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.

Your First Time!

MikeW in awe at the Orsay!  One of the best art galleries in Paris!

A newly single friend of mine asked me the other week for ideas for a trip she could take by herself; the first one abroad since her break up.  It got me thinking...where and what makes a good destination for first time solo travel.  I know this topic has been covered umpteen times on travel forums and I am not here to reinvent the wheel, but I feel that there are certain things that can make your trip as brilliant as you might hope and without any of the fears you might think such a trip will bring.

Now, my friend has travelled solo before, but not for a few years...so, for her a few reminders and for any solo travel virgins here are my top tips for that first time:

1. Destination...
Choosing the right place to visit can make or break your trip.  I probably, should say 'appropriate place to visit' as the key element of a successful solo trip is keeping myself occupied.  Opting to visit rural Italy, although lovely, may leave you feeling rather lonely and a bit bored.  I would say start off with a city.

(I am going to stick to Europe for this post - even though I have readers from all over the world, but the same principles apply wherever you are on Earth!)

Cities offer the solo traveller with a whole host of sights and different activities that will easily fill their time there.  For example, Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Rome and Berlin are cities filled with world class museums, art galleries, historical sights, superb parks, great food, a brilliant and varied nightlife as well as a really distinctive metropolis feel that you just cannot help but get swallowed up by.  You will not be bored by these places!

On top of this, certain cities offer options for great day trips too.  Paris, for example, could see you catching the RER train and head out to the magnificent Palace of Versailles, the chateaux of the Loire Valley or to Giverny, the home of impressionist painter Monet.

2. Stay in a hostel...
You might not like the thought of a hostel for your stay, but I feel the hostel offers the solo travel one of the best ways to meet fellow travellers and find yourself someone to share some of your first solo trip with.  The hostel is a multicultural melting pot of different nationalities - though, you can ALWAYS guarantee at least an Aussie, a Yank and two Irish friends being there!  Choose your hostel carefully (following the ratings is often your best bet on www.hostelbookers.com and www.hostelworld.com) and you could end up in somewhere pretty swish.  When I travelled to Lisbon, I had a choice of top quality hostels to choose from and was thrilled with my decision to stay here... http://www.lisbonloungehostel.com/about_us.html.  The beautiful communal 8 Euro meal, laid back nature of the place and fun activities the hostel laid on for its guests, both during the day and at night, made this a perfect place to stay for the solo traveller.

3. Take the free tour...
I have said it before - (The Glorious Free Tour) get on the free tour!  I ALWAYS do the free tour...as a way to get my bearings and as a way to meet potential travel friends.  You are likely to be trudging round with many people in a similar boat to you and human nature dictates you are going to be drawn to the people who find the tour guide's crazy fashion sense, poor jokes or frighteningly in depth knowledge of the Ottoman Invasion of the city you are visiting strangely amusing.  The tour will also give you a chance to get to know a local who will be keen to show off their city at its best, so you can ask them about where is best to visit during the day and in the evening.

The Solo Traveller Toolkit:
- A good book for those down time moments or for when you are sitting in a cafe soaking in the atmosphere and hubbub of the city over a gloopy Continental coffee.
- An iPod/MP3 player.  It is just nice to hear a familiar voice from time to time and what better than a favourite song or energising tune to get you marching to that next tourist attraction.
- A Moleskine notebook.  Any notebook will do, but I like the Moleskine range as they are so luxuriously lovely!  I write down things I have seen that I do not want to forget, my thoughts, doodles, ideas for future art projects and for things I would like to do in the future.  Travelling to places away from home, is a privilege and I love being inspired by and learning from the places that I see often triggers ideas in my head for future experiences I want to enjoy.

Finally, be bold!  It is your first trip alone...just get out there and enjoy it.  There is no point wallowing in self pity or thinking 'I wish someone was here with me'.  Make the most of your trip, stride out there with confidence and savour what your destination has to offer you.  You won't regret it!  Oh...and if all of this advice has done nothing to inspire and you need someone to join you...you know where I live!

My First Time...

Day one of my first solo trip!  What a place to start my travels!

Back in 2005, I had just secured what I thought was going to be the job of a lifetime.  This was my first graduate position, after many applications, and was to my mind a job where I could forge a long-term career.  My initial reaction was one of joy at getting the job, but then came the mild panic.  My problem?  I hadn't travelled to the places I wanted to travel to; the places where I had wanted to spend a significant amount of time exploring and sauntering through.  Seeing this as my last big chance before being tied down to a 9-5 routine along with all the financial committments that come with a new life, I looked round at my friends and thought, "Crap!  If I'm going to do this, I'm going to have to go alone!"  As all my friends had other things going on, I faced a choice: stay in the UK before starting my job or fly solo to my chosen destinations, Australia and New Zealand.  I took the latter option and haven't looked back since.

Having taken the first big step, booking my flights; I thought to myself, "What the hell am I doing?!"  This was reinforced when I waved my family off at the airport to embark on my 10 week trip.  As I stepped off the plane in Sydney to be sniffed out by an Aussie Customs dog for the possible 'fruit traces' in my bag, helped a drunken women off the floor at the baggage carousel, after she had tried to lift her bag in a heavily inebriated state, before being dragged along the conveyor belt, as well as maintain my constant 'spider watch', in case I should be suddenly be pounced upon by a funnel web or a huntsman; I knew then that the trip would bring me lots of experiences.

Back in Blighty, I had consciously booked myself into a large dorm room, at the hostel in Sydney, with the hope of throwing myself into the mix as soon as possible and stave off any of the loneliness of solo travel.  It worked a treat!  Within 10 minutes of being in the room, I bravely began a converstaion with the lads across the room who were planning to go for some beers in the bar downstairs and got an invite to share a few VBs with them.  And, from then on and throughout the whole trip, I met some absolutely amazing people.  Some were fleeting encounters, where friendships were formed only for a night or two, but others were much more long lasting.  The Dutch friend I made on a sailing trip in Australia and the Irish trio of girls I met in Wellington are people I consider to be very close friends who I have visited often in Amsterdam and Cork, as well as welcomed here.  What surprised me most was the fact that I ended up fending off some of the friendships I encountered on the road off...I got bored of the constant interaction with people and craved some time alone every now and then.  The fact that this happened in my first port of call, Sydney, worried me a bit.  A weird feeling especially considering my fears at the beginning of this solo trip about being a sad, lonely Billly-no-mates with a massive backpack strapped to my back.

My thanks must go to Louise.  A friend who I met temping in an office.  Her tales of her year long trip round Asia and Australia got me excited and keen to see and do all the things she had on her travels.  Her encouragement gave me that push needed to take this memorable trip.

If you have taken a long solo trip, you'll know what I mean when I write here.  If you haven't I hope I can inspire you with my blog posts, much like Louise did during our achingly dull days as temp workers to get out there, even if it does mean by yourself.  I hope you feel brave enough to act on that urge to travel.  There will be ups and there will be downs...but, I promise you one thing, you won't regret it!