THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS FROM WHICH WE MIGHT MAKE A COMMISSION.
On my gap year around the world I always stayed in hostels. There’s just no other choice. Hostels are the best place to meet other travelers and they usually offer everything a backpacker needs: beds, babes, and booze. There really is no other option for the backpacker.
Staying in so many hostels around the world, I’ve run into some of the same hostel situations over and over again. Here are ten situations you’ll find in hostels all over the world. How many of these are you familiar with?
The hostel gave away your bed.
We’ve all been there. You stayed out late partying and missed your early-morning bus. You met some friends and meant to ask for an extension. So you go up to the reception at 10am checkout to extend for just one more day only to find out that they are full and your bed is no longer your bed. You have no other choice but to scramble all your stuff together and find a new hostel.
The one-in shower.
When your hostel shower is so cold that when you finally force yourself inside you can only stand to put one part of your body under the water at a time.
The free breakfast lunch.
Toast and fruit for breakfast again? That just means toast and fruit for lunch again too. You wear your cargo shorts to breakfast to pocket something extra for lunch.
Top bunk blues.
No one ever wants the top bunk. It’s a pain in the ass to get into at night, especially when you’re drunk, and it’s a pain in the ass to crawl down from in the morning, especially when you’re hungover. There are few things worse than showing up to a hostel to find out there are only top bunks left. Or worse, that there are bottom bunks available but they’ve assigned you a top one.
Hangover day.
That day (or week) where you’ve had so much to drink the night before you’re so hungover you do nothing all day but lay on a hammock at your hostel.
Towel of silence.
You meet a girl at the hostel bar and the more shots you buy her, the better your chances of getting laid look. But where do you take her? You end up back in your 12-bed dorm room. But you put up a towel around your bed. With the towel of silence around your bunk, no one can see or hear what’s going on.
The latch on.
You know that guy. That guy who insists that he’s your new best friend when you just want him to go back to Utrecht. The guy who sits with you at breakfast. The guy who keeps talking to you when you’re just trying to go to sleep. The guy who buys himself a shot so he can take one with you and your actual friends. There is no way to get rid of that guy. Just ignore him as much as you can and don’t tell him where you’re going next.
I forgot where my hostel is.
You get off the bus, check into a hostel, go out for a walk, have a few, then head back to the hostel…but which hostel did you check into? And where is it?
The 6am wake-up call.
You just got home from the bars and pass out in your bunk bed. Just as you finally drift off to sleep someone’s alarm goes off, they turn on all the lights, and start having a conversation while packing their bags. Ever heard of packing the night before?
The best night of your life.
Every so often, everything just comes together. You check into the best hostel. You meet the right people. You find the right girl. You drink round after round of beers and round after round of buckets. You end the night with a towel around your bed and hangover in the morning. Those are the kind of nights you experience time and time again in hostels all over the world.
How many of these hostel situations have you experienced when traveling around the world?