Hostel Life Experience - Part II

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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.