Tips for Booking a Great Hostel (and Avoiding the Duds)
Some travelers swear by waiting until they arrive in a destination to choose a place to stay. They say they get better deals and enjoy the freedom to shop around. Personally, I’m not hardcore enough for that. I often travel during peak season and prefer the security and convenience of booking a hostel in advance, even if that means paying a few extra dollars to afford a place that keeps an advertising budget. Like any traveler who books on the fly, I’ve stayed in good hostels and bad. Over the course of my year-long sabbatical, I learned how to make the most of Hostelworld and book the right place for my stay. When you’re traveling on a budget, choosing a hostel is all about priorities. Read on to learn all about booking a great hostel — these are six tips for how to approach your selection process.
Price
Many a budget traveler falls into the trap of booking based on price. Nobody wants to pay more than they have to for a simple place to rest their head. Better to save that money for fun experiences in your destination, right? But once you’ve booked the cheapest available hostel once or twice, you’ll find that you definitely get what you pay for. The atomic bunker I stayed in when I passed through Zagreb offered rock bottom prices at just 10 euro a night. On arrival, I realized that there would obviously be no phone or WiFi access underground and the hostel didn’t provide sheets or a pillow. More than any amenity, I was mostly unimpressed with the staff’s unhospitable manner. Looking a bit more carefully at the Hostelworld listing and comparing it to other properties would have landed me somewhere much friendlier, where I could get more bang for my buck.
Amenities
In addition to your budget, you should consider what you get for your nightly room price. Personally, the two amenities I never book without are free WiFi and provided linens. This might seem like it should go without saying, but in cheap overseas hostels, nothing goes without saying.
Other amenities that might be important to you are an included breakfast, access to storage lockers, or a provided towel. You may want a hostel with a well-appointed kitchen or a laundry service. Maybe you have a strong preference for whether bathrooms are down the hall or en suite. Some hostels will even offer unique perks like free use of their kayaks.
While it won’t be listed in the amenities section, you should also keep an eye out for how large the dorms are. Small dorms with no more than 8 beds are my personal preference. I especially like to stay in places that give each bed its own reading light and electrical outlet, so I keep an eye out for those keywords in hostel descriptions and reviews.
I also strongly prefer to stay in female-only dorms and filter my searches accordingly.
Take some time to think about your wants and needs for your stay. Know what’s negotiable and what isn’t before you hit the search button.
Location
No matter what else drives your decision, do not ever book a hostel without knowing exactly where it’s located. In Dubrovnik, I got fooled by a clever name. When I arrived in the city – just before sunset, of course – I found out that “Hostel Center Dubrovnik” wasn’t located in the city center at all. It wasn’t even in the city! Instead, I wound up shelling out $15 on a taxi to the suburb Komolac, and taking the bus whenever I wanted to do anything in town.
In spite of this, that hostel wound up being one of my favorites. The crowd was fantastic, there were nice social areas for us to play cards and get to know each other in the evenings, and that lakefront view remains seared in my memory as some of my most peaceful sabbatical moments. There can be perks to staying farther off the beaten path!
Just make sure it’s a conscious choice, not an unpleasant surprise. Decide how far you want to be from your destination’s top attractions, bars and restaurants, and the bus or train station. Know your transportation options and factor them into your decision.
Another important consideration for location is how safe the area is for solo female travelers. Facebook groups and Reddit threads are excellent sources to learn from locals and other solo female travelers. When you have a couple top neighborhoods in mind, you can focus your search on them.
A great way around all of these possible issues on Hostelworld is to click over to the map view as soon as you search, instead of only looking at the list view of all available properties.
Pictures
Pay careful attention to what kinds of photos the hostel puts front and center!
If the first images you see are large groups of young, attractive white people… that’s probably a party hostel. They’re not selling the hostel, but rather the idea of being part of a big social gathering.
If party hostels aren’t your jam, those large group photos are an easy red flag to avoid. Keep browsing for hostels whose images focus on the rooms or perhaps showcase a woman reading by herself or a small group quietly socializing.
Rating
On my own sabbatical, I never booked anything that had less than a 7 out of 10 rating on Hostelworld, but I found even hostels that met that requirement weren’t always great.
The Fabric Hostel in Portici, just outside Naples, had an 8.0 rating, but was on the dirty side with poorly maintained bathrooms and the worst excuse for a kitchen I’d ever seen. It had its pros too, but it helps make my point that what looks like a high overall rating isn’t everything.
Hostelworld ratings are all user generated. After you stay in a property, you’re asked to rate its security, location, staff, cleanliness, atmosphere, facilities, and value for money. Sometimes you have to do some digging to really learn what the property is like.
Don’t book a hostel based on its rating! Only use this filter to narrow your search results. Be prepared to do more legwork.
Reviews
User reviews are much more reliable than ratings to give you a picture of what to expect at your hostel. It’s important to read as many reviews as you can before deciding whether to book.
Look at the content, not the numerical ratings. A negative review might be filled with complaints that seem minor to you. A positive review might focus on an amenity you don’t plan to use.
To return to my example of Fabric Hostel & Club near Naples, its two most recent reviews (at the time of writing this post) are a 6.6 and a 9.1. The couple who gave it a 6 out of 10 did so because they didn’t like having a nightclub next door, even though they admitted the noise didn’t reach the rooms. The group who gave it a 9 out of 10 did so because they loved the music and bar.
When user reviews can paint such opposite pictures of a place, how can you use them effectively?
First, know what you’re looking for. What facilities and amenities do you have to have? What negatives would ruin your trip? Figure out what your non-negotiables are, both positive and negative, and scan the first page or two of reviews for related keywords.
Second, Hostelworld reviews are accompanied by some demographic information about the user who submitted that review. Use that to your advantage! As a solo female traveler, I always look for reviews left by other women traveling alone. I give less weight to reviews from couples, groups, and men, because those experiences are less likely to match my own.
You can also look at the age ranges of reviewers. If you’re in your 40s and nervous about hostels filled with college kids, you can scan the reviews to see how many were left by those in the 18-24 camp and judge how comfortable you’ll feel.
There are so many ways to evaluate a hostel. If you take the time to give serious thought to what you want and read multiple listings with a critical eye, you can weed out the duds for your best hostel experience ever.
Hostel research is a great use for Admin Days on your sabbatical — read more here!
