Six Reasons Why Hostels Might Not Be Your Cup Of Tea
The idea of boarding with strangers while travelling might not be everyones cup of tea. Here’s why.
Introduction
I vacationed in Goa a few months ago. The famous Indian tourist destination known for its white sandy beaches, night life, and hippie culture. During my 8 day sojourn, I stayed at one of the dozen budget backpacker hostels that dotted the coastline. Staying at a hostel instead of a hotel was the only way I could afford to vacation there for so long without burning a hole in my pocket.
Its not that I haven’t stayed in hostels before. Its just that on this particular occasion, I had gone there for tourism and not specifically to experience hostel life. I had gotten my first glimpse of hostel life in Auroville, a hippie township on the outskirts of Pondicherry, India two years ago. However on that occasion my primary goal was to experience hostel life itself, so I considered everything; positive, negative, and not-so-great as part of the experience.
During my hostel stay at Auroville, I had no strict timelines to adhere to or sightseeing itineraries to follow, things that would require me to compulsorily have a good nights rest, wake up early, have all my meals on time, and follow a structured life like one would do in the city. There were no conditions to keep me on my toes such as, “I must have a good nights rest or else…..”. I wasn’t a tourist with an itinerary down to the very last minute of every day in that sense.
Due to this, I made a huge blunder assuming I was accustomed to hostel life and booked my stay at a hostel during my recent visit to Goa.
My entire trip was ruined and I came home sick due to the sensorial assault, sleep deprivation, and subsequent ill health that followed. Let me tell you why hostels may not be your cup of tea through one of my most recent experiences.
Here are 6 reasons why hostels may not be your cup of tea:
You need your zone of peace quiet and solitude at the end of the day to be able to function properly.
At the end of a tiring day hiking around town checking out all the tourist attractions, all I need is my own den of peace and quiet. My cube of solace if you will, to unwind and shed the days exhaustion. Whether it is the freedom of ripping your dirty sweat stained clothes off your body and standing there naked the moment you shut your hotel room door, the fact that you can spend as much time as you want in the shower, or just lying in your bed in your undergarments after a shower listening to your favourite tunes while scrolling your phone, you get none of these privileges in a hostel dormitory.
At hostels the scene is astronomically different.
There’s a code of conduct and decorum that has to be followed. Even though you are inside a room, you are still very much out in public. You cannot lie on your bunk bed after a shower in your undergarments and happily scroll away on your phone enjoying the breeze from the fan above. This isn’t your private room to enjoy such eccentricities. You gave up the privilege to do such things for the chance to affordably stay at a place for longer, remember?
Being a solo traveller amongst a group of strangers who may or may not be together
More than all my other pet peeves of hostel life combined, this one stings the most.
Being a solo traveller amongst a group of strangers who are travelling together can feel intimidating at best and terrifying at worst. Compounding the situation is the fact that there might be newcomers who might have checked in to your dorm room earlier in the day, but have already dozed off before you could get a change to make acquaintance with them.
Imagine that. Sleeping overnight in a room not knowing who or what kind of people are around you. With the room door tightly shut! Every introverts worst nightmare.
There are a thousand questions running through your mind as you lie on your bed restlessly trying to get some sleep:
- Did I speak to the guy who’s on the bed above me or the one next to me earlier in the evening?
- Who’s that new one on the bed at the corner of the room? He wasn’t there this morning.
- And who is the one on the bunk bed behind mine? Is he related to the guy I spoke to in the evening?
- Is there a group here that I’m unaware of? or is everyone else a solo-traveller like me?
- I hope everyones straight in the head.
Not knowing someone at least on a surface level and sleeping in the very same room with them is every solo travellers worst nightmare.
“Being alone is intimidating.
You’re in a vulnerable position so you’re less likely to take risks, especially social risks like saying hi to a group of strangers.
That’s why people in hostels need a small push to start talking to each other.
You’ve seen the picture: six travelers awkwardly unpacking their stuff when coming into the room, barely saying hi, and sometimes even wearing headphones to prevent any painful moment of self-consciousness.”
I’d be lying through my teeth if I claimed the thought that, what if they all decide to gang up on me in the middle of the night with the door locked to steal my valuables or to beat me up just for the heck of it, didn’t cross my mind.
Call me paranoid. May be you learnt Karate or mixed martial art back in school (even those disciplines have limits for the number of people you can take on singlehandedly). I haven’t!
You are sensitive to the smallest of sounds
I just couldn’t rest whenever I wanted to in my dorm as there would be someone or the other moving about. As most hostellers had checked-in in groups, there was always some kind of group cacophony going on in the room, and resting during the day was totally out of the question.
Every single time I would be on the verge of falling asleep, when a sudden noise or conversation would jolt me right back up.
I remember a particular instance where I was so fatigued from sunbathing all day on the beach and wanted nothing else but to rest my weary body. It was afternoon, and I had just settled into a post lunch nap. Luckily, all the other residents of the room had gone out sightseeing, and I assumed that this could be my window of opportunity to get that much needed peace and quiet to squeeze in an hour or two of uninterrupted sleep. Big mistake ! Barely had I got into my snooze that I was rudely awakened by the housekeeping staff who just burst open into the room without even as much as giving a courtesy knock. It was at this exact moment I realized that Indian hostels were not my cup of tea. They were not places meant for rest and relaxation during the day.
Needless to say, my sleep was disturbed and I had to go back to the beach so that I could lie down on my towel. At least I wouldn’t be rudely jolted awake there!
A second instance was of a fellow room mate who just wouldn’t shut his alarm up no matter how long it went off for at 5 in the morning. Look! Not all of us have early sightseeing tours to catch. Some of us are here to actually relax and not be beholden to timelines and schedules. So shut that damn thing off, will you?
In another Medium article, Apoorv Sharma painfully elaborates on this particular point detailing the downsides of working in a hostel:
“People disturb you when you’re working in some corner, all alone. You can’t watch a movie peacefully because someone will come and ask you to change what’s been playing. You can’t read peacefully because someone will just play some random shitty music in a volume that’s enough to stop you from reading a book.”
Also read:
You have absolutely no intentions to network or make new connections
If you’re not there to network and make new friends, then there really is no point of staying at hostels. What’s the point of living with others if you’re constantly trying to avoid bumping into them all through out the day?
Hostels were made to be communal spaces where people from various walks of life arrive and mingle freely with each other, turning it into one huge melting pot of culture. If none of that interests you, then hostels certainly aren’t your cup of tea. Don’t act surprised if people introduce themselves to you and are constantly trying to get to know you.
Due to bad experiences in the past I am extremely wary of people and are always doubtful of their intentions, so I always strive to maintain a low profile.
You have absolutely no mental bandwidth for fights or drama
All the money saved by staying at a hostel instead of a hotel cannot make up for all the fights or drama you’d have to put up with at hostels. Most often, it isn’t even you that’s involved in the argument or scuffle but a difference of opinion between two of your dorm mates which you’re forced to be a spectator to for absolutely no fault of yours. This rightfully puts you in a fix because you don’t know whether to take the side of the dorm mate whom you’ve been staying with since the past week, the side of the person who checked in just a day before, or just be a neutral spectator to the two of them brawling it out.
I’d gladly take being alone with my own company in a hotel room no matter how lonely or isolating it feels rather than an unfortunate spectator to someone else’s drama.
Look. Even if you have a fight with your fellow hotel guests, everyone retreats to their safety of their own rooms at the end of the day. But if you have a difference of opinion with someone at a hostel, you both retreat to……the very same room literally sleeping right next to each other?
ummmmm….what!!??
You have zero intentions of doing drugs
This is my second biggest pet peeve of staying in hostels.
Ever since my very first experience in the hostel at Auroville, I got to know that a lot of these hostels are notorious for peddling drugs. In fact, the very reason a lot of tourists, local and international alike, visit hippie towns in India and stay at backpacker hostels is to unwind and relax with some good quality weed.
I was personally told this by a hostel mate.
This places you bang in the center of all the politics surrounding drugs, rave parties, and backpackers hostels. Your hostel could get raided by the cops.
If you aren’t someone who does recreational drugs, why get unnecessarily caught up in the crossfire?
When all you’ve gone there to do is a bit of sightseeing and to unwind and relax by the beach, you don’t need that kind of drama in your life. A hotel room might be substantially expensive. But there is no price for peace, quietness, and solitude, and the improbability of your room being raided by the cops.
When you pay the right price and avoid cutting corners, you immunize yourself against a ton of frustrations and hassles in life, not just while travelling, but otherwise too.
During my hostel in Goa, despite signing self-declaration forms at the reception while checking in, some of my hostel mates were seen rolling up a few joints and even invited me to smoke some with them by the beach. At least they weren’t going to do it right inside the dorm room itself, which was the case during my first hostel experience in Auroville.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, hostels might cost you 1/10th the price of a hotel room for a week or half month stay. But the number of sacrifices you’ll have to make and the amount of tomfoolery you’ll have to put up with easily makes the price of a hotel room, no matter how expensive, totally pale in comparison.
Like the novelist Paulo Coelho once said, “If it costs you your peace, it is too expensive”.
Have you ever stayed at hostels while travelling? What was your experience like? Did you have to put up with any of the shenanigans mentioned above? How did you deal with them?
Do let me know in the comments bar to the side.
