hello hello welcome back to another video my name is Jemima and as you can tell by the title I'm going to be talking all things hostels today this video is for you if you've never been to Austell but you're curious you've been once or twice but you're kind of like unsure you're ready to like go on a big Euro trip and stay in hostels or go to South America and keep costs Low by staying in hostels rather than airbnbs I've got your back by the way if you want a comment saying that I say hostel weird I'm sorry I say hostile apparently other people say hostile whatever I say hostile I do have another video all about different things that are essential for ourselves but this is more like things to know before you go there are definitely Unwritten rules there are unspoken rules that are just kind of things that you learn from staying in a lot of hostels but having that knowledge before you go in will really make you feel a little bit more comfortable and confident and ready to do it because like you you must be real pastels are kind of weird you're sharing a room with like eight people that you don't know sometimes you can stay in a dorm room of 32 people that you've never met before that's weird like let's be honest it's weird however if you're only gonna be paying 20 euros a night that's way better than 100 euros a night in an Airbnb plus you've got a chance to meet some really cool people but yes it is very daunting so let's just jump right in I was gonna make this video a bit more interesting by like doing a little coloring in while I was going through the tips so it wasn't just like me sitting here so I printed out this beautiful coloring unit of Rome but turns out that my printer did not have any ink so it doesn't work so I'll just have to like be interesting for you so I'm channeling high energy I just had a coffee let's go I write down some handy tips for you the number one thing I have on my list to talk about is alarms obviously when you're traveling sometimes you're going to want to wake up early maybe you've got a tour maybe you've got a flight booked maybe you just are a morning person and you want to seize the day but when you're sharing a room with eight other people if is it okay to set an alarm I say yes some people think it's only okay to set it on vibrate but sometimes that's not going to wake you up I think it's okay to set an alarm so long as you turn it off and you get up I've stayed in places where people snooze their alarms for like two hours and then just go back to sleep it's like so I'm listening to your alarm go off from 6am and you're not even getting up it's so annoying if you're gonna do it just turn it off straight away and get up I have no issue with alarms so long as marimba is not plastic in my ear every 15 minutes from 6am you know another thing kind of on the same vein that I think people get a little bit tripped up on is is it okay to turn on the lights in the room when other people are sleeping rise and shine so say for example it's like 7am and you're getting up to get a fly but you need to like get your stuff together but everyone else in the room is still asleep is it okay to turn the light on I personally would just sort of like use my phone torch I wouldn't really turn on the main light overhead I just think that's a bit too much like it wouldn't be rude per se because you do have to like get out and get your stuff but I just you know I don't really need it on so I wouldn't do it most hostels have a little reading light next to every single bed a little PowerPoint and a reading light some of the older ones some of the cheaper ones might not but I really like staying at places that have a special reading light next to every bed so then you know when you get up at 7am you can turn just that light on and you're not really bothering anybody else but if it's like 3 P.M and you come in and the room is dark and someone's asleep I would just turn the main lights on or open the curtains because it's 3pm sorry dude I need the lights on kind of in the same vein um say you've got an early morning flight and you know that you've got to leave at like 6 a.m I always make sure to pack everything the night before I don't want to be sitting there repacking my bag while everyone around me is asleep I just think that's super rude so I'll just have everything back the night before obviously I'll make a little bit of noise as I get up get my stuff get my toothbrush get changed Etc but yeah just you know have as much done as you can it's just courteous because then next time you're hungover and person on the bank next to you is getting up at 6am hopefully the karma flows through and they're not going to be super loud a question that comes up a lot especially with people who are traveling solo for the first time is female only dorms I personally don't really mind whether it's a mixed gender or female only dorm the one thing is you're more likely gonna get snoras if you are sleeping in a room with men not stereotyping just based on my own personal experience men just seem to store more than women whatever being able to choose a female only dorm is definitely a plus if you're feeling a little bit unsafe if you're traveling by yourself for the first time and you're a little bit wary you're not really sure you're just sort of easing into it maybe thermal Dom is a great way to go um just in terms of like getting yourself situated and getting comfortable with hostile living I honestly haven't ever had any issues the only time I've had issues are like you know drunk boys coming home and like making a lot of noise but you know drunk girls could probably be doing the same thing and snoring like I said before Oh my God I stayed in this hostel jelly in Bulgaria and I don't know why but like there were like five 50 year old men in the room and they were so loud and like the way that bunks were set up my head was here and his head was here that was like a plywood wall between us but it was like oh my God it sucked it was the worst but uh you know girls can sometimes make just as much noise as boys so if you feel like it makes you feel safer it's definitely a good option to go with also usually the female dorms are smaller like they'll be like a four bedroom as opposed to maybe a 12 or 16 so it's also a plus there next up top bunk or bottom bunk this is an age-old question I personally am a bottom bunt girly I hate the top bunk I don't like being up high I like having all my stuff close to me I don't like having to climb up and down I like the bottom bunk however some people only like the top bum they don't like having their like face down near people walking around them they don't like other people being able to sit on their bed during the day you know everyone has their preference one thing I'll say is you're not always going to be able to choose sometimes you'll get assigned to a top bunk sometimes you'll arrive in a room and there's only top bunks left my number one tip for top bumps is to bring an empty tote bag with you when you travel and then you can kind of hang it on the end of your bed and keep all your important in there so that say you're like about to fall asleep and you're like oh my God I don't have my eye mask you don't have to get up and go all the way down just have all the stuff you need in a little tote bag next to you I have made a video before of like hostel Essentials which I'll link here which I think is pretty helpful I've had a lot of people say like whoa this has actually really helped me like pack for my first time in a hostel next up I have written down do you have to talk to people no you don't I think what I mean in this context is say you're walking into your room for the first time it's an eight-bed dorm and there are like two people in there sitting on their beds watching something on their computer or like talking should you say hi I courteous just to like give them away say hey how you going you don't have to engage them in full conversation if you're not feeling it and if you're not getting the vibes from them that they want to chat but I definitely think it's worth being like hi you know I mean you're going to be sharing a bedroom with them for like maybe a couple of nights so it's definitely worth saying hi and you never know you could end up having a great chat and making a new best friend it's happened it's happened to me which kind of brings us to the next point of how do you make conversation some people those extroverts are so good at making conversation and I am infinitely jealous of the people who can just like have a chin work with anyone they meet that is not me so do you like stuff I am not very good at making conversation but the good thing about traveling is that it's pretty easy to like ask the same questions over and over and get interesting responses like where are you from where are you traveling Where Have You Been what have you done in this city that we're staying in that's cool it's pretty easy to like sort of strike up a conversation and then like carry it on and carrying it through whenever I got anxious about sort of like oh my God this person might think I'm a loser I don't know the right things to say I'm nervous I don't know how to have a conversation just remember that they're probably like feeling the same way too you're both strangers to each other you're both probably like needing someone to hang out with because you're alone and uh this is just a good way to do it strike up a chat about where they've been say they're like oh I was just in Greece even if you have no plans to ever go to Greece just be like oh my God I'm going there soon please give me your tips give me your recommendations because there you go that'll like set them off on a 10 minute tangent and they might be like oh my God I went to this amazing pizza place and you can say wow I love pizza actually there's a cool pizza place around the corner from here you want to go get dinner with me there later yeah cool great you know it just flows on from there it doesn't have to be scary I mean it feels a bit scary but it won't be once you get the ball rolling you know what I mean I mean and then there are going to be days when you're just like nah this and you're gonna hole up in the corner of the common room or in your bunk with your earphones on and not talk to anyone and that is okay too you need to have okay next up oh I have written down here sex question mark can you have sex in a hostel room I have heard a lot of people say that they have um walked into their dorm room and there are people going at it uh particularly in I said in this like party hostel in Budapest and uh it never happened to me but I heard a lot of stories my thoughts are if you're in there alone and no one is gonna walk in on you go for it I have done that once but that was because I knew that we could lock the door and that when someone came we could stop and they would come in and not see anything but like there are so many people who just like go at it like rabbits where people are walking in and out of the room I think that is not okay I think if you walk into a room and two people having sex either like leave or just sort of like make yourself known that you're there because maybe they don't know you're there and they're like oh my God we've got to stop like I think it is kind of tacky however if you're traveling for a year and you know you don't really have anywhere else to do it when I did it wasn't my finest hour but I definitely wouldn't have done it if I thought that someone would be able to walk in I know that a lot of people get a bit worried about having valuables in hostels like if they've got their phone or their laptop or a tablet like cash their passport kind of is worrying especially if you're in a room with like 10 other people you're like oh is this kind of like sauce luckily most hostels do have lockers make sure you've got your own padlock if you can get one with a little combination rather than a key because if you lose a key then you're kind of so some places will have like small Lockers in like the common areas where you can lock away like little valuables um but a lot of hostels now actually have sort of like drawers like two big drawers underneath the bed where you can put your whole bag in and then lock it up which is really handy it's also a neat way to like keep all your in one place I'm not very good at locking up my stuff I'm kind of just like eh whatever I probably should be more cautious about it um but here I am I've never been stolen from so well actually someone wants to know a towel from me in Albania and I'm still really annoyed about it because I really like that towel but it could have just blowed off the balcony as well I don't know I want to talk about the size of the dorm room some rooms will have four beds some will have eight ten twelve I've seen up to like 32 36 which is pretty daunting like that's a lot however the price difference between the huge rooms and the small rooms is usually a lot like it can be up to like 15 euros per night which is like a lot of money when you're traveling on a budget I always kind of weigh up where I am when I'm choosing this size say I'm in like a party town and I know I'm not really going to be partying every night I'm not going to want to stay in a room with 36 other people say I'm in Amsterdam there's a good chance that at least 30 of those people are going to be out late every night again not stereotyping just assuming but I was in Edinburgh and I stayed in a I think it was probably like a 20 bed dorm I was like oh this is gonna be tight but it was actually one of the best hostels I've stayed in it was a huge room all the bunk beds were against the walls so there were heaps of floor space and you weren't like in anybody's face everyone was quiet and courteous every bed had their own little lamp like no one got up in each other's Grill I think also the fact that it had a really good common room helped because no one was like hanging out in the room too much usually I will aim for like the eight bed four bed is ideal truly four beds ideal but that's not always gonna work out with your budget not every hostel is going to have small rooms again just like sauce it out go with your gut maybe read some reviews on hostel World perhaps there's someone on there being like never stay in this room it's terrible so let's talk about booking should you have a booking can you just rock up on the day how far in advance should you book so I would recommend booking in advance when I was traveling through Europe there were a few times where I just didn't book and I kind of rocked up and got a room however that did fail for me one time when I got to this town on like the weekend of a cool Film Festival there was only one hostel in the city and it was booked out and I was like whoops definitely worth looking in advance especially if you are in the busy areas like if you're in Western Europe if you're going to like Paris if you're going to Greece if you're going to London if you're going to Germany like book in advance for sure if you're going to like random places and you're not quite sure of where you're gonna be I think rocking up is fine if you're in the off season just rocking up it's okay but really if you want peace of mind and you know where you're gonna be book in advance I would recommend hostel world and booking.com are two good places to book there's usually not too many fees if you can book directly with the accommodation themselves even if it's just through like dming them on Instagram or sending them a message on Facebook or email or whatever because often they have to pay a fee to the booking website so it's kind of better to just give them your money directly it's not the easier option however wherever you can it's better to do it finally the number one thing that I would recommend I didn't do this enough and I wish I had is especially if you're alone book your hostel based on the activities and things that they offer so many hostels nowadays offer different things every night like activities whether it's a bar crawl whether it's like a cheap like family dinner where you will eat together whether it's a walking tour or like a tour out somewhere or a movie night or something like that it's such a good way to meet people always say yes to the activities often they're free or pretty cheap you're meeting people who are already in your hostel and if you hate it you can just leave I wish that I had done more of this when I was traveling I tended to book out the cheaper hostels which didn't have as many cool activities which was fine because I saved money however like I met some people in Prague and they were staying at this awesome hostel and every night they would have these cool activities and I'll just go back to my shitty hostel and be like oh this sucks I didn't stay there because it was like an extra 10 euros a night but I should have spent it because then I would have had fun and I would have met more people I think it's worth spending the money to stay in a hostel that offers stuff like that especially if you're a bit nervous about meeting new people hostel activities are the best way to do it that brings me to the end of this video yes staying in a hostel can be daunting if you've never done it before I remember the first few times I was like what the hell what am I doing but then I got kind of used to it I realized the perks I mean obviously every now and then I'm like this I'm going to get an Airbnb I do not want one more person to put their stinky socks on the end of my bed I cannot spend one more night with this drunk dude throwing in my face yes you will have those moments however overall hostels are good I wish I wish that more places had hostels like Europe imagine if America had the Hostile Network like Europe does it would look like that futuristic city meme it would be amazing really the best hostels are Europe South America and Asia Australia has some of their expensive the US has some but they're extraordinarily expensive but I hopefully this video has like given you a little bit more confidence made you a little bit more ready to dive into the world out of hostels again I have these two videos about hostel Essentials and packing lists thank you so much for watching this video I really hope you enjoyed it I didn't finish my beautiful terrible coloring in but that's fine you are a legend and I'll see you in my next video bye