Hostels

Because you will probably be spending a large amount of your time staying in hostels, I think they are worth a fairly long look. Starting at the beginning: hostels are shared accommodation, usually sex-segregated, consisting of five or ten to occasionally as many as forty beds per room or dormitory. Bathroom facilities are also shared. Usually there are some smaller rooms for families or couples, but these fill up fast. The actual building housing all of these beds can vary from spartan to highly elaborate: some hostels are little more than barracks, whereas others are in castles, beautiful old houses, or rustic farm buildings.

Facilities you can expect in most hostels include luggage storage, lockers, a kitchen for those cooking for themselves, some kind of common room, and usually laundry facilities. Many places serve breakfast, and some, not many, serve dinner. Some hostels, especially those in Scandinavia, shut down from October 15 through April 1. And at least half of those open during the winter close their doors from December 20 through January 10.

The majority of hostels are part of the long-established Hosteling International group (formerly the International Youth Hostels Association), and their affiliated hostels are normally of a high standard - very clean, very well equipped, and in large cities, often very full. However, with the boom in budget travel more and more “private” hostels have opened, particularly in larger cities, and these can be as basic or as elaborate or as clean or as dirty as the owner chooses.

Other than always choosing an Hi-affiliated hostel, there is no way to predict what your hostel will be like with certainty, especially since the other people staying there, especially in your room, will be a large part of your hostel experience. Your guidebook might have some information. In general, though, the older, smaller, and more isolated the hostel is, the better. Small towns are better than big cities, and the attitude of the hostel staff can make a huge difference. Having said that, one of the best nights of my life was spent in a large, full, private hostel in the center of Rome, which had a staff that genuinely hated humanity. The people who were staying there with me made all the difference, as did my willingness to get out and meet them. The hostel was terrible, the people were great.g