The Dreaded...HOSTELS!

Back when I was studying in London, I DREADED hostels. The first two we booked in Italy were not ideal, to say the least. But since then I've learned a few key things to look for in booking hostels. To start off, I find that Hostel World is an excellent site, not only for booking your hostels, but also gives some great tips on traveling and things to do and knowledge about different cities.

1. BATHROOMS!
I know this may sound silly, but it's really an important thing (especially for girls!). After a day of wandering around a foreign city, a place to get clean, (or at the very least, go to the bathroom! In many European cities, toilets don't have seats for you to sit on, gross! So it's nice for you to have one at your hostel!) is very comforting to know if it is clean. You can always tell from the user reviews what the bathroom situation is going to be like. How many there are, are they clean, are there ones for boys and one for girls, separate toilet and shower rooms, etc. Don't just look at the cleanliness level, actually go through some reviews to see what people say.

Also something I look for in bathrooms is if you have to pay or use a coin for showers and towels. Some hostels might say this in their blip about the hostel, but most won't. Users hopefully will mention it! I say this because I once had an ok hostel in Paris that gave me and my friend two coins for the shower, but they didn't tell us how long the coins lasted. 5 minutes into the shower, the water turned off, my friend still had shampoo in her hair, and the front desk was closed so she couldn't get another coin.

2. LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION!
This is also something that the first time booking hostels I didn't think mattered much, but later found out that it SO does! On Hostel World, each hostel will show you on a map where they are located (If they don't, I wouldn't book it) and often will say "in the heart of the city" or "a short walk from an underground." This was something I also learned from my first booking experience. "A short walk from an underground" doesn't exactly mean that it's in the city! In Rome we booked a hostel that said this and it ended up being a 45 minute ride into the city. It was a very nice hostel, right on the beach, but was no where near anything we wanted to see or do!

On the other hand, we switched to a different hostel the next day that was right next to the Terminini, right in the heart of the city. Now, something that one might not know about this in Rome, but that is NOT a good neighborhood. And not just that it wasn't a good neighborhood, but it will still remain the WORST hostel I've ever stayed in.

Again, the reviews by users will always say how it was located, what they were able to walk to.


3. READ The User Reviews!
The moral of the story is read the reviews! If someone didn't like it, someone is going to want to say so! If someone loved it, someone is going to want to say that too! Hostel World sends emails a day after you check out to ask you to review, and you bet your bottom I have reviewed all the hosteled I booked!


The main different between my hostel experiences from when I was studying in London, to this past trip to Europe was that I took a little more time and read the reviews. If there was a doubt in my mind that I wouldn't be happy there, I said no! And the two hostels I stayed in this time around, were EXCELLENT! I'm not the only traveler who loves talking about the great hostels and wants to warn people of the bad hostel.

A post of actual hostels I've been too will be following soon!

My Contiki Tour

The deal I made with my parents was if I was traveling on my own I would do a tour for part of it. After a bit of research, I settled on Contiki.

The main reason I picked Contiki was because they had the most cities I wanted to go to in one trip. I had originally planned a trip with a friend, but after a series of unfortunate events, I realized I was going to be doing a bit on my own. I changed the itinerary (took out Italy and Paris since I had already been there) and prioritized the cities by how important they were for me ted to go to them. Unfortunately, money and time were on my side so Copenhagen and Bruges will have to wait for another trip. But with Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest, I found Contiki had a tour with those four cities, which would have left four on my own, and three of those I had friends and family to stay with. I also liked that it was a youth trip, ages 18-35.

I don't regret doing Contiki. I made some good friends and got to go to some other cities I would have otherwise not gone to (Dresden I fell in love with, Kunta Hora and Bratislava were also very nice). It was also very convent to have a bus take us everywhere and not have to worry about checking luggage.

The major down side was that I was excepting a walking tour in every city, and I while we did have one, I had to pay for it in most of the cities, which was very disappointing. The tour was pretty pricy as it was and they kept on hitting us up for extra "excursions" that I really thought should have been included, or at least the walking tours.

A lot of people ask me if there was a lot of partying, which Contiki has a reputation for. We did go out most nights, but for the most part everyone was able to get up on time for the next day and put in a full day of sight seeing and culture and then still go out for a few drinks and dancing at night. I took a couple of nights off, which I think most people did on my tour, but I found out from the people that have done other Contiki tours (there were at least 5 other people on this tour that had done a few others, Australia, Egypt, North America, another European one) said that their other tours weren't like this one. They said that their previous ones were often one day in a city and that it was very much party party all night and sleep all day on the bus.

Would I do another Contiki tour? Under very certain conditions.

1. I would make sure that we'd stay at least three night in each city. We only stayed two in Vienna and it was NOT enough time! We were scheduled to stay two in Budapest, but myself and a lot of other people stayed longer, but I could definitely see myself not spending enough time there if it were only the two nights.

2. I probably wouldn't do it during the summer or during a major college break, just to avoid the college aged crowd. This trip really hit up the whole age range which was very nice, but I could definitely see if it were in the summer that It would be a younger group that would be a little less mature and wanting to party more and not so much caring to see the world.