AFTER LIVING IN TWO DIFFERENT FLATS IN MELBOURNE, I wasn’t really ready to jump back into the hostel life.
And sure enough I wasn’t.
I like quiet.
And I like other people to be quiet.
I don’t like it when people have conversations while I’m sleeping or turn on the lights or pack their bags or try to find something at 3 a.m. or come in stupid drunk at 4 a.m.
I don’t like it when people think it’s OK to bring strangers into the room I’m sleeping in, or completely ignore me when I first arrive and can’t bother to greet me with a simple hello.
I don’t like it when I encounter rude staff at whatever hostel I’m staying in.
I don’t like it when I stay in hostels that don’t have a 24-hour reception.
I don’t like dirty rooms, beds, or bathrooms.
I don’t it like when there is no elevator within the hostel and you have to drag your luggage up 3 flights of stairs.
I don’t like it when I run into people who are traveling in groups because there’s a good chance that the 5 people who are traveling in a group will be loud in the 6-dorm bed room you’re sharing with them.
I. Just. Don’t. Like. It.
I don’t like sleeping in a room with strangers (although I have made amazing friends this way). I certainly didn’t like my hostel job in Brisbane.
Although my time in Tasmania was wonderful, the places I stayed in during the nights were not. I stayed in a total of 3 different hostels where I experienced bed bugs, rude staff, and strange people.
If Only ALL Of My Beds Can Be This Big
I stayed in a two-bed dorm my last night in Tassie, and I was looking forward to the semi-privacy. However, it was just awkward. I shared the room with one other person – an Asian boy, who stood by the bathroom door in the middle of the night and looked at his phone and kept the bathroom light on for the rest of the night (I don’t know, maybe he was afraid of the dark?). Then when I woke up in the morning, he was headed to the bathroom and strangely stared at me with a smile, and it just increased the awkwardness. I absolutely loved Tasmania but I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Traveling is exhausting to begin with if you’re constantly on the move, and, in my case, I did a three-day tour in Tassie and I needed a good nights sleep afterwards. And that’s not likely to happen in hostels. Of course it depends on the hostel and the number of people in your room. When I landed in Adelaide after my Tassie adventure, I made sure I was in one of the nicer hostels and in a female four-dorm share. My theory is: the less people, the less noise (unless they are traveling in a group – than expect noise).
This also means it’s more money and hostels in Australia are not generally cheap. However, for the sake of my sanity, sometimes I need to do what I need to do. I’ve even considered checking into a private room for a night or two but that is really out of my budget. For the price of a private room in hostels in Australia, I can probably get a night in a hotel.
P.S. Yes, before you say anything, I know I have other options. I haven’t tried Airbnb yet, but I plan to look into it. I also haven’t tried Couchsurfing yet, and, right now, I’m being very selective at who and where I send out requests to (for security reasons?).
Do you like staying in hostels? Do you hate it? Why or why not?
Oh I know what you mean about hostels. As I get older, the age of people staying in hostels stays the same, and it just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. My most recent hostel experience in Singapore was lovely, and I was lucky to have decent roommates. I’ve had terrible experiences in Belgrade, Brasov and Seoul. Minor annoyances in San Andres, Colombia. Other than that no big deals, but I prefer a higher level of comfort now, or at the very least a private room in a hostel, which can often be the price of a hotel room in some destinations.
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Yes, I think this is a major sign of getting old, Tom. But I fear that I would have been the same at an younger age or any age.
! so get what you’re saying Priya! When I was at uni, the party hostel was the bomb and when I did my GAP Year travelling around Asia OMG, meeting complete strangers was craaazy! I once slept in a $2.00 hostel in Prague. (It was that long ago), and it was a mixed dorm. When I got back after a night out, there was someone in my bed and he or she wasn’t alone. I didn’t know what to do, so I picked a random bed, and “slept” there (Yuk!). Did I say “sleep?” there were a couple of people shouting & screaming in the corridor, and someone vomitted right outside our room door.
I moved into a private room for all of $8.00 the next day!
Victoria@ The British Berliner recently posted…You’re looking hot and wearing a fur coat Katie Holmes. Of course you are: It’s Berlin Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2015!