Hello and greetings.
Just to warn you, it’s a bit of a long one today.
This is part three of the four part post series of Hostels and Youth travel. Today, I’ll be going into what kinds of hostels there are, and then the final post will be dedicated on how to choose a hostel for your stay.
Now, just to be clear, there are A LOT of different categories and sub categories related to hostels. For example :
High End Hostels
Middle End Hostels
Low End Hostels
Super Social Hostels
Not-So-Social Hostels
Big Branch Hostels
Independent Hostels
Night Life Hostels
And the list goes on and on and on. I could go on for several posts about how hostels are classified so, for simplicity’s sake, I’m going to talk about the three main types of hostels I stayed in, and share my experience staying in these hostels.
Hostel Chains
Family Friendly Hostels
Party Hostels
Hopefully with a more vague category naming, it’ll be easier to go into detail about the kind of hostels I would stay in, and what I would recommend to youth travellers.
So I’ll start with Hostel Chains.
The first hostel I stayed at was the Wombats Hostel in Munich, Germany. It’s part of a chain of hostels and they have several across Europe. For a first destination it was fantastic. I had a blast, and I really enjoyed my time there. Hostel Chains, have a certain consistency to them that single standing ones don’t have. It’s a good place to find your footing in the new environment and get a sense for if you’d like to find more lively hostels, calmer hostels, or keep to that kind of easy familiarity. With Wombats in particular, I found it a really great place to start my travels and that it was really easy to get used to Munich.
(Just a side note, the Wombats Hostel in Munich has a fantastic bar. The dark wheat beer is awesome in November.)
Hostel Chains are a really good place to start. I find them almost comparable to hotels, just that hostels are much more social and fun to stay at.
As much as I enjoyed some of the chain hostels I stayed in, I found that there was a thin line that made them either lots of fun for the youth traveller or a bit of a bore. That thin line is what I like to describe the Family Friendly Line.
Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m hating on Family Friendly Hostels. I’m all for family holidays and I fully support staying in hostels.
But as a youth traveller looking for a social place to meet like-minded individuals and really experience the city, I did not get that experience staying in family friendly hostels. My most notable experience with Family Friendly Hostels was in Vienna, when I stayed at the Meininger Hostel. Also a chain hostel, it was a really nice place, but it felt more like a hotel than a hostel. Lots of people, but little to no interaction between them.
That being said, I did meet some cool people there, but the environment there wasn’t much to bring people to interact with each other because the place was crawling with children.
If you’re looking for a place to really get to meet people and see the city you’re in, I would not recommend trying to find it at a Family Friendly Hostel.
I think Family Friendly Hostels are a great place to stay if you’ve got children or young teenagers with you, but as a young traveller trying to meet and connect with others, I didn’t find it was the right place for me.
That being said, moving on to my final point: Party Hostels
I’d be lying if I said these weren’t my favourite hostels. I’ll have to do another post simply on Party Hostels just because I had a really great time in each one I visited. I’m just going to say that I was… sceptical… about staying in party hostel because I hate partying, crowds, loud music–the works.
But I gotta say that staying at the Madhouse Hostel in Prague gave me a brand new perspective. Party Hostels are very social. The staff are super involved and always have events, games, and outings planned. Party Hostels offer a really great chance to get to know your fellow travellers and explore the city you’re staying at. It was a lot of fun to go drinking, clubbing, on pub crawls, and explore the city nightlife, and then watch the sun rise as you make your way back to the hostel
I found that Party Hostels were the best place to meet new people and really get a feel for where I was staying. Also, I met more people closer to my age at the Party Hostels than at any other hostels I stayed at.
All in all, I think each type of hostel have their own benefits. In my next post, I’ll be going into my personal process on how I choose hostels to stay in, and give you some tips on where to look and what to look for when choosing a hostel.
Until then, have a lovely day.
Peace ;P
Anna's Travelling Antics 