Last time we talked about making a priority list when choosing a hostel. Now, we’ll go into things to consider when choosing one. I hope that this list, and my experiences, will help you with finding the perfect hostel for you in the future.

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  • I knew I’d want to take a shower when I arrived at my hostel because of my lengthy travel getting there. So, I realized how important it was to consider what I needed to be comfortable in the hostel showers. For me, I didn’t care if the shower was hot or cold, or whether it had shampoo for guests, but what was big for me was whether the stalls themselves were individual. Luckily, this wasn’t an issue in Bath, but I struggled with the fact that I brought the wrong towel. I had one of those microfiber towels which saves room, but I wished that I’d just brought a regular towel because of how long I had to wait in the stall for my body to dry off. 

• What if I am a light sleeper?: 
  • If you’re a light sleeper, make sure you bring ear plugs and eye masks. This wasn’t an immense problem for me, but there were people inside of the room who would wake up in the middle of the night and turn on their flashlight as they sorted through their things. This woke up the person who slept on the bunk bed beside me, but I was completely fine. Mostly, people are very considerate throughout normal sleeping hours and won’t be screaming or playing loud music inside of the room when they know that people are sleeping. (The sleep mask also works wonders when you’re on the bus and the lights are on but you’re exhausted from sightseeing all day). 

• Padlocks will keep you safe: 
  • Make sure you bring a padlock. A lot of hostels will have lockers for you to put your precious belongings in. This is important for people who are afraid of their passports being stolen. But, not every hostel will supply the lock for the locker, so if you plan on using one, make sure that you bring a lock. 

• Sticky notes are an invention from God: 
  • Hostels oftentimes have kitchens that you can put food in while you stay. And like everything else on this list, they rarely provide the most important part of storing your food: sticky notes. Which, right? Sticky notes are important? Sticky notes are important because they help people label their food so others won’t eat it. It’s also a good way to label expiry dates, ensuring that anything left behind gets thrown away. 

• Pillowcases in hostels can be a nightmare: 
  • If you have sensitive skin like me, the pillowcases for beds will be the worst thing ever. But if you’re unlike me, you’ll actually care about taking care of your skin. It might be useful to bring a small pillowcase that you can pull over the pillow. So that your skin doesn’t cry itself to sleep as you slam into bed exhausted at the end of the night. 

• Should you wear more layers at a hostel?: 
  • You need the basics for your outfits, when it comes to hostels you’ll be saving money on your travels but you don’t want to make up that difference by having to pay overcharge fees for oversized luggage (ALWAYS, and I mean it, look at the luggage dimensions for whatever form of transportation you take because they will charge you if it’s too big). Also, because of taking cheaper transportation, it’s not always super clean, so what’s the use of wearing expensive clothes when it’ll be in a bag placed on a dirty bus floor? I always brought three shirts, two pairs of pants, and the basic toiletries. (Of course you can have more than that, but I’ll add the bare necessity list at the bottom of this article). When you bring so little clothing, you’ll probably need to bring your stuff to a laundromat for a longer stay. Yet, it’s totally worth it when you pay for dirt cheap tickets for the bus or train or airport. 

• Do I need a water bottle?: 
  • You need a water bottle. You don’t want to pay money every single time you want water. They don’t have free refills anywhere. 

• Policy on Shower Shoes: 
  • Bring shower shoes. That’s it. 

• Bare Necessities: 
  • 3 shirts 
  • 2-3 pants 
  • Underwear
  • Passport 
  • What toiletries you need and are under 100 mL 
  • Small hand towel (for after the shower) 
  • Flip-flops for the shower 
  • Water bottle 
  • Any medicine / doctor’s notes 
  • Small umbrella (like actually small OR raincoat OR wear a coat that doubles as raincoat (would be better) 
  • Plastic bag
  • Padlock
  • Sticky notes

Note: the less you bring the more you can buy -> wouldn’t suggest banking on buying clothes as they’re expensive, but you’ll have more room for trinkets, etc.

– Evan Carter (Norwich, England) English Major

There are a lot of horror stories with hostels. There’s even a movie franchise dedicated to depicting them as horrendous places, just waiting for naïve travelers. However, they’re also one of the best ways to travel cheaply abroad. I’m sure it’s not just me that has heard of how expensive it can be to study abroad AND travel at the same time. This article will delve into the bare essentials for hostel stays and their significance. But, it will be most useful for those who have already researched and want more niche suggestions.

Topics Reviewed in this article: 

• How to Choose a Hostel? 
• Showers in Hostels
• What if You are a Light Sleeper?
• Padlocks Will Keep You Safe 
• Why Sticky Notes Matter
• Should You Wear More Layers at a Hostels? 
• Do I need a water bottle?
• Policy on Shower Shoes

At the bottom of this article will be a bare necessities list of what to bring to a hostel. 

How to Choose a Hostel?: 

Unless there’s an enormous concern with how much it’ll cost you–always make sure that your hostel is within walking distance of a bus stop or train station that is relevant towards your projected travels for the following days. Okay, so I know this might sound like I am trying to get you to go to whatever hostel is closest to the train station, but I’m not. Especially if said hostel has bad reviews. 

My point is: why stay at a hostel that’s ten miles away from your bus stop if it’s only going to save you five dollars? You don’t want to travel for two hours by bus, on a route that you don’t know, especially if the money you save by going there won’t even cover your bus ticket. 

So, if it’s hard to choose which hostel, make a pros and cons list. Well, no one likes making those. So maybe just do what I did and open every tab and have a list of priorities, which automatically disqualify a hostel for you. 

• How do you make that priority list? 

I wish I could tell you everything that you should care about. But not everyone cares about the same things. It’s annoying.

So, let’s say that you find six different hostels that each have different prices but all of them fall into a good $10-$30 range. How do you pick the best one? This happened to me more often than I would’ve liked. I was on a trip to Norway and this was the situation for Oslo and I wanted to ask ChatGPT to just tell me what to do. Don’t do that. Just consider these things: 

• What is next on your list? Does one of your plans have you waking up at 6am in order to get to a train at a specific station? Look at how far away each of your hostel options are and cross off any that have too many transfers between buses, trams, and trains (these transfers can be delayed and you don’t want to walk an hour because of a train system shutting down when you only have thirty minutes to get there)
• What are the reviews? Do you care about what people are complaining about? Honestly, I didn’t really mind when people complained about cleanliness because I knew that my other priorities would probably knock any super unclean hostels off the list. However, you might care about whether there’s always toilet paper and if they clean the couches regularly.
• What are people saying about management? If people complain about long response times, then that means if you have a situation where you’re stuck in a train and can’t get to the hostel before your allotted time, it’ll be difficult to get into contact with someone at the front desk to let them know of your late arrival. 
• Are people able to get refunds if they had an awful time? Was the hostel open and honest about their policy before other people stayed there? 
• Did the hostel quickly remove guests who were being disruptive? 

What kinds of complaints make you uncomfortable? (I was uncomfortable if a complaint had to do with inappropriate advances from staff towards women travelers).

Read part 2 for things to consider when choosing a hostel!

– Evan Carter (Norwich, England) English Major

Hello everyone! My name is Evan Carter and I’m studying English with a minor in Spanish here at 91¸£Àû. I studied English literature and creative writing at the University of East Anglia (UEA) through 91¸£Àû’s Direct Exchange program. For the 23’-24’ academic year in England, I was encouraged to flourish as a writer while experiencing landscapes and cultures that I’d only since been able to access through movies.

From the moment I became a student at 91¸£Àû, I knew I wanted to complete an education abroad. There were many decisions that I made three years prior to my program that allowed me academic freedom while abroad. Yet, I was unprepared to choose a program for myself when I finally arrived at 91¸£Àû for my sophomore year. Originally, I was fine with anything. I had never been abroad before, I hadn’t even left the country, so I felt that I didn’t have the faculties to make the decision for myself. However, I’m glad that I chose to attend UEA. It had everything that I wanted from a program: beautiful scenery, an amazing supportive environment, access to traveling within England and throughout Europe, and the ability to make meaningful day trips from where I was studying.

In the end, I want to share stories about what it means to travel with groups of people when your budget might look different from theirs, what it means to make budget-conscious decisions when traveling, and what it means to study abroad and access their resources (with the understanding that information in any capacity is information that can be applied to life back in the states). I’m glad that I took advantage of some of the resources that were available to me, but there’s a lot of kindness that I had to extend to myself that I wasn’t prepared for. The idea of traveling abroad is scary, and actually being there for a year alone is even scarier, but there is value in pushing yourself to learn from trial and error. And, when you’re living alone for the first time there’s a lot of kindness to be had over mistakes. I want to be real with my stories, and I want to provide some stories that will hopefully comfort others in the event that they might experience something similar to what I did.

The experience of traveling abroad is a rollercoaster. One that shows you everything that the world has to offer. One that challenges you. One that teaches you about the rules and laws of a different culture. But, it’s one that is exceptionally important to have, both in being fundamentally invaluable and building your confidence, in deciding what your future will look like.

– Evan Carter (Norwich, England) English Major