Hostel Life Experience - Part II

................continued

Sleeping

Sleeping at hostels can prove difficult if you are a light sleeper. People tend to snore, come in and out of the room at all hours, turn the lights on and off in the middle of the night, and in general be disruptive to a good night's sleep. I am a notorious light sleeper, the click of a doorknob has been know to awaken me, however, I must say I rarely had any problem sleeping in hostels. Reason? I was tired at the end of each day I slept like a rock most nights.

Do not expect to sleep in at hostels. Most people are out of the room by 9:00 a.m. or 9:30 a.m. regardless of what a hostel's opening hours are. Some roommates get up very early to catch a plane or train. Most people seem to get up about 7:00 a.m. or 7:30 a.m. If a hostel doesn't have restrictions about when you can be in your room, feel free to try to sleep in, but there is usually so much to do and see that you'll want to be out and about.

What you will be needing: sleep sheet, travel alarm clock, eye mask & ear plugs

Eating

While traveling I ate a lot of sandwiches. Buy a loaf of bread, meat & cheese, and the condiment of your choice (I searched high and low before I finally found French's Yellow Mustard at a grocery store) and make a bag of sandwiches. This is very economical and depending on how much you eat, serves you quite a few meals.

To compliment my many sandwiches I also bought fresh fruit (apples last quite a while), chips, cookies, and sometimes yogurt. You might notice an extreme lack of vegetables in my diet. I tried to make up for this when I cooked or ate out at a restaurant. As I am a huge vegetable fan, I can say my efforts at maintaining a somewhat healthy diet were all that successful.

If you are lucky enough to stay at a hostel with a kitchen, you can expand your meal repertoire to include spaghetti & other pasta based meals, soup, stir-fry, omelets, or whatever you know how to cook. I am Asian, I always carved for conventional Asian foods with matching soup and steamed rice.

I must also mention that some hostels serve cheap meals. I took advantage of this on many occasions. This is especially true at hostels that have a pub or bar. Examples of menu items: Fish & Chips, Pot Pies, Chicken Fingers & Fries, Pizza, Hamburgers, Spaghetti & Meatballs, Tuna Salad, Green Salads, Soup, Goulash, etc.

Typical Day's Meals
Breakfast: Coffee or tea or juice and the choice of cookies, piece of fruit (apple, oranges or banana), toasted bread & jelly, or cereal.

Lunch: Sandwich, chips, piece of fruit.

Dinner: Soup & sandwich (sometimes, especially if I had a late lunch, I skipped dinner or just had a snack)

What you will be needing: water bottle (just buy a bottle of water and keep refilling it with tap water), cork screw (if you plan to drink wine),tea bags or instant coffee, small container of your favorite condiment (like mustard),utensils (if you plan to picnic).

Laundry
Talk dirty to me
Okay, I don’t advocate never washing your clothes for a month or more, but unless you are taking part in extreme (sweat inducing) activities and/or are a complete slob (i.e. people can tell what you had for lunch by looking at your shirt), many articles of clothing (especially shirts & trousers/jeans) can be worn more than one time.

Things you can do to cut down on how often you wash your clothes are taking a shower/bath everyday, wearing underarm anti-perspirant/deodorant, airing out your clothes at night, and keeping fresh smelling sachet in your backpack.

What you will be needing: good hygiene, underarm antiperspirant/deodorant, scented sachet or dryer sheets, a PVC Mesh or heavy duty zip-lock bag to store your dirty underwear or a 2-sided half cube (one side for clean clothes, one side for dirty)

Sink or Spin Some things are not meant to be washed in sinks. Jeans come to mind immediately as something I would never attempt to wash in the sink (let alone air dry). In fact, the only things I wash in sinks are socks and underwear. Trying to wash anything larger just isn’t very practical. Most sinks in hostels don’t have drain stoppers, so be sure to bring your own (though stuffing one of your socks in the whole while you’re washing everything else works pretty well).

What you will be needing: laundry soap sheets or liquid laundry packets, no-clothes-pin clothes line, sink stopper, plastic zip-lock bag to keep dirty socks and underwear in

“This is the way we wash our clothes…”
Most hostels have a washer and dryer or drying room. Some machines are coin operated, some you pay for at the front desk, and occasionally they are even free. Many times washing detergent is included in the price or can be purchased for a nominal fee. If no detergent is available, then use the liquid detergent you use when you wash your clothes in the sink.

What you will be needing: Money, laundry soap sheets, something to wear while you are washing your clothes.

Night Life
Most days, I returned to my hostel between 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. If the hostel had a kitchen and I had made my way to a local grocery store, I would cook dinner when I returned. If no kitchen was available I would make a sandwich or go out and find a cheap meal.

If I happened to have made friends at a hostel where I was staying, we might go out to a restaurant for dinner, go out for a drink at a local bar or pub, or go out to play computer games. I'm not much of a party animal, so I couldn't tell you what the club scene is like in Europe.

Other nights at hostels were spent writing in my journal, watching television or movies in the hostel's community living area, playing cards, reading, playing pool, or just talking with my fellow travelers. I usually went to bed by 11:00 p.m.-11:30 p.m. Like I said, I was generally tired out after a long day exploring a city.

Security Many hostels give keys or keycards to all the people staying in a particular room. Usually you have to pay a refundable deposit for the key--this is to ensure you won't lose it I guess. Having a room with a lock cuts down on who has access to your room, so if something should turn up missing it will narrow you list of suspects. I never had any problems with theft and in general it seemed to rarely happen in hostels.

During the day I left my backpack on or under my bed while I was out. Very few hostels had in-room lockers for luggage. Most hostels did have locked luggage rooms by the front desk, but I never felt like hauling my stuff back and forth.

There really was nothing in my backpack worth stealing, just clothes and toiletries. All valuables (money, camera, passport, etc.) should be with you at all times. If you don't leave items behind that will tempt thieves, theft shouldn't be an issue.

As a precaution, I did have the zippered compartments of my backpack locked with small combination locks.

What you will be needing: money belt, combination lock or key lock for hostel lockers, combination luggage locks for backpack zippers.

Hostel Life Experience - Part I

Hostel Life Experience is the article we are going talk about now. In addition to the previous articles you have read here, you are probably planning now to essentially try living in hostels for an overnight, maybe days, few weeks or maybe months. Maybe your curiosity is driving you crazy to have that "Hostel Life Experience".

What I would like you to do is to follow the following simple steps or guides for you to finally breath-in that hostel life experience:

Look and decide a hostel you want to live in.
You can search online, consult a guide book to find out which hostel best meets your needs. As a traveler, it is highly recommended that you buy a guide book and always bring it with you wherever you go. A guide book will always provide you an idea about hostel life experience. Choosing a hostel is always up to you but sometimes, however, that is not the case. You have to take what is available or what you can get. To avoid that situation, you can make hostel reservations at many hostels online or call them by phone. But on the spur of the moment that you decide to go to a place or somewhere and find yourself with limited or no internet access, then rely on your guide book. Recommendations of other travelers would be an excellent help for you to choose a good hostel. This is the first step to hostel life experience.

For instance, at some hotels you can actually request to stay in a single sex room (all male or female) or co-ed room (both genders share a room). Some hostels offer both types, some offer only one type. Generally, I recommend the girls to get the single sex rooms because typically girl's don't snore as much hehehehe but it's more fun to mingle with opposite sex.


You can also request a 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 person room or a large dorm room (10+ person room). I generally paid a little extra for a 4 or 6 person room, specially the co-ed ones.

Another thing to request is a lower or upper bunk (since most hostels primarily use bunk beds), if you have a preference and if they assign individual beds. Some hostels just assign you a room and you take any available bed, some hostels assign you a particular bed. I always requested a lower bunk because I often need to make a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Getting down from a bunk in the dark is not something I particularly enjoy.


While you're at the front desk they might also ask you if you wish to rent sheets (not necessary if you bring a sleep-sheet with you) and in some cases a blanket (only had this happen in Amsterdam's Flying Pig Downtown hostel). Also if the hostel has pay showers, you might be asked if you would like to buy tokens for the shower. You can encounter pay showers at some hostels in Switzerland and Austria--pay showers aren't too bad if you are good at taking a 5 to 6 minute shower, which is not as impossible as it may sound.

Okay, so you've determined the availability of the room you want, now you can either pay before you see the actual room or you can request to see the room first. Generally, I paid before seeing the room. This only worked against me once, but I survived. If the hostel seem particularly seedy or unsavory, definitely ask to see the room first before parting with your money.

To be continued...............

What To Expect In A Hostel

What to expect in a hostel is something I would like to share with you in this article. These days hostels come in all sizes and shapes, they are all different within each country but the best modern hostels you can find are Australia hostels which include swimming pools and some rooms with en-suite.

City hostels are either 24-hour reception or give you 24 hour access once you check in. Hostels will hold luggage for you while you travel and most have parking - for fee in big cities. Most of the time, travelers in hostels are out of the room.

Some hostels are extremely nice, very safe and very private, but believe it or not, others are none of the above and you really need to be careful about choosing the right hostel by checking on the rate-reviews, comments, given by previous travelers who have stayed there through the hostel's website or through hostelworld.com or lonelyplanet.com.

What to expect in a hostel when you get there is a friendly host who will show you where your bed is. You may be assigned in a room with quite few people, have a clean towel , have access to the bathroom at all times. Hopefully, you are not going to be put in a room with too many strangers whom you don't know their sleeping habit-if they snore, sleepwalkers, late night people and loud. You have to be very flexible when staying in a hostel but your safety and belongings should not be compromised. What to expect in most hostels is a safe where you can lockup your travelers check, passports and cash but you're not encouraged to keep a lot of cash with you at all times.

But generally, hostels are great cost-effective ways to visit major cities and rural areas. Hostels, (but not at this time in the Philippines), are all over the place. You can meet some really really cool people at hostels and a lot of international travelers-backpackers who are staying in a hostel. It's nice you get a different feeling, flavor and experience while in a hostel. So, these are enough information on what to expect in a hostel.

Hostel - Budget Accommodation

Great News!!!

Hostel - Our Melting Pot is now ready to accept online booking.

Just click the following link "Our Melting Pot".

Or email us at ourmeltingpotbackpackers@gmail.com.

Hostels Advantages and Disadvantages

Hostels Advantages and Disadvantages over other conventional accommodations such as hotels, are important to be discussed in this blog so that readers especially those who are wanting to experience traveling as backpackers. Some major advantages of hostels include the following:

• Hostels tend to be budget-oriented; rates are considerably lower, and many hostels have programs to share books, DVDs and other items.

• Secondly, for those who prefer an informal environment, hostels do not usually have the same level of formality as hotels.

• Another advantage, for those who prefer to socialize with their fellow guests, is that hostels usually have more common areas and opportunities to socialize. The dormitory aspect of hostels also increases the social factor.

However, the following may be considered disadvantages of hostels:

• There is less privacy in a hostel than in a hotel. Sharing sleeping accommodation in a dormitory is very different from staying in a private room in a hotel and might not be comfortable for those requiring more privacy. But this is also an advantage in some ways, because it encourages more social interaction between guests.

• Theft can be a problem, since guests may share a common living space, but this can be avoided by securing guests' belongings. Most hostels offer some sort of system for safely storing valuables, and an increasing number of hostels offer private lockers.

• Noise can make sleeping difficult on occasions, whether from snoring, sexual activity, someone either returning late or leaving early or the close proximity of so many people. This can be solved by carrying earplugs. This particular disadvantage of hostels is somehow expected since hostels are usually dormitory type of accommodation.
  

Will you ever want to live in this type of accommodation the hostels offer? I recommend to those who have not tried it yet. I know you will enjoy a night stay or two in a hostel now that you are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of hostels.

Travel Hostel - Cheap Accommodation

Travel Hostel is the title of this article. It is all about the experiences of travelers who prefer to stay in a hostel other than the conventional pricey accommodation. But it is better to define what hosteling means for the sake of those who are new to this experience.

A Hostel also called "Youth Hostel" is basically a hotel providing overnight lodging for travelers or hikers. Hostels provide budget oriented (inexpensive supervised lodging specially for youths), sociable accommodation where guests can rent a bed, sometimes a bunk bed, usually in a dormitory and share facilities such as bathroom, lounge and sometimes a kitchen. A hostel can also be defined simply as a temporary refuge for the homeless providing a bed and sometimes food (bed and breakfast). It is used for residential purposes usually on a temporary basis.

The rooms in a hostel can be mixed or single-sex, although private rooms may also be available. Hostels are generally cheaper for both the operator and the occupants; many hostels employ their long-term residents as desk clerks or housekeeping staff in exchange for free accommodation.

Hostels for travelers are sometimes called backpackers' hostels, (often abbreviated to just "backpackers").

I decided to make a blog about Travel Hostel because I myself is a backpacker. It is my passion. Every time I travel specially abroad, I prefer to be with fellow backpackers. But staying in a hostel does not mean you are on a tight budget. Sometimes it is true but often you're backpacking for more reasons than one. It is an opportunity to gain friends..... from all over the world. You learn and experience about other people's culture in your temporary little corner of the world. Most of all, there is no pressure to put up a front -- you can be yourself easily when you're with like-minded individuals. Those learning and experiences led me to put up my own hostel right in the heart of Makati City, Philippines which I named it Our Melting Pot.

Have you ever stayed in a mixed or single-sex room with ten (10) different individuals and nationalities? If not, read all articles here and maybe you would want to try once in your lifetime or never try at all. If yes, this is the right time and the right place to post your experience whether that experience is negative or positive.
Suggestions on where and what to do to enjoy a particular place are also welcome here.

Let this blog be the melting pot for other interested bloggers to post their hostel experience, if any.

What are you waiting for? Let the readers of this blog know what you think about Travel Hostel!

Cheapest Vacations - Introduction

Cheapest Vacations is devoted to information about budget accommodations, recommended places to visit, travel news & updates, tips, related travel links, cheap flights, airline promos, best and practical ways to do things while on vacation, cultures, backpackers hostels, backpacking experiences, etc, especially in the Philippines.

After this introductory article, you will read about travel hostel or hostel accommodation because it is almost impossible to discuss cheapest accommodation without touching on hosteling, or even more specifically, backpacking. Hostel accommodation is one of the ways and perhaps the key to realizing an enjoyable vacation on a budget. It helps a traveler to maximize one's resources to get more of planned itineraries. If you have not tried hostel accommodations or heard about it, then I suggest you continue to read on about hostels and search them online through related links which I provided in each topic for further information. You may also get tips from travel guides where those authored by D&K or Lonely Planet lead the pack of most useful and informative reading materials.

Anyway, continuing on my personal agenda of being your informal counselor in the Philippines on options you may avail related to cheapest vacations, I'd like to say that the Philippines, contrary to more popular notion, is a paradise that is so much affordable on anyone's pocket. The reason why one ends up spending more when island hopping in this archipelagic nation essentially stems from not having enough useful information in implementing one's itinerary more efficiently and effectively. The Philippines is a traveler-friendly country. It is certainly not much of a touristic site like Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur, but it gives you what you wish for as a traveler if you have done sufficient research and investigation before embarking on your most important tour in this touted Pearl of the Orient Seas.

So, I warmly welcome you to my newest blog site but meantime I shall hold you in suspense because when I write again, you will be treated to many insightful or practical tips that will allow you to realize your dream of cheapest vacations.