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Finding a hostel can be difficult. Especially if you are planning to stay at a hostel for the first time. A lot of people have the worries of sleeping in a room with a lot of others and keeping their stuff safe. Others get caught up in all the options and types of hostel and get overwhelmed. Don’t worry, that’s normal!
Hopefully, my tips for finding a hostel will help you for the first few times you book. After you get some hostel notches under your belt, you’ll know exactly what you’re looking for in a hostel. With experience comes knowledge!
7. Read Travel Blogs
Travel blogs are a pretty good place to start. Most, if not all, bloggers will have great recommendations of where to stay and where to steer clear of.
Travel bloggers normally won’t recommend a place that they haven’t personally stayed and liked. If they did it would cheapen the brand they created. In turn, that would cause people to stop trusting them and stop returning to read their posts. Therefore, Travel blogs tend to be a good starting and stopping place for many a person when finding a hostel.
However, if you’re like me, and you want to “go off the beaten path” or maybe just want to avoid the overly crowded highly recommended places you may ask, “Where do I even start?”
The answer to that starts right here.
6. Make Price Checks and Comparisons
Hostels are cheap in general. I mean, that’s most likely why you’re looking for one in the first place. Yet even within the world of low-budget hostels, there is a price range.
You have hostels that have significantly lower prices and hostels that are quite a bit higher within the budget-friendly ranges. The former tend to be Cheap or “Fake Cheap” hostels, and the latter are more your Luxury or Boutique type hostel.
I have a whole guide to the different types of hostels that you should check out to help find a good fit for you.
A good way to price check hostels is to compare them to different hostels in the area and to see what they charge on different platforms. I usually use one to three different platforms before booking if I am unsure.
I’ve found the best options are usually Hostelworld and Booking.com when comparing different prices. Agoda and sometimes Airbnb can be good to look at as well.
You never know where you may find a deal!
5. Read the Reviews
If you are doing price checks, then chances are you are looking at the reviews too. Most hostels with an overwhelming number of 1-star and 2-star reviews aren’t going to be very good. Hostels with overwhelmingly positive ones will generally reflect their ratings.
The odd case when someone has paid to have an overwhelmingly large amount of fake accounts gives positive reviews. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. So when finding a hostel it is best to look at a variety
Not every person is going to have the same experience, good or bad, at a hostel. A lot of hostels tend to have a very diverse array of different-level reviews.
When I check reviews, I like to start with the worst. Let me read the 1-star ratings and see what people complain about. If it was a recent (within the last month) bedbug issue, I will skip to the next one.
If nothing is a major red flag, I’ll read a couple of 5-star reviews to offset the negativity of the 1-stars. Again, taking how recent they are into account.
After that, if I’m not yet sold, I will read a couple from each starting at 2-star and working my way up to 4- star
If this is your first time, it might be best to do that process in reverse. That way you read the best before reading the worst.
4. View Recent Pictures
Maybe you are still not sold on a place. That is totally okay! I would even argue that you shouldn’t be.
The next step is to look at the pictures of the place. Get a feel for the environment. See if it is a place you can vibe with. You can tell a lot from pictures.
You should also see how recent the pictures are. The best way to do this is to look them up on Instagram.
I say this because there was a hotel I worked at in Germany where the pictures on the website were gorgeous. Yet they were over a decade old and the place did not match up at all. Instead of these gorgeous, picturesque rooms, it was grungy, dirty and gross. It hadn’t been updated since those pictures were taking over a decade before!
3. Map Out Your Route
Seeing as you have gotten this far, I think it’s a safe bet that you’ve done a little research. You probably have done a bit of research and know some of the things you want to see.
If you haven’t, no harm done. Take a few minutes now and go look up what’s in the area and pick a couple of places. Things that are interesting or, better yet, must-sees.
From there, see how far from your hostel those locations are. Chances are, you probably want to be close to the areas you want to see. This will also help you stay away from the Cheap and “Fake Cheap” hostels, as they tend to be far away from worthwhile areas.
Remember, the further you are away from somewhere, the less likely you will be to go and see it.
2. Red Flags
For each person, the red flags that might pop up are different. The more you sort through hostels, the more you will realize what red flags are for you.
The biggest red flag for me is any recent mention of bed bugs. I mean within the last 6 months recent. Another is not having any pictures newer than a couple of years old. That one isn’t always a deal-breaker, but it does make me wonder why there isn’t anything more recent.
Other signs could be a lot of poor or mediocre reviews or comments on the attitude of the staff. You’re going out to enjoy yourself, so chances are you want to surround yourself with awesome people.
Take your time, find out what sets off an alarm in your head, and trust that. Go wherever you are comfortable.
1. Find Your Comfort Level and Budget
The thing I love most about hostels is their versatility. There are so many types of hostel and the prices vary greatly. So when finding a hostel, do your best to stay in your comfort level.
If that means just staying in hostels with the best reviews, that’s ok. Maybe you are willing to dish out a bit more money to constantly stay in a boutique or luxury hotel. 100% ok!
When travelling, you should be comfortable. Enjoy yourself. Find your comfort level and stick to it. For a while at least. I challenge you to push out of that comfort level little by little so as time goes on it grows and changes with you.
Travel is an amazing experience that will change you as a person. That comfort level will change with it as well. You never know what experiences you might have.
When it comes to budget I do recommend that you stick to a pretty reasonable one. You can find places for 9 or 10 dollars a night, but the services there will normally reflect the price. I would advise budgeting around 15-25 dollars per night for the best experiences.
In Conclusion:
Whether it’s your first time searching for a hostel to stay in or your 500th there is always some advantage to refresh your methods of searching. This is why I bring you these tips for finding a hostel.
This is the second part of an overarching in-depth guide to hostels that will eventually include my recommendations for specific hostels. In the first part, I talk about the different types of hostel so you can find one that fits the type of travel best for you.
I wish you the best of luck in finding a hostel that suits you. Here are my tips for finding that hostel.
6. Make Price Checks and Comparisons
1. Find Your Comfort Level And Budget
Think we missed a tip? Let us know in the comments below!
