Just before I start, I hope everyone had a very happy holidays and wish everyone all the best of luck in the New Year.
Now, on to Hostels.
I love Hostels, and today I’ll be going into some of the ups and downs you could experience while staying in hostels.
Let’s start with some perks.
- Hostels are really great places to meet people from all over the world.
Travelling is expensive, and hostels are used by people from all over the world to go and stay at with other like minded individuals. It’s a really fantastic experience and it’s awesome getting to know different people and hearing their stories. - They always have stuff going on, so it’s easy to see and experience the area you’re staying.
Whether it’s free walking tours or organised paid tours of local attractions, hostels always have stuff going on that can help you get more immersed in where you’re staying. Depending on the hostel, they have family dinners, pub crawls, drinking games, et cetera to make it a more social and enjoyable stay. - It’s inexpensive.
Hostels are really inexpensive compared to hotels and Air BNB’s. For example, in Munich, the average cost of a hotel room per night is approximately $100-$120 CAD. A hostel in Germany averages on approximately $20-$40 CAD. - Hostels are typically marketed to people aged 18-30.
Not only will you be surrounded by people from all over the world, you’ll be surrounded by people your age (or close to it). Some of the coolest people I’ve ever met and connected with most were the ones I met in hostels. - You can pick what kind of dorm you’d like to stay in.
Hostels have different options for the dorms you can stay in. They vary in prices, obviously, but depending on what you want, you can chose different rooms. For example, Hostels usually have private rooms, gender coded dorms, and mixed dorms. Private dorms are the most expensive and, depending on how many people are in the gender and mixed dorms, their prices change. They’re always the least expensive, although the mixed dorms are usually less expensive than the gender coded dorms.
And some drawbacks,
- In dorms with other, you won’t always have privacy.
Of course, there’re separate showers and bathrooms and stuff but, obviously when you have other people staying in your room, you won’t always have time when you’re just by yourself in your dorm. It seems kind of self explanatory, but I figure it’s best to reiterate because it does still come to a surprise to some people. - You could get some really wack room mates.
While I was travelling, I had some really fantastic room mates. There are a lot of really awesome and cool people to meet while you travel, and I met a lot while I stayed in hostels. But you can also meet some really weird people, too. Just remember that if you get a room mate who’s sketching you out or making you uncomfortable, that you can request a room change. Just go to the front desk, explain, and they’ll do their best to help you out. - Some hostels are more social and lively than others.
This is a perk and a drawback, but there isn’t a standard expectation as such for hostels. There are many different different types of hostels that you can choose from. You just have to do your research before picking a hostel so you don’t end up somewhere you don’t want to be. I’ll go more into how to pick the hostel that’s best for you in another later post.
Hostels are a lot of fun, and personally I find it hard to come up with too many downsides to staying in them. No matter which hostel I stayed at, I met a lot of really cool people and I can’t wait to go out an travel more. They’re entertaining, social, and get you involved with where you’re staying more than any hotel ever would.
I hope you found this useful and interesting, and I wish you all happy travels.
Peace : )
Anna's Travelling Antics 