I own and run a small hotel in the Cinque Terre. I think I do it rather well.
And when I travel on my own, I mostly stay in hostels.
That sounds like a confession, and colleagues occasionally look at me as though it were one. It is not. It is a preference, arrived at over ten years and a great many countries, and I want to explain it properly, along with everything I have learned about choosing a good one, surviving a bad one, and actually sleeping in a room with eleven strangers.
Why a hotelier prefers the dorm
A hotel gives you a door that closes. That is its whole promise, and on some nights it is exactly what you want.
A hostel gives you something a hotel structurally cannot: other people, without any effort on your part. You come down for a coffee and there is someone at the next table who crossed the same border yesterday by a different route. The bar at ten in the evening does what no concierge can do. I have made friendships in hostel bars that have lasted years, and I have been given better travel advice by a stranger at a shared kitchen table than by any guidebook I have ever bought.
There is a practical dimension too. Travelling alone is expensive, because you pay for a whole room and a whole taxi by yourself. A dorm bed removes most of that penalty and buys you more days on the road, which is the only currency that really matters.
And there is a professional one, which I will admit to. I stay in hostels partly because I am nosy about how they are run. The best of them are extraordinarily good at making people feel welcome within ninety seconds of arrival, which is a skill my own industry mostly pretends is unteachable. One of them, the YuYu guesthouse in Sapporo, gave me a proper ambition: one day, to run a pod hostel of my own.
“Am I too old for this?”
This is the question I am asked more than any other, usually a little sheepishly, and it deserves a straight answer.
No. But choose differently.
I am not twenty-three. I have no interest in a bar crawl, I like to be asleep at a reasonable hour, and I would rather pay more for a six-bed dorm than save eight euros in a thirty-bed one. None of that puts hostels out of reach. It just means filtering for the right kind.
What actually works past thirty, and past forty and beyond:
- Small dorms. Four to six beds changes everything: less noise, less traffic, less chance of one badly behaved person ruining your night.
- Pod and capsule hostels, which give you a curtain or a shell and, with it, real privacy at a dorm price. Japan does this best, and Europe is catching up.
- Design and boutique hostels, which attract a mixed and generally older crowd, and often have decent bars and good coffee.
- A private room in a hostel. You get the sociable ground floor and a door that closes. For couples, families, or anyone who needs one good night, this is the underrated option in travel.
- Reading the reviews for the word “party”. If it appears more than twice, and that is not what you want, keep scrolling.
The one thing to check: a small number of traditional youth hostels, particularly in parts of Germany, still apply upper age limits or give priority to under-27s. It is rare and it is usually stated, but glance at the terms if you are booking an old-fashioned Jugendherberge.
Honestly, in the last few years I have shared dorms with retired teachers, a sixty-year-old cyclist crossing Europe, and a great many people in their thirties and forties. The image of the hostel as a student dormitory is about two decades out of date.
What a hostel actually is, in 2026
At its simplest: low-cost accommodation where you book a bed rather than a room, usually a bunk in a shared dorm.
But the range is now enormous, and the word tells you almost nothing on its own. At one end you have thirty-bed dorms with bathrooms down the corridor, tired furniture and a sad strip light. At the other, design hostels with four-bed en-suite rooms, a proper restaurant and private rooms that cost more than a mid-range hotel.
Broadly, they sort into four kinds, and knowing which you are booking is most of the battle:
Party hostels, built around the bar and the pub crawl. Enormous fun at the right age and in the right mood, unbearable otherwise.
Social but civilised hostels, which have a good common space and a bar that closes at a sensible hour. This is my usual choice.
Quiet and boutique hostels, often small, often beautiful, aimed at people who want the price and the sociability without the noise.
Pod and capsule hostels, where the dorm is a grid of individual sleeping capsules with a curtain or a door. Privacy, quiet, and a plug of your own.
What to expect on arrival
Young, friendly staff, an explanation of how the place works, and a request to settle the bill straight away.
Unless you have booked a private room, you get a bed. You will usually be able to choose between a mixed dorm and a female-only one, which costs a little more, and between a lower and an upper bunk.
On bunks, a small piece of hard-won advice. I take the top, because it gives you more privacy and nobody perches on your bed. But the bottom is much easier if you have to make it yourself, if you get up in the night, and if your knees have opinions. Decide which of those matters more to you, and if you can pick when booking, do.
Most hostels now include sheets and towels in the rate, and increasingly the bed is made when you arrive, with check-out just a matter of stripping it into a basket. Some still charge a rental fee for linen, which is when my silk liner and microfibre towel earn their place in the bag. Ask when you book.
Expect a reading light and a plug at the bed, though increasingly USB only, and usually a small shelf. Expect a locker, and expect the padlock to cost extra, which is why you should bring your own. Bathrooms may be en-suite to the dorm, which sounds better than it is when you are sharing with five people at eight in the morning, or in the corridor, which is often larger and quicker. Soap is not a given.
Almost all hostels lock the front door at night and give you a key, card or code. Breakfast is often a basic self-service continental spread, and the good ones have a bar, a kitchen and a common room worth sitting in.
Choosing one that will not ruin your trip
Hostelworld remains the specialist platform, and hostels also appear on the main booking sites. Read the property’s own description, the recent reviews and, above all, the guest photographs, which tell you more about the atmosphere than any amount of copy.
What I check, every time:
- The location, against what I actually plan to do, not against the city centre in the abstract.
- The rating. Below about 7.5 I do not book, and I have never regretted that rule.
- What is included: linen, towel, padlock, breakfast, toiletries. A cheap bed with four add-ons is not cheap.
- The dorm size, and whether female-only is offered.
- The bathroom situation, and how many people share it.
- The services I personally need: fast free wifi, a 24-hour front desk, and horizontal luggage lockers rather than tall thin ones, which nothing fits into.
- The atmosphere the reviews describe, so I know whether I am booking a party or a sanctuary.
And the one absolute rule: if anyone mentions bed bugs, close the tab. Not “recently”, not “only one review”. Close the tab. It is not worth it, and the cost of being wrong follows you home in your luggage.
When you have chosen, look at the hostel’s own website before booking. As with hotels, direct is often cheaper and more flexible, and independents pay heavy commissions to the platforms. I have written about how booking actually works from the other side of the desk.
For solo women, honestly
I have stayed in hostels alone all over the world and felt safe almost everywhere. But “almost” is doing real work in that sentence, so here is what I actually do.
Book female-only dorms when I do not know the city, or when I arrive at night. They cost a few euros more. It is the cheapest peace of mind available.
Read reviews written by women, and pay attention to what they mention rather than what they rate. Comments about staff behaviour matter more than comments about the shower pressure.
Choose a 24-hour reception if I am arriving late. A locked door and a code at midnight in an unfamiliar street is not the moment to discover the office shut at eight.
Keep passport, cards and phone in the locker or with me, never in the bag under the bed, and never in the bed while I sleep.
Check the lock on the dorm door and on the bathroom on arrival. If either is broken, say so at the desk immediately, and if nothing happens, leave.
And trust the feeling. If a place is wrong when you walk in, you have lost the cost of one night, not your trip. I have walked out of exactly two hostels in ten years and I have never once regretted either.
What to pack
Beyond your usual travel essentials:
- Two padlocks, one for the locker and one for the small safe some hostels put behind the pillow, which caught me out repeatedly in Japan and the United States
- A silk sleeping bag liner, for when the linen is rented or unconvincing
- A microfibre towel, for the same reason
- Earplugs, non-negotiable, and an eye mask if you are a light sleeper
- Flip-flops for the shower, and a small toiletry bag with a handle, so you are not carrying loose bottles down a corridor
- A head torch or small light, so you can find your things at midnight without turning on the ceiling light and becoming the villain of the dorm
- A phone cable long enough to reach from a bunk plug, which is never where you want it
How to actually sleep
This is the part people struggle with, and most of it is tactical rather than a matter of temperament.
Earplugs and a mask, always, from night one rather than after a bad night. Choose a bed away from the door if you can, since the door is the noisiest object in the room. Pack anything you will need in the morning before you go to bed, so you are not rummaging at six. And if you have a genuinely early flight, consider a private room or a capsule for that one night, because leaving at four in the morning from a twelve-bed dorm is stressful for you and miserable for everyone else.
How to behave
Almost all of it comes down to remembering that the room is somebody’s bedroom.
Say hello and introduce yourself, because most people in a hostel are travelling alone and are hoping someone will. No phone calls, no video calls and no music without headphones in the dorm. No plastic bags, which are astonishingly loud at five in the morning, so pack your shoes and laundry in fabric. No smelly food. Do not sprawl your belongings across the floor, which annoys people and invites theft. And if you are checking in or out while others sleep, do it in the corridor with your bag, not at your bunk.
None of it is complicated. It is simply the difference between being a guest and being an anecdote.
The bit that surprised me
Here is something I did not expect to be writing when I started staying in hostels.
They are, quietly, one of the more sustainable ways to sleep. Shared rooms and shared spaces mean a much lower footprint per person than a hotel room used by one traveller, which matters if you travel alone, since going solo otherwise carries the highest per-person impact there is. Most hostels are independently owned and employ local staff. And unlike a flat converted into a holiday let, a hostel does not take a home off the market in a city where people are struggling to find one.
I make that argument at greater length in my piece on tourism sustainability, but it applies here neatly: the cheapest option happens to also be one of the better ones.
My favourites
Ten years of hostels, some glorious and a few genuinely awful. These are the ones I would go back to.
- Lemon Rock Bar & Hostel in Granada, which is worth the flight on its own
- Freehand Downtown LA, for sheer style
- Les Piaules in Paris. J’adore
- YuYu guesthouse in Sapporo, which gave me the pod hostel dream
- Casa Gracia in central Barcelona
- WE Hostel Design in São Paulo, excellent for women travelling alone
- The Quisby in New Orleans, where it is impossible not to make friends
- Hostel Ebi in central Kyoto
- La Menina in Buenos Aires
- Ostelzzz in central Milan, where the deluxe capsule is genuinely comfortable
- Generator, reliably good across Europe, and where I have now stayed more times than I can count
Have you stayed in a hostel, and did it convert you or cure you? Tell me in the comments. I am always collecting new ones.
Further reading
- Hotel bookings: what I know from both sides of the desk
- My essential travel gear, including the silk liner
- Best countries for solo travel
FAQ
Am I too old to stay in a hostel? No, but you should choose differently. Small dorms of four to six beds, pod or capsule hostels, design hostels and private rooms within hostels all suit travellers past their twenties, and the crowd in most hostels is far more mixed in age than its reputation suggests. Read reviews for the word “party” and avoid those if you want to sleep. A few traditional youth hostels, mainly in Germany, still apply upper age limits, so check the terms.
Are hostels safe for solo female travellers? Generally yes, with sensible precautions. Book female-only dorms when arriving late or somewhere unfamiliar, choose a hostel with 24-hour reception if you arrive at night, keep your documents and phone in the locker rather than under the bed, and check the locks on the dorm and bathroom doors on arrival. Read reviews written by women and note what they mention about staff behaviour.
What should you pack for a hostel? Two padlocks, a silk sleeping bag liner, a microfibre towel, earplugs and an eye mask, flip-flops for the shower, a toiletry bag with a handle, a small torch and a long phone cable. Padlocks matter most, because hostels usually charge to rent one and lockers are rarely secure without one.
Is it better to take a top or bottom bunk in a hostel? The top bunk gives more privacy, since nobody sits on your bed and you are out of the main line of traffic. The bottom is easier if you have to make the bed yourself, if you get up during the night, or if climbing is uncomfortable. If you can choose when booking, decide which of those matters more to you.
How do you choose a good hostel? Check the rating, avoiding anything below about 7.5, and read recent reviews and guest photographs for the real atmosphere. Confirm the dorm size, whether female-only rooms exist, the bathroom arrangement, and what is included in the rate, since linen, towels and padlocks are often extra. If any review mentions bed bugs, book somewhere else.
