Top Ten Hostels

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I thought i would do a few "top tens" in memory of my trip and the first and (to me) most obvious one to do is the top ten hostels that i have stayed in, I will mention the top ten in some detail to explain the reasons why each one was picked. But before i get to that let me mention that the absolute worst hostel i stayed in was the very first one ("The Gershwin" in New York), it was dirty, cramped, had horrible staff and was a really terrible first choice of place to stay. If i can give any advice to people who travel don't stay at the Gershwin if you go to New York.

Also i will give a mention to some really great hostels that do not make the top ten, because there were so many good ones and believe me a quality hostel is much more fun than a 4 or 5 star hotel. Anyway, those that are worth staying at but don't make the top ten include:

HI Alpine Centre (Banff, Canada).............USA hostels Hollywood (Los Angeles, USA)...............Franz Josef YHA (New Zealand)..............Discovery Lodge (Queenstown, New Zealand).........................Stonehurst (Christchurch, New Zealand)...............Melbourne Metro YHA (Melbourne Australia).

So there you have it, plenty more good ones.

Right then, on with the top ten (in reverse order). I also want to emphasise that for the top slot, this is an extremely close race.




10) HI- Downtown (Vancouver, BC)..............

A very clean and well presented hostel that provides one of the very best breakfasts of any hostel I have stayed at. It consists of an all you can eat buffet which gives you fruit, bagels, cereal, muffins and drinks (fruit juice etc.). This hostel also scores high because it has an allocation of tickets to sporting events that are held in the area. When i went there i thought that my dream to see the Vancouver Canucks Ice Hockey team was over because all the tickets were sold out, but the fact that the hostel had an allocation of tickets meant that i was able to do one of the things i really wanted to do. Only drawvback is that this is one of the more expensive hostels to stay at, but otherwise a quality place to stay.



9) Shanti Lodge (Bangkok, Thailand)..................

This hostel is great because Thailand tends to not have that many backpacker hostels, its mainly guesthouse or beach houses where you have your own room and little in the way of communal areas to meet others. The hostels that are there are tend to lack soul and make meeting people harder. Shanti Lodge is a major exception to that rule. Its easy to meet others as there is a great dorm, it has a nice restaurant with really high quality, but cheap food, the accommodation is cheaper than anywhere else that i stayed and its really well located, with a river taxi station just nearby. Yep, a tremendous hostel given everything.



8) Grand Canyon International Hostel (Flagstaff, AZ)................

This hostel organised the best one day tour of the entire trip, that being a tour to the Grand Canyon where we were able to see the Canyon from a number of excellent viewing points and learn more about the Canyon from the tour guide who was very good. This is also one of the cheapest hostels in North America (only $16 for a dorm bed or $32 for a private). It also had the very best breakfast of any hostel that I stayed at and was small with nice staff and a nice atmosphere.



7) Annies Place (Alice Springs, Australia).....................

Several hostels in this list are there partly because of the high quality tours that they organised and this hostel in Alice Springs organised the three day tour of Ayers Rock and the Red Centre, which for me was one of the undoubted highlights of the trip. The hostel is also a small one with a nice bar and its quite easy to meet people there. It also has a nice swimming pool, something that is undoubtedly needed in the desert heat of Alice Springs. I also met two of my favourite fellow travellers there (Jo and Rich) so that also increased my enjoyment of my time at this hostel.



6) Green Tortoise Hostel (San Francisco, CA)................

A hostel that though there are negative things to say about it (rooms are small, bedding not good, can be loud etc.) the positives are such big positives that it should be included. The first big positive is the free internet access, which though there are a few other hostels with free internet access this is the only one with enough terminals to make it possible to get on the net (when internet is free its nearly always all taken). The other huge (and i mean huge) positive about this hostel is the free evening meals, which are actually very nice and tasty and well worth being there for. Free evening meals is a rarer than rare thing when it comes to hostels (this is the only one I have been to in the whole world that provides them). Elaine and I also met Jeff there and he (and his mate Ross) was very cool.



5) A1 Fraser Roving Hostel (Hervey Bay, Australia)................

This is the hostel that arranged the self-drive tour to Fraser island, another one of the undoubted highlights of my trip. The hostel also had a good orientation session for the trip which was a good way of meeting other people. The staff were nice and helpful and also the hostel's swimming pool was the best of any hostel pool that i came accross. Also it was fairly small but big enough to drown out any noise from the bar when one is trying to sleep.



4) Sleepy Sams (Singapore)..................

This hostel is a great one because it is so easy to relax there, I arrived there the first time i stayed really tired after some major excitement in Australia and i really needed some relaxation time which I got at this hostel. I was so relaxed I kept falling asleep in front of the TV in the communal area (appropriately named hostel isn't it). The TV area is so comfortable that I was happy just to be there for hours on end (something that has been very unusual for me on this trip) just relaxing. They also have a high quality breakfast, an excellent laundry service, free internet (though only 2 computers) and really nice staff. No complaints whatsoever about this one.



3) Rau's Guesthouse (Rarotonga, Cook Islands)...................

Many of my favourite hostels occupy their positions on this list partly because they were the places where i had the greatest time. This hostel is an exception, I didn't always have a happy time there, but it is testament to the positives of the people who run the place that i hold this hostel in such high regard. I had some bad times there, particularly when my face swelled up like a balloon and at times i was pretty stressed. However the help given to me (and the other guests) by the owners of the hostel (Atua and Mata, particularly Atua) made the stay a great one. Atua seemed to be the type of person where if you needed help with anything at all he would do everything he could to help. He often went beyond the call of duty (with all of his residents) and let us stay there throughout the day before the night we were due to fly out without paying another nights rent. He even said that Elaine and I had been fated to come to his hostel so that he could look after us. Theres no doubt that he was a great host and that plenty of other hostel owners could follow his example.



2) Canadiana Backpackers Lodge (Toronto, ON)................

I remember the time I spent in Toronto with great fondness, but that had almost nothing to do with Toronto itself and almost everything to do with this amazing hostel. Clean spacious rooms, comfortable bedding and very friendly staff were all part of the package. But it had many other highlights including one of the very best communal areas of any hostel where it was so easy to meet other travellers and engage with them. There were also free pancakes every morning (something i always made sure I was there for) and they even organised nightly activities for the people staying there, including nights out and competitions (I participated in a table tennis tournament and a general knowledge quiz - I was the joint winner in the latter incidently). There was also a really good mix of people there including travellers, holidaymakers and those there to work. I have really good memories of my time spent here and would go back to Toronto just to be able to stay there again.



1) Red Palm Hostel (KL, Malaysia)

It scored the highest hostelworld.com rating of any hostel that I stayed at and that rating was so well deserved. The hostel is small (only 14 guests) and not only is it a good place to meet other people but the unbelievably friendly staff even make attempts to encourage everyone staying there to be friends (with each other and with the staff), for this reason I was able to make friends easily there without even having to try. The staff seemed to want to be friends with all of their residents and that seems to be an important part of the deal for them. I was also stuck without a place to stay one night and the staff let me sleep downstairs rather than having to get a hotel room or an overnight train before I was ready to leave. It has a great communal area and the staff give everybody a really nice send off when they leave (this included the woman in charge - Sofie- taking my picture before I left- something she did with everybody). They also have a very extensive DVD collection, and its easy for residents to agree on which DVD's to watch because there are not many residents. Also Great breakfast and high quality bedding. No complaints whatsoever and KL is a place I would go just to stay at this hostel.

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