It’s time for my quarterly attempt at convincing you to consider staying in hostels.
As a travel advisor, I research and book accommodations for all budgets and travel styles, from luxury resorts to the cheapest shared rooms available. I think people assume the majority of travelers want to stay in the most expensive accommodations their budgets will allow. In other words, I think most people assume that everyone would choose to stay in a 5-star luxury resort if they could afford it. And while that’s certainly true for a lot of people, choices about accommodations are often more nuanced than this. The number of people traveling with you, your travel style, and the purpose of your trip all factor into what type of accommodation is most ideal. For me these details differ from trip to trip, but when I’m traveling alone, hostels are my favorite place to stay.
You might be thinking, “But hostels are gross and full of teenagers and bed bugs.” And if you thought this, I am willing to bet you all the money I possess that you either selected the wrong hostel in the past (in which case I’m sorry for your experience) OR you’ve never stayed in a hostel (at least in the past 2 decades).
But aren’t hostels only for young people? No. Hostels are for pretty much everyone. Or more accurately, everyone who is willing to challenge their own assumptions and try a style of travel that allows them a more social and engaging experience.
I didn’t stay in my first hostel until I was 30 years old—an age that I worried would make me seem ancient in a hostel. Would I be the oldest person there by a decade? Would the youth think I was a poor creep? Would they stay awake binge-drinking until 4:00am? Would I feel totally out of place? My concerns didn’t dissuade me from booking the hostels though—it was the only option I could afford for that trip, so I could either go and potentially feel awkward in the hostel room OR I could not go at all.
I will forever be grateful for that first hostel experience because it proved every stereotype I’d ever heard about hostels wrong. In that hostel, Home Lisbon Hostel (see more about this one below), I met two women from Australia who were probably my mom’s age. They travel the world together on horseback-riding tours. When they can, they bring their own horses, but when they travel overseas, they ride local horses on multi-day group trips. I ate dinner with them and a 20-something lawyer from Germany who was visiting Portugal for the weekend. These people have MONEY I remember thinking. You can’t go on fancy horseback riding tours multiple times per year (and own your own horse farm) without a considerable amount of money to spend doing it. And that meant that staying in hostels wasn’t a necessity for them—it was a choice.
Since then, I’ve met countless people staying in hostels that defy the stereotypes most American’s imagine. I’ve met solo travelers in their 70s (and older). I’ve met a popular travel influencer with nearly a million followers. I’ve met an entrepreneur you’ve seen on tv. I’ve met journalists, authors, retired military officers, scientists, teachers, PhD students, and families.
I think one major cause of the stereotype is that the United States doesn’t have a hostel culture like Europe, and many other parts of the world, have. This is slowly beginning to change, and more and more hostels are opening throughout the US. But as of now, hostel options are very slim in the United States, so the general public is still unclear on what they actually are.
Essentially a hostel is just a budget-friendly form of accommodation that often has options of booking a bed in a shared dorm-style room or booking a private room. Hostels are typically a more communal and social experience than staying in a hotel. But every hostel is unique—some are more like bed and breakfasts, and some are more like hotels. Some are very social, and some are more appropriate for those seeking privacy. Some are designated as youth hostels and have a party-culture and an age limit, and some are boutique design hostels marketed toward adult travelers.
You’ll have to research before booking to make sure that you fall into the target clientele that the hostel wants to attract. (I have, more than once, ended up in a party hostel against my better judgement because of trying to save money.)
Without staying in hostels, I wouldn’t have been able to travel to a fraction of the place I’ve visited. The price options they provide are the reason I’ve been able to travel for extended trips. But even if my budget tripled, I think there’s still something hostels provide that most other types of accommodations can’t. As a largely solo traveler, the social component of hostels adds so much value to my trips, and the activities and excursions that the best hostels offer provide a far more authentic way to experience a destination that many of the anonymous tour companies you find online. As a solo female traveler, I often feel safer in hostels than I do in Airbnbs, and staff are typically eager to offer any kind of assistance you need.
My 10 Favorite Hostels in Western Europe (So Far)
Here are some of my recommendations for the best hostels I’ve stayed in (so far) in Western Europe. (For the purposes of this blog, I’ve divided West and East between Italy and Slovakia. I had to pick somewhere.)
(In alphabetical order by city.)
This post may contain affiliate links which earn me a small commission from bookings at no extra cost to you. Thank you for reading and supporting my blog!
1. Il Nosadillo Hostel in Bologna, Italy
Bologna has a couple more expensive and fancier hostel options, but I wanted something affordable with excellent reviews and with the best location. Il Nosadillo was the obvious choice. This hostel is small and doesn’t have any private rooms—staying here means you’ll be booking a bed in a shared dorm. But the beds in my 5-person room were individual twin beds rather than bunked beds, and the room was open and spacious. Because Bologna isn’t quite as much of a tourist hub as the larger cities in Italy, most of the travelers there were like-minded and curious people who like the social component of hostels but weren’t interested in partying. Several guests were in their mid-late 20s and 30s. It was cozy and comfortable and an easy place to spend a couple nights.
2. Ostello Bello Lake Como in Como, Italy
I only stayed in this hostel for a night, but I wished I could have stayed much longer. It’s located in easy walking distance of the train station in Como, so it’s an easy place to stop on the way between Italy and Switzerland. This is one of two Ostello Bello hostels I stayed in in Italy, and all of them are so nice. I believe this was the most expensive hostels I’ve ever stayed in—it was about $70 for a bed in a 5-bed room during peak season (which is why I only spent one night). But it was easy to see why people are willing to splurge here.
The rooms have a cool art deco design. An impressive continental breakfast was included, and so was a welcome drink. There was a cozy lounge room and a gorgeous courtyard full of tables. There was more of a party atmosphere than I like in a hostel, but I imagine it would be perfect in the off-season or if you can splurge on a private room. I also loved that they have a special mailbox where you can drop your letters off so the hostel can mail them for you. As a postcard-mailing enthusiast, it’s always a task to hunt down a post office, so this is a really thoughtful and fun thing for a hostel to offer.
3. Castle Rock Hostel in Edinburgh, Scotland
This hostel came highly recommended from seemingly every person I’ve ever met who has visited Edinburgh, and it did not disappoint. It sits right next to the castle—truly across the street from it—and surely no hotel you can book in town could possibly have a better location than this one.
Castle Rock is big. There are multiple floors and tons of different room-types which means that they offer lots of different priced options. There’s a huge kitchen and multiple lounge rooms and musical instruments everywhere, and with its winding staircase and confusing split-level floors, it felt a bit like wandering around Hogwarts. There were young people staying here and older people and families, people who were there to have a party, and people who were definitely not. This really feels like a place for everyone.
4. Ostello Bello Firenze in Florence, Italy
Ostello Bello is a hostel chain in Italy with locations in several of the popular cities. They’re marketed as luxury, boutique hostels, and most of them are quite pricey, but I decided to splurge on a shared room here since it was the off-season. It was well-worth the price difference between it and the other hostels in town.
This place is absolutely gorgeous (as is the other Ostello Bello I stayed in in Como), and it’s in a perfect location right next to the train station in Florence. This is the kind of hostel where a private room costs as much as a comparable hotel room. The reason I’d choose this hostel over a hotel for the same price is that Ostello Bello offers neat activities every night like trivia, open mics, wine tours, pizza night, and karaoke. They have great deals for city tours with tour companies during the day, as well. They offer a full breakfast, a rooftop patio, and everyone is offered a free welcome drink. My 4-bed female dorm had its own bathroom. For people who feel uncertain about staying in a hostel, this is the kind of place that will win you over right away.
5. Costello in La Spezia (Cinque Terre), Italy
Accommodations in Cinque Terre during the summer are limited and egregiously expensive. A great option that a lot of travelers take advantage of is staying in La Spezia instead—a working-class town just 5 minutes on the train from Riomaggiore. La Spezia is a larger town with many affordable accommodation options including Costello.
Costello is a very small and new hostel housed inside a larger building. The hostel is made up of 4 shared dorm rooms, a full kitchen, and a large terrace, and because it’s so small, it feels like staying in a cozy home of a friend. The hostel workers immediately learned the name of every new guest and served us free pesto pasta on my first night there. When I visited in the summer, there was a 3-night minimum requirement, which I like because it means everyone there is traveling fairly slowly and really hoping to explore the area rather than getting a rushed glimpse of it. We stayed awake chatting until late into the night at this hostel—it’s a place where it’s impossible to avoid meeting people. And though most people don’t consider La Spezia the main attraction of their stay here, I quite like the unpolished authenticity of it.
6. Home Lisbon Hostel in Lisbon, Portugal
My very first hostel stay set near-impossible standards that I will forever compare every hostel to. I cannot describe to you how much I adore Home Lisbon Hostel. The design is a mix between cozy home and inviting speakeasy, and there are all kinds of rooms (both private and shared) to meet various budgets. It’s right in the center of Lisbon, in walking distance of nearly everything a tourist would want to see. They organize several fun tours each day including surfing tours and day trips to Sintra, and they’re partnered with a delicious café in the same building.
But my favorite thing about the hostel are its dinners. Every night, the mother of the hostel’s owner (who everyone calls Mamma), cooks a huge group dinner for the guests who sign up. A few years ago, it was just $10 or $12 to reserve your spot for dinner, and even if that price has risen since the pandemic, I can assure you that it’s well-worth your money and substantially cheaper than what you’d pay for a similar quality at a restaurant. As delicious as Mamma’s meals are, it’s the experience that’s priceless. Everyone sits together at a giant wooden table as Mamma brings out her homemade food and volunteers serve.
I’ve been to a few other hostels that had family-style meals, and in a lot of cases, the people who take advantage of those meals do so just to save money. That’s not the case at Home Lisbon Hostel. Mamma’s meals are practically famous, and guests choose this hostel just to participate in dinner. It’s the highlight of the hostel experience for most guests and a brilliant way to make friends. I skipped Mamma’s dinner one night of my stay to try out a restaurant, and I thought about what I was missing the whole time I ate. Mamma goes around the table asking everyone where they come from and how they came to be in Lisbon. Everyone eats dessert, and there’s a small glass of port at the end of the meal for anyone who wants it. (You learn that you sip the port instead of drinking it like a shot.)
Home is one of the pricier hostels in Lisbon, and I would say it is 1000% worth the splurge. You can find an Airbnb or hotel room for the same price as the private rooms here, and trust me when I tell you that you should choose this hostel instead.
7. The House of Sandeman Hostel in Porto, Portugal
On my first night in Porto I stayed at a very neat hostel that was delightful in most every way EXCEPT that it was a hostel that allowed groups. A lot of the large hostels in Europe allow group bookings, so you’ll see literal bus-loads of high school students flooding in with their chaperones. (Many hostels will indicate on their websites that they do NOT allow this, so it’s easy to tell if this could be a thing you encounter before booking.) They stay in their own rooms and it’s usually fine, but in this particular hostel, the youth were so very loud. And this was a problem because during my first night there, I became sick with food poisoning. All I wanted to do was rest somewhere quiet instead of listening to screeching teenagers. So I canceled my second night in that hostel and took an Uber across town to The House of Sandeman Hostel.
The House of Sandeman Hostel is one of the most unique hostels I’ve ever seen. It’s dark and sleek and feels like the kind of elegant bar where mysterious strangers speak in whispers. It’s housed in a historic wine cellar building and is owned/operated by the famous Sandeman wine brand. It sits right on the Duoro River with a panoramic view of the Porto skyline. The private rooms and suites are stunning, and this is another example of when I highly recommend booking a room here over a hotel room at the same price. But the shared dorm rooms are maybe even cooler. The beds are huge, and each of them is designed with a custom frame inspired by wine barrels. It feels like sleeping in an art installation.
I think this hostel is best suited for travelers looking for quieter, more private accommodations rather than a very social experience, but the hostel also offers lots of activities and has a neat lounge/bar area, so guests can be as social as they want to be. They also don’t allow any guests under the age of 18, so it was mercifully quiet during my time of sickness.
8. The People – Strasbourg in Strasbourg, France
When I arrived in Strasbourg, I’d already been traveling for over a month and had stayed in all shared dorm rooms. Some of the shared dorm rooms had been lovely, but some (I’m thinking of you London and Paris) had made me desperate for a night of privacy. Strasbourg was the only city I visited in Western Europe where I could afford a private room during the peak summer season. I booked 2 nights in a shared dorm at The People Hostel in Strasbourg and then splurged on 1 additional night in a private room there.
The People is a local hostel chain, and you can find their hostels throughout France. I didn’t stay with them in Paris because their prices were high compared to their competitors, but I wish now that I had. The People Strasbourg was a welcome reprieve after the tiny, cramped rooms I stayed in in London and Paris. It’s in a really neat space that used to be a Tobacco factory, and they have a good café/restaurant on site. The shared rooms were huge, and every guest had tons of available storage space and sturdy privacy curtains so that you felt like you were in a private space even though the room was shared. And then I splurged on a private room with a private bathroom in the same hostel, and I was so excited for the privacy that I had a solo dance party.
9. Anda Venice in Venice, Italy
Accommodations in Venice can be quite tricky. Because it’s such a small island, options are limited, and prices are high. This is a city where it’s easy to get stuck paying a lot for a low quality. Still, I felt for a long time that staying on the island was far superior to staying on the more-affordable mainland and taking the train to Venice each day. I changed my mind after staying at Anda Hostel.
Anda sits just around the corner (a less than 5-minute walk) from Venice’s mainland train station, Venice Mestre. The train from Mestre to Venice Santa Lucia (the train station on the island) takes 10 minutes. It runs every 10-15 minutes and costs a couple dollars. While staying on the island is a neat experience that I recommend for people with ample budgets, you can save so much money by staying at Anda instead. Being so close to the train station also makes day trips elsewhere in Italy super easy.
Anda is a gorgeous design hostel with a hip, industrial vibe. It’s more of a party hostel than I typically like, but the party is very contained to certain areas. The private rooms are on the upper floors where you can’t hear the noise from below at all. The upper rooms even have a view of the distant Italian Alps. It feels no different than staying in a nice, modern hotel, and if you happen to want to participate in the social atmosphere, that’s available for you, too. They have neat events every night of the week like open mic nights and live music. My mom stayed here with me and loved it, so you can be assured that I can attest to this being an excellent option for all types of travelers. You really can’t beat the price.
10. The Hostello in Verona, Italy
This hostel was my first shared room after nearly 2 months of private rooms, so I was a little apprehensive before arriving. It ended up being a lovely delight. I stayed in an all-female room that was spacious and had its own bathroom. It was homey and comfortable and a short walk from the city center in Verona. The staff were very helpful. And there was a hostel cat named Mercutio, and I give bonus points to any hostel that has its own pet.
A Word About Hostelworld
You can book all of these hostels on their direct websites, but I love booking through Hostelworld—a booking platform where you can find almost every hostel everywhere. I have the app on my phone which makes booking so easy, and it’s convenient to have all my reservations in one place on trips where I’m staying in multiple different cities. Hostelworld always has the most hostel reviews which play a huge role in how I select which places to stay. It has neat features on the app, too, like group chats with other travelers who will be in the city at the same you will and lists of meet-ups, events, and activities that travelers organize. It’s one of my top recommended travel apps.
