generally social, well-organised, cater to budget travellers, international travellers and solo travellers, often have free activities, are way more likely to have English speaking staff, sometimes feel safer than hotels and often have great cancellation policies.

I love that some of my favourite travelling experiences when staying at hostels were actually in the hostel itself, hanging out with new hostel friends.

I love that, in a hostel, no-one is worried about having perfect hair or make-up, and no-one is trying to charge me $20 an hour for wifi.

I could go on and on about how great hostels can be, however…I didn’t always love hostels. So, I get it. They take some getting used to. A bad experience can definitely turn you off. I actually started out not enjoying hostels at all, but now I love them.

Consider this my first-hand guide to changing yourself from a hostel-hater to a hostel convert.

My first hostel experiences

When I think back to my first hostel experiences, I remember being a very innocent nineteen-year-old and arriving at a small hostel in Madrid. It was the first time I had travelled overseas without my parents. The plan was to stay there for a couple of nights before embarking on a group hotel tour.

My new hostel room-mate was horrified at the size of my suitcase (I was travelling in Europe in winter), when he had such a small backpack (he had just gotten back from Central America). He also told me I shouldn’t have come to Spain if I couldn’t speak Spanish. (I’m not sure how the Icelandic tourism board would feel about that logic).

Real friendly guy.

The hostel staff were okay, but my pajamas went missing from my bunk after just one night, and then mysteriously turned up again when I enquired about it, which was weird…

My next hostel experience was at the end of the same group tour in Spain and I just remember this super dark, super huge, cavernous room of endless, mile-high bunks in Barcelona.

Everyone in the room seemed older and hotter and cooler and more sexually adventurous than me and I had my awkwardly big suitcase I had to lug up the ladder onto the end of my third level bunk to keep it safe as you were meant to put your bags on a platform at the end of your bed and people were coming and going all through the night and partying and I was not partying as I had a flight to catch early the next day and it was all horrendous.

This was not a good hostel experience either.

A couple of years after that, I stayed alone at a hostel in Montmartre for a week in Paris.

I remember being weirded out by a guy in my room who would come in at all hours and huff and puff loudly on what sounded like the floor, and then leave, and then come back and huff and puff on the floor some more. I recall in my jet-lagged, half asleep state, being too scared to turn around and see what was happening from my bed, as I wasn’t confident if he was exercising, had brought someone back to the room or was just, ahem, sorting himself out.

There was also a crew of travellers downstairs that would drink and laugh around the tables in the lounge area and play cards and, it seemed to me, spent no actual time outside in Paris. I totally judged them and didn’t think they were travelling ‘for the right reasons’, whatever I thought that was. My trip was a mix of business and pleasure as I was frantically trying to learn about Paris for my imminent tour-guiding job, so I was out trotting the streets and seeing the sites from dusk til dawn.

For context, nowadays, I’m more likely to be the person at that table drinking a beer and other time-poor travellers are probably judging me.

The night before I had my interview to become a Contiki tour guide, I also had a pretty awful hostel experience in a three bed dorm in Sydney. A young pair of travellers hooked up in the bunk below me all night I was in such close proximity I could hear everything. I just wished they would hurry up and go to sleep, so I could go to sleep, but it felt like they never did. It was made worse by the fact that they were bunked up opposite a really nice older guy who was definitely old enough to be either of their dads, and I’m sure he could hear this all night too. It was all very uncomfortable.

Once in Ireland, I stayed in a hostel where one long term guest choked another person in the kitchen before my eyes in the middle of the day.

Another time in London, my friend and I got locked out of our hostel room after the shower and had to run along a city street in just a towel to the main office to get access keys to unlock the dorm. That experience was actually funny, but I’m sure a lot of people would have found it mortifying, especially had they been travelling solo.

See what I mean when I say I’ve had my fair share of bad hostel experiences!

However, over the years it’s all turned around, and now my good hostel experiences definitely outweigh those anomalies. 🙂

So…how was I converted?

When I went on a whirlwind tour of Europe at twenty-one years old, some of the stops along the way were hostels. They were nice and clean and I always knew the people in my room, which made it way less intimidating to stay there. I was impressed with the facilities and generally felt safe.

When I became a tour guide in Europe with Contiki at twenty-three, our groups sometimes stayed in hostels as well. These were hostels hand-picked for doing things right and were not the cheapest possible option, which is what I think I had always booked for myself before. I also enjoyed staying at these places, even if it was in a working capacity.

After finishing up working for Contiki Europe, my next big trip was to China. I did some research and found out that to avoid major language barriers, it was going to be better to stay in hostels than hotels.

I think it was in China that I fell in LOVE with hostels. The ones we stayed at were generally fantastic. My travel companion and I didn’t have any weird or unpleasant experiences like the ones above. This was, in part, as we were able to split our own private double room between two, which was generally as cheap as just going in a dorm. However, I think it was also that I’d grown more confident, I wasn’t travelling solo but was travelling with a friendly extrovert, and I focussed on having fun at the hostels and using them as a place to relax, meet people and have fun, rather than simply as a place to sleep.

In China, we went to hilarious in-house Halloween parties and dumpling-making nights at hostels where everyone joined in, met fellow travellers from both China and abroad, had great chats with local Chinese staff at hostels (they were young and could speak great English), did hostel-run bicycle tours that were super informative and fun, and even did a hostel-run trip to the Great Wall.

The few times we were forced to stay in hotels due to lack of options, the travel experience was generally far more confusing and stressful. The language barrier in China can unfortunately be really hard to overcome.

Following that trip, I’ve stayed in hostels, or places equivalent to hostels, with cheaper accommodation and dorm sleeping options, in Fiji, USA, Canada, Costa Rica, Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, Australia and Slovenia. Now, I choose hostels over hotels pretty regularly and particularly for solo travel. While the price is sometimes part of the allure of staying at hostels, in some instances, my decision to stay in a hostel has nothing at all to with price, and entirely to do with the other benefits.

It’s not the case that every time I stay in a hostel it’s fantastic, just like it’s not the case that every time you stay in a hotel it’s fantastic, but on average, I enjoy them WAY more than I used to and actually look forward to checking in!

How to love hostels like I do

1. Research, research, research. If you can afford it, don’t just book the cheapest hostel. Use the HostelWorld website and Booking.com to see which hostels rate highly and on what factors (location, safety, atmosphere, etc.) and actually read the reviews from travellers. The hostel you stay at can make or break your experience in a destination. Also, don’t just automatically choose the highest rating one on HostelWorld. It might be that it’s highly rated as it has access to great surf breaks and appeals to surfers, but is way out of the town centre of where you’re visiting and won’t be practical for you at all (unless you surf). Do proper research and consider what it is you value for your hostel experience.

2. Book beforehand. I’d always recommend choosing and booking a hostel beforehand, rather than just turning up in a town and hoping for the best. Often the best hostel in a place will fill up first, so it’s worthwhile to pre-book in advance.

3. Choose hostels with in-house activities, preferably ones that are free. Most of the best hostels I have stayed at have had free or cheap activities for guests, such as walking tours, trips to see local sights or evening cooking classes or movie nights. These not only take the effort out of planning your day, but provide a super great way to meet other travellers. While some extroverts and friendly folks will have no problems making new buddies over the breakfast bar or in their room, if you’re a little shy or the quiet type, getting involved in a hostel activity is a great way to force yourself into social interaction. I don’t consider myself that shy, but I still love in-house activities and they’re one of the main things I look for when choosing a hostel, especially when travelling solo.

4. Ask the staff for advice on what’s good to do, see and eat in the area. Staff at hostels are often really passionate about the place they are living in and want to make sure you have the best time possible. They can help you plan an itinerary for sightseeing, tell you where to get cheap eats, where’s good to shop, where the local pharmacy is, and so on. One of the best resources a hostel has is its staff, so make sure you make full use of their local knowledge!

5. Stay at hostels with friends if you can, before going solo. Hostels can be a little intimidating at times and a great way to get used to them is to stay at them with friends before staying at them alone. You’ll get an idea of general hostel etiquette, how things work and what to expect, but not be all alone in doing so.

6. Bring earplugs, an eye mask, a padlock and a relaxed attitude. People will wake you up snoring (or packing bags, moving about etc) and you might wake people up snoring. You’ll soon learn that earplugs are your best hostel friend. So are padlocks. You’ll sleep way better at night knowing no dodgy traveller or staff member can be rifling through your stuff. I don’t think theft is super common in hostels, but you’ll probably sleep better if you know it is really unlikely to happen to you.

7. If you’re travelling as a solo female, consider a female only dorm room. Female only dorms are a great option for travellers who want to know that they won’t be having to deal with amorous couples in their room at night or creepy overly eager men from the bar trying to come back to their room.

8. Once you’ve stayed at a hostel or two, think about what you liked and didn’t like before you book the next one. For moi, I love a reading light close to my bed, so that’s something I look for in hostels. I also consider some sort of locked storage non-negotiable and I don’t like hostels where top bunks don’t have side bars, as I just know I’d be the kind of person to fall off in the night. Other features, such as privacy curtains in front of beds, are something I’m really ‘meh’ about, so I wouldn’t book a hostel based on whether or not that’s something they featured.

9. Say “Hi” to other travellers. A good majority of the people who stay at hostels like to socialise. Solo travellers in particular are usually looking for new friends and connections. If you say “Hi” to people, most of them will be open to having a chat, and you may strike up a new travel buddy to go exploring with you for the day, or just chat to over a drink.

10. Hang out in communal areas. Go to the provided breakfast if there is one and use the hostel kitchen at night rather than going out to eat alone. I am a little bit notorious for under-utilising hostel kitchens and just going out to eat, but I’ve had more than one experience travelling solo where groups of travellers have seen me eating alone or prepping a meal in a hostel dining area and invited me to share their food or offered me their leftovers and a seat at their table. We’ve then hung out for the rest of the night.

11. Go to the hostel bar. If the hostel has a bar (which is great), go to that bar! I know some travellers think hostel bars are lame and they want to ‘party with locals’, but then they go out and quickly realise that the locals don’t necessarily want to party with them, and often don’t speak the same language. Besides that, some good hostel bars do attract locals, and at the same time, won’t make you feel out of place as a tourist. If you really do want to go out and party (in some destinations this makes total sense) but there’s a hostel bar on-site, I would suggest starting your night at the hostel bar, gathering a crew of travellers together, and then exploring the night life of your destination together.

12. Stay at the hostel long enough to feel comfortable there. I’ve had flying visits through hostels where I stayed for only a night and I never got to know the wifi password, let alone the names of any of the staff. The hostels I’ve had the best times at I usually stayed at for at least 3 or more nights. Sometimes I ended up staying quite a bit longer, as I didn’t see any reason to move on from a good thing! I’ve felt so gloriously at home in some of the hostels I’ve stayed at for a week or more and it’ a great feeling. It also often makes you friendlier to other guests, which is a win-win for everyone!

So, there’s my advice for loving on hostels. If you’re still not convinced that hostels can be a great alternative to a hotel or bnb, that’s totally fine, they might not be for you. However, if you’re on the fence, and particularly if you’re travelling solo, I’d highly recommend you give them a go!