My friend Mitch and I have been discussing opening a hostel when we’ve finished traveling the world. By that time we would hope to have seen enough places to know exactly what makes a good home from home. So many hostels have nearly got it right, with some great perks and services, and so many fail epically, with accommodations you wouldn’t leave a dog in. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a swimming pool if you have cockroach infested dorms, and don’t bother with a book exchange if you’ve not put in a kitchen. A good hostel needs to combine so many details to lift it above the lonely planet nonsense. I intend to own such a place one sunny day.
My essentials are; comfortable bed, hot shower, working wifi, access to water and smoothies. Secondary inclusions would be food, bar, T.V room and laundry. Yet you would be surprised how many places get the simple things wrong. I consider it a chain, and if one thing is missing, one link amiss, you don’t have a good hostel. Eaten alive my bugs in a dorm? Ruins a hostel. Poor location and no food available? Ruins a hostel. When a jobsworth night attendant keeps telling me to stop playing the guitar because we’re having too much fun? That ruins a hostel.
We’ve decided to venture to a chicken and beer establishment where for 20,000COP you can drink as many pitchers of beer as you want, and have a stack of chicken wings in a basket. It’s perhaps not a very good idea. By the time we return to the hostel, we’re pretty damn peeshed, and continue to become more so over the course of the evening. We’re joined by a merry crew, including my date, and party into the night with a certain recklessness. Further revelers arrive, and it’s not long before the old six string has been dusted off.
I’m consistently told by the ‘night porter’ to stop playing, even though I’m not loud and people are enjoying themselves. In fact people are making a lot more noise than I am when I play. Apparently the hostel has had problems from the neighbours and is in danger of being shut down. This isn’t even the high season and the establishment is far from it’s very large capacity. By all accounts I’ve heard this place can really kick off when it’s packed to the rafters.
Now though, it’s just four of us, chilling out in the early hours. It’s hardly a jumping, gut wrenching, fist pumping, psychedelic, craze fest akin to glasto ’97. I’m playing Crowded House for goodness sake. Yet here he comes again, and again, until I, fueled with drink and raging we can’t have a little fun, decide to tell him to…errr…well I can’t quite remember but it wasn’t pleasant. A friend needs to restrain me and remove my guitar. I then pass out in the T.V room after watching ‘Hot Tub Time Machine.’ Rock and roll eh?
When I own my hostel, playing guitar at 4am to a load of good looking girls will be positively encouraged. Unless you’re playing La Bamba. Then you can get out.
Jobsworth
My friend Mitch and I have been discussing opening a hostel when we’ve finished traveling the world. By that time we would hope to have seen enough places to know exactly what makes a good home from home. So many hostels have nearly got it right, with some great perks and services, and so many fail epically, with accommodations you wouldn’t leave a dog in. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a swimming pool if you have cockroach infested dorms, and don’t bother with a book exchange if you’ve not put in a kitchen. A good hostel needs to combine so many details to lift it above the lonely planet nonsense. I intend to own such a place one sunny day.
My essentials are; comfortable bed, hot shower, working wifi, access to water and smoothies. Secondary inclusions would be food, bar, T.V room and laundry. Yet you would be surprised how many places get the simple things wrong. I consider it a chain, and if one thing is missing, one link amiss, you don’t have a good hostel. Eaten alive my bugs in a dorm? Ruins a hostel. Poor location and no food available? Ruins a hostel. When a jobsworth night attendant keeps telling me to stop playing the guitar because we’re having too much fun? That ruins a hostel.
We’ve decided to venture to a chicken and beer establishment where for 20,000COP you can drink as many pitchers of beer as you want, and have a stack of chicken wings in a basket. It’s perhaps not a very good idea. By the time we return to the hostel, we’re pretty damn peeshed, and continue to become more so over the course of the evening. We’re joined by a merry crew, including my date, and party into the night with a certain recklessness. Further revelers arrive, and it’s not long before the old six string has been dusted off.
I’m consistently told by the ‘night porter’ to stop playing, even though I’m not loud and people are enjoying themselves. In fact people are making a lot more noise than I am when I play. Apparently the hostel has had problems from the neighbours and is in danger of being shut down. This isn’t even the high season and the establishment is far from it’s very large capacity. By all accounts I’ve heard this place can really kick off when it’s packed to the rafters.
Now though, it’s just four of us, chilling out in the early hours. It’s hardly a jumping, gut wrenching, fist pumping, psychedelic, craze fest akin to glasto ’97. I’m playing Crowded House for goodness sake. Yet here he comes again, and again, until I, fueled with drink and raging we can’t have a little fun, decide to tell him to…errr…well I can’t quite remember but it wasn’t pleasant. A friend needs to restrain me and remove my guitar. I then pass out in the T.V room after watching ‘Hot Tub Time Machine.’ Rock and roll eh?
When I own my hostel, playing guitar at 4am to a load of good looking girls will be positively encouraged. Unless you’re playing La Bamba. Then you can get out.