An Ode to Hostels and the Person I Was When I Loved Them

Postmarked: May 17th, 2025 10:02pm, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The first time I slept in a hostel, I was 19.

I remember it like it was yesterday. A haven where like-minded travelers congregate. The classic archetypes all present—the perpetual traveler, the social glue, the one “finding themselves”, the checklister. I was lying wide awake in a coed room with twelve strangers, my passport tucked into my bra (safety first), someone snoring in the bunk above me, a fart slipping out from somewhere else in the dorm, the clock reading 4:00 am because the organized pub crawl just ended.

“This is LIVING,” I mouthed silently and to no one but myself.

I wouldn’t say I’m loyal to a hostel, but I do romanticize the idea of them. In the same way you romanticize anything that belongs to a specific era of your life, the joy, the chaos, the feeling that everything was happening all at once. Anytime we plan a trip, I ask, “What about a hostel?” I even suggested staying in a 9-person dorm for my honeymoon, which was promptly and correctly shut down.

Over the summer, my good friend Erin mentioned she had never stayed in a hostel. She’s the perfect combination of a yes friend who also doesn’t like to plan anything, so I seized on the opportunity. Excitement and enthusiasm pouring out of every orifice of my body. Here was a chance to relive the dreamy escapades of my 20s, an interrail trip.

“Let us know how it goes now that you’re 36,” friends chastised me.

But my dreams weren’t to be crushed. This was LIVING, remember.

The first night in Amsterdam, Erin and I got back to the hostel at 9:00 pm, just in time to see the pre-game for the hosted pub crawl getting started. We went to our dorm, the beats reverberating through the thin walls. No amount of white noise or earplugs able to block it out.

There’s a moment in your life that will happen, and nobody prepares you for it. It’s when you realize that even though you are still young, fun and vibrant, you would also really like a door that locks. Your inner monologue switches from I can rally to I just need sleep and a private bathroom.

The hostel days of yore, once my badge of honor, now feel like a chapter that might be time, to dare I say it, retire.

So consider this my love letter to hostels and the lessons they’ve taught me along the way, from someone who feels like she’s aged out of the bunk bed, not financially, but maybe, just maybe, emotionally.

The night before I was going to see my parents after 5 months of study abroad debauchery, my 15-person dorm room was hot-boxed. Forcing me to admit to my parents, who still believed me to be well-behaved and naive, that yes, I accidentally and very unintentionally got high.

The morning after an unintentional Grappa bender, I stumbled to the bathroom to find human feces (indeed, you read that correctly) on every surface of the bagno. A pile on the closed seat lid, dragged across the floor, in the sink and parts of the wall. After a cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die confirmation with my trio that neither of them was involved with this catastrophe in any way, shape or form, we packed quickly and took the first train out of that tiny seaside town.

I couldn’t wait to cuddle up in my allotted bed that night. So quietly entering the dark room, I hoisted myself up into the top bunk only to find a man passed out in the wrong bed (my bed, to be exact). Completely pissed and unbudgeable. I was solo, so I went to the bathroom in hopes of recruiting someone to help me move him. Three women obliged, and we successfully transferred him away from the bunkbed premises. Sweet dreams are made of this, and who am I to disagree?

Pleased with myself for actually having purchased food to use in the communal fridge in the common room, I tucked it away neatly, making sure I knew exactly what was mine. It was a loaded fridge, and I couldn’t wait to make myself breakfast. I circled back around to the common space that afternoon to find a woman full-on digging into the collective grub. “I’ve never been to a hostel before, I can’t believe they stock these places so well,” she said so excitedly. Honestly, I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was eating my yogurt.

I was so excited. We had “splurged” on a private room. A luxury I wasn’t often afforded at this point in my travel life. No one but my current partner-in-travel and … birds. We had left the windows open, despite being told not to, and somehow seven pigeons had moved in. After shooing them out, just one was left. With little to no energy left, I just went to sleep, hoping it didn’t poop on me. I don’t think I’ve ever shared that story. Adaptability is clearly a learned skill.

It was a 4-person all-female dorm in Galway, and I was 23. Her name was Lila. She was 78 and Irish. “I’m finally experiencing my land,” she told me. “I know I seem old to be here, but I’ve just decided to deem myself a wee hostel auntie.” My girlfriends and I spent the night at the hostel bar listening to her stories. One of my favorite memories.

So cheers to you, hostels around the world. You beautiful, weird, amalgamation of calamity and chaos wrapped in a bow that’s presented as a peaceful, but more importantly, cheap, place to lay one’s head at night.

This Hostel Auntie owes you for my sense of adventure, my tolerance for best laid plans gone wrong and for at least three lifelong friends I’ll never see again—and whose last names I never actually learned.

Oh, who am I kidding? They’ll have to pry the hostel key cards out of my cold, dead hands. It’s called LIVING, after all.

---

Tell me some of your most outrageous hostel stories.