Hostel Virgin?

You're a virgin?!  You mean you have never experienced one before?!  A bit scared about it?  Well...let me help you; I've done it loads of times before!  With my advice, I guarantee you will have a pleasurable experience EVERY time!  Is this sexual nirvana, I'm referring to?  Nope...I'm talking about your first stay in a hostel.  These FIVE top tips will help you through your first hostel stay.

For the hostel averse out there, my advice is to give it a try.  As I have said before, hostels are an affordable, good value accommodation option for the budget-savvy traveller.  And for those that do not fancy the sights, sounds and smells of your average dorm room, staying in private rooms in hostels need not feel like you are 'slumming it' and can give you access to a host of activities and services you might miss out on if you were to stay in a hotel.

Par-tay! (source - hostelworld.com)

1. Choose Your Hostel Carefully...
- Selecting the hostel that most suits your personality and travel requirements is key.  Need a riotous party?  Make sure the hostel you choose offers free shots on arrival and bar crawls every night.  Need to chill out after a day's sightseeing?  Opt for the hostel that can hook you up with a local yoga class and 'knits' their own muesli for breakfast.  My main advice here would be to read the reviews on hostel booking websites such as Hostelbookers and Hostelworld; where travellers post frank reviews about their experiences and the quality of the accommodation on offer.

I just need to use my hair straighteners...and charge my iPad...and my camera battery! (source - open.edu)

2. Don't Be The Hostel Oddball...
- You are likely to be sharing a dorm room with several others.  It is therefore, paramount that you do not mark yourself out in a negative way in the microcosm of the hostel environment.  Taking up all the floor space, leaving your underwear strewn across the room or hogging all the plug points for your phone, iPad and hairdryer is not going to win you many fans.  The key to being a good 'roomie'?  Easy!  Treat others as you would expect to be treated.

Greet the travel massive! (source - mastersotu.com)

3. Press The Flesh!...
No, not that way!  Though, that will help you make friends very easily!  Hermits and hostels do not go together very well.  The recluse will find it difficult, in the sociable community you get in most hostels, to be completely alone.  This, for me, is one of the real advantages of a hostel stay.  You get to encounter and share experiences with fellow travellers.  These 'micro United Nations' allow you to meet people from different countries, cultures and socio-economic backgrounds that, ultimately, help you understand yourself, your own country and its unique culture a lot better.

Breaking bread at the Lisbon Lounge Hostel (source - MikeW)

4. Get Active!...
Linked into the previous tip about the social nature of backpacker accommodation; hostels will often offer a range of formal and informal activities I would heartily encourage you to get involved in.  For example, the fantastic Budapest Bubble hostel runs an informal nightly bar crawl which allows even the most hardened wallflower the chance to join a group of like-minded travellers for a drink or two without the pressure to finish the night at 5am, staring up from Hungary's finest gutters and covered in vomit.  However, that option is there...if you want it!  The brilliant Lisbon Lounge Hostel is one of many excellent, top quality boutique backpacker pads in the Portuguese capital that offers a number of free and reasonably priced activities for their guests from free tours of the city (something I highly recommend in any city you visit - see 'The Glorious Free Tour') to tours of the Fado scene as well as fabulous in house dinners, cooked by Pedro the chef, for a reasonable price that would shame many of Lisbon's well-established and costlier eateries.  Remember...a good hostel and its staff will want to show off their city and country at its best and ensure you have a great time.  At the very least, make it a priority, once you have dropped your backpack, to ask a member of the hostel staff to sit down with you and map out the best places to visit, eat and drink.  This quick orientation can be a good way to get to know your hosts and offers an invaluable local insight into your destination.

Lock it up! (source - onestop-padlocks.co.uk)

5. Stay Safe!...
I am the first to admit, I am anally retentive when it comes to my safety and well being when I travel.  In addition to this, I am keen to ensure my belongings remain safe and secure.  When I stay in hostels I always take a good quality medium sized padlock with me to lock your backpack or to allow you to lock it or any belongings in the lockers many hostels provide in the rooms.  And, if there is a safe in the hostel...use it for your passport, at the very least.  I have stayed in hostels where people have left valuable electronic items within easy reach and in once case an iPad on their bed while completely unattended in a busy room of 9 other strangers, while the woman went for a shower.  This was despite having a locker in which she could have easily stored the tablet safely and securely.  It made no sense to me.  I do not mean to worry you and you should not be consumed by fear about hostel security as most hostels are filled with friendly like-minded folk who probably will have absolutely no interest in your treasures, but the way I see it is...the less hassle you can get into the more enjoyable your trip will be; saving you from laborious insurance claims, visits to the police and angst about the cost of replacing your stolen belongings.

So, there it is...five great tips to help you navigate your first stay in a hostel and make it go as swimmingly as possible.  Please let me know, in the comments box below, how your first stay went or if you have stayed in hostels before the tips you would offer the plucky hostel first timer.

Hostels and the Backpackers You Meet...

The Backpacker (Source - travelinsurancereview.net)

When you travel, and especially when you travel solo, you are bound to meet a whole host of characters in hostels.  I have touched on this in previous posts 'The Freak Parade - Oddballs on the Road' and 'Embrace Your Fellow Traveller...'.  What HostelBookers have done brilliantly is sum up the 15 types of weird and wonderful backpackers you are likely to meet in hostels.  I would say I am a mixture of one with a dash of three, but I have got better on the packing front in the past couple of years.

The people you meet in hostels can be hit and miss.  I have stayed in some hostels that have been populated with the most irritating travellers imaginable and hostels where my fellow roomies, common room TV watching buddy and I have hit it off quickly and made the most of our time in the destination.  And, I think that is the key...for the majority of people the hostel is just a bed, a place to sleep while you explore the destination you are visiting.  Not many people choose to visit somewhere just to stay in the hostel; they are there to enjoy and savour the sights and opportunities a place has to offer, rather than to spend time with Steve, who has lived on and off in the hostel for 3 months, not seen a single sight away from the local bars and whos crowning glory is a scale model of the Colloseum constructed entirely out of beer cans he has drunk.

Check out the link below and see where you fit in:

http://blog.hostelbookers.com/travel/weird-and-wonderful/backpacker-types/

The Freak Parade - Oddballs on the Road...

(Source - theatrefolk.com)



Let me tell you one truism about backpacking.  You can guarantee you are certain to meet some utter freaks on your journeys.  They are the hallmark of the budget travel experience and are bound to stick in your memory for longer than you'd hoped.  My advice?  Embrace these weirdos!  Enjoy their bizarre, off-the-wall company and savour their outlandish behaviour.  Not only will these people be fantastic for your self-esteem, they will provide you with a whole host of stories to carry with you on your journey to other like-minded people you meet and will serve as an entertaining aspect of your travels your family and friends will lap up on your return.

I could tell you about the old lady, travelling with her daughter in Bled, Slovenia; who thought it appropriate to wear the shortest nightwear going in a shared dorm room, as well as leave her false teeth in a small plastic tub on the shelf I shared with her.  Or the Belgian girl in Port Macquarie, with a rather skewed view of British eating habits, who asked my friend, if only English people ate English muffins.

Mushy was perhaps the weirdest, though.  Let me take you back to Airlie Beach, Australia - September, 2005.  A moment I remember vividly.  I was in Airlie Beach; a place that marks the jumping point for the Whitsunday Islands three day sailing trips.  On entering my hostel room, I was met by my fellow roomie, a young-ish, drink and drug addled guy who told me his name was 'Mushy'; so called thanks to his love of the hallucinogenic fungi!  I could hear the alarm bells ringing softly in my head, but thought nothing of it as he asked me about my travels so far and where I was heading to after Airlie Beach.  Mushy then went on to tell me about his life and how he had worked at a local hotel resort and was on his downtime and aiming to enjoy himself in Airlie Beach.  As I sorted out my stuff, Mushy piped up that he was a talented singer and had made the later rounds of the hit Australian show, 'Australian Idol'.  The alarm bells were ringing loudly now.  As I had already established the guy could barely speak let alone sing, I humoured him and said, "Really!  What did you sing?"  He told me he had wowed them with a performance of the Oasis hit 'Wonderwall'.  I had to see this.  I sat back on the bottom bunk and readied myself for this stellar performance.  Mushy kicked off his song, wailing the verses like a cat being strangled by an excitable pig and then come the chorus where he broke into some high energy dance moves that involved him spinning round a lot and touching the floor.  All the while, my fingernails are digging deep into the palm of my hand to stop myself from laughing.  He suddenly stopped, looked to me and gave me the 'what do you think' face, to which I replied, "You were robbed, Mushy!"  He kindly offered me some 'shrooms.  I politely declined, made an excuse and got the hell out of there.  I returned after an hour or so to find Mushy had, thankfully, taken his talents elsewhere and that an Aussie and Dutch man had turned up in the room.  We chatted for a bit and I then went out to meet some people I had met earlier on my trip up the Australian east coast.  The next morning I woke up with a start to hear the Aussie guy, from the bunk above the now departed Mushy, yelp, "Aw, shit!"  I got up to find him looking at his feet and back at the floor.  "F***ing *****!"  While everyone was out enjoying the nightlife in Airlie Beach, Mushy had clearly decided to have a night in to clip his toenails.  And, rather than clear them up like any normal person, he thought it best to leave the clippings on the floor where they fell...for everyone else to tread on!  Freak!

Maybe it was the place, but on returning to that very same hostel three days later, I was accosted by a young South Korean guy who leapt out of his bunk to photograph me.  So, so strange!  But, that's travel for you.  I urge you to expect the unexpected and, most of all, enjoy it!