When I was browsing through vacation rentals on the internet for an upcoming trip, I noticed a listing for a very cheap room. After looking into it further, I found out that it was actually a hostel instead of an actual house. Curious to find out more about this kind of accommodation and if it would be safe to stay in, I did some more research to put together all of the facts.
Is it safe to stay in a hostel? It is safe to stay in a hostel, as long as you thoroughly check reviews and keep an eye out for a few credentials.
Hostels are a cheap option for travel accommodation that have been around for years. They are usually set up as a common space with a series of bunk beds that all of the guests share. In addition, there is sometimes an option to rent out a private room.
In any circumstance, hostels are known for having much cheaper rates than the average hotel or motel vacation rental. If you had as many doubts as I did about the safety of staying at a hostel, keep reading to find out everything you need to know before you book.
Are Hostels Safe?
The question of whether or not hostels are safe to stay in can be answered in a number of ways. This is due to the fact that there are so many individual factors that will affect your experience while staying at one of these establishments.
Since the entire concept of a hostel is strangers all sleeping in a room together, there are so many things that could potentially go wrong. As with any circumstance where people come in contact with each other, you can never really know what to expect.
However, you can be on the lookout for a few credentials that will let you know whether or not the hostel that you are choosing to stay at will be safe or not. Take a look at the list below to find out what you should be in search of when it comes to finding the right hostel.
Characteristics of a Safe Hostel:
• They have lockers
• Technology for safety
The two main requirements that you should confirm before booking a stay at any hostel are the types of safety reinforcements that they have in place. First of all, the hostel that you stay at should always have personal lockers.
These lockers are assigned to each person who stays at the hostel, and are meant for storing personal belongings in a secure location where they cannot be stolen or tampered with.
If the hostel that you are looking at does not have lockers at all, you can infer that the rest of their security throughout the establishment is not as tight as it could be, to say the least.
Either way, if you are not able to secure your belongings away from all of the strangers that are sleeping around you, there is no way that you could possibly feel safe on your own.
The absence of lockers as a safety precaution in a hostel should clearly give away the fact that they are not as safe and secure as some of the other options, and you should continue in your search for a better accommodation.
You will also want to check the hostel’s website photos and reviews to get some information on what their security is like. If they are showing technologically advanced security measures such as electronic locks or magnetic check-in cards, you can book in confidence that you will be safe in that location.
A hostel that pays close attention to its security measures when it comes to securing your personal belongings as well as who can enter the premises will give you a hint that the area is safe to be in, with all other factors considered.
Keep reading to the next section to discover some helpful safety tips that you can follow while you are staying at a hostel, after you have made sure that the location is safe, of course.
Safety Tips For Staying At a Hostel
When it comes to staying at a hostel, or anywhere that you will be away from home, there are a number of safety tips that you should always keep in mind and some things act you should come prepared with.
Even though hostels can be safe environments for sleeping away on a vacation, especially once you have checked the safety factors that are discussed in the previous section, you will still want to stay on guard and be prepared for the worst during your trip.
With the right preparations and a sharp attention to the details that are going on around you, there is no harm in being extra safe when you are putting yourself in a situation to be sleeping with strangers.
The list down below will give you a general idea on some tips that you can follow for staying at a hostel safely, and we will go into a deeper explanation of each one throughout the rest of this section.
Safety Tips For Staying At a Hostel:
• Check reviews before booking
• Stay at a safe and secure hostel
• Use common sense
• Take advantage of private lockers
• Get familiar with the security staff
• Do your research on the city you will be staying in
• Travel in groups when possible
• Drink responsibly and always be aware
• Never open the door for strangers
• Don’t bring unwanted guests into the house
• Keep track of everything you own
• Make a copy of your passport ahead of time and store in your email
• Stash some extra money in a secret place
• Don’t arrive to the hostel after it gets dark
• Stick to gender-specific hostel rooms
• Try to reserve a private room if possible
First and foremost, you will need to check reviews of the hostel before you book anything and pay any money. To go along with checking if the establishment in question has lockers and technological advancements, you will need to see what past guests are saying about the location.
While you can find a lot of things about the hostel on their own website, what they people say in the reviews will always tell you the truth. You can’t go wrong spending some extra time reading through the feedback that was left by the people who stayed there.
Some of the reviews that are left on the internet might give you lots of helpful details, with some personal situations explained. Most of the time, you will be able to skim through a few comments that are directly related to you somehow that will assist you in making the decision of whether that particular hostel is right for you or not.
Booking.com and other travel websites are great places to find honest reviews from customers. Questioning is using Booking.com safe? check out that article to find out.
Once you have fully gone through everything that customers have to say about the particular hostel that you are interested in, you will be able to book with confidence, and continue in your endeavors with the rest of these safety tips in mind.
The reminder of the above list will apply to the time that you are actually staying at the hostel, with some preparations being made in advance before your travels.
As with any situation that involves being around people that you do not know for extended periods of time, you will want to make sure that you are using common sense. In other words, always be aware of your surroundings and what other people are doing.
While it is true that hostels are meant to be a safe place for people who are traveling and moving, meaning that it can be full of like-minded folks who are just looking for a bed to sleep in for a few nights, not everyone will have the best intentions.
This is not to deter you away from moving forward in your plans to stay at a hostel, because these experiences can actually be very enjoyable when you are paired with the right people. Remaining aware of your surroundings will just help you to be able to point out any danger before it comes to you, if there is ever an unpleasant situation.
Next, you will always want to take advantage of the private lockers. As mentioned in the previous section, most hostels will offer private lockers that are either in the same room that you sleep in or outside in one of the common areas.
Instead of leaving all of your personal belongings out in the open, you should place everything in the lockers while you are not present or while you are sleeping.
Even though you will most likely make friends with the people who are staying with you in the hostel, it is never a good idea to put too much trust into people that you do not know.
In addition, there are a lot of people who are frequently coming in and out of the hostel just like you did, and if you leave anything out near your bed, you run the risk of something being stolen or messed with by the time you get back.
The lockers are an included feature when you book a stay at a hostel, so you won’t have to worry about paying an additional premium to use it. It is available to you, and you should take full advantage to keep all of your belongings safe and avoid losing anything throughout your endeavors.
Upon your arrival to the hostel, it is always a good idea to become familiar with the staff and security. Whoever is running the operations and overseeing the establishment will ultimately be responsible for your safety during your stay at the hostel.
So, it will never hurt to introduce yourself to these people and get some helpful tips from them about how you can stay safe during your trip. After all, someone who has worked there for longer than you have stayed will be able to offer some good advice due to their understanding of safety procedures.
Along with getting to know the staff personally in case you have any questions, you will also want to do some of your own research of the city that you will be staying in. Try looking up the neighborhood of the hostel on the internet and reading some reviews about the area.
If people are saying bad things about the neighborhood as far as safety, you will be able to learn which specific areas to stay away from while you are out and about throughout your vacation.
The results of this research will also be a key indicator in whether the hostel itself is safe or not. So, if you look into these search queries before even booking your bed, you might be able to dodge a bullet in an unsafe area of town.
Besides just finding out whether the neighborhood is safe or not, you will want to know your way around the area in case you get lost. It is always beneficial to have a sense of direction when you are traveling to a new place, especially when you are by yourself.
If you have some kind of familiarity with the streets and areas around the hostel, you are less likely to get lost when you are departing or arriving back to your sleeping quarters.
As with almost any other activity that you can participate in, traveling is always safer and better when it is done in numbers. In other words, you should always travel with a partner or a group whenever it is possible.
Being alone is never the safest option, especially when it comes to sleeping in a bed with people that you don’t know surrounding you on all sides. If you are able to bring someone else with you on your vacation, you will be able to feel much safer knowing that another person has your back.
When it comes to going out on vacation and enjoying your time in another state or country, it is almost a given that you will be going out to drink and party on at least one of the nights during your stay.
If you plan on having one of these outings, you should be very careful when you get back to the hostel. First of all, you must be careful that you are not being too loud and disruptive to the other guests in order to avoid any issues that could come from it.
Keeping in mind that you are surrounded by total strangers, the drinking situation ties right back into staying aware of your surroundings and using your common sense. When it is time to get back to your room, you will want to make sure that you have been drinking responsibly and that you will be able to take care of yourself.
Hostels are usually one or several large spaces in a house that consist of an assortment of bunk beds and even private rooms. When guests come in to the hostel, they will usually enter through the same front entrance, with whatever security measures are in place.
When you are staying in a hostel, it is increasingly important that you never answer the door for strangers. Anyone who is authorized to stay there will be able to get in on their own using their key.
If they have not yet been granted access, the check in process is something that the hostel staff should handle. All in all, you should never take it upon yourself to let anyone in through the doors to avoid any potential problems with the safety of you and the other guests.
In addition, you should not be bringing any unwanted guests into the house without specific permission. In general, the people who have paid for they bed in the hostel will be the only people who are welcome to be there.
So, if you meet some friends at a local bar or you find someone new during your travels, it will not be a good idea to bring them to your place in the hostel. Since this is against the rules and you could possibly even get kicked out for breaking them, you will be very unsafe if you are out of a place to stay in the first place.
To go along with the rule of keeping everything in your private locker, you should generally keep track of everything that you have with you to avoid losing it. For the more important items like your travel documents and money, there are some additional precautions that should be taken.
For your passport, you will want to make a copy of all of its contents and send it to yourself electronically. By saving this information to your email, you will avoid any complications that can come with getting back to your country or identifying yourself in the event that you lose it or someone steals it.
On a vacation in another state or country, having cash with you can be very hectic. With so many other things to focus on while you are sleeping in a hostel or out and about during the day, it can be easy to forget the money that you have saved for your trip.
In order to stop these problems before they present themselves, you will want to stash away some extra money in a place that is separate from the rest of it. For instance, if you will primarily be carrying your money in the wallet inside your purse, you should begin by only bringing exactly what you will need for that day.
To make sure that you still have some savings in the event that you lose what you have somehow, you should take the excess and hide it in a secure location. Saving for a trip could be helpful to having a little extra cash. For the purposes of this example, this location could be in a small lock box or pouch stored in your private locker at the hostel.
This way, if your purse was stolen or forgotten while you were out during the day, you would not have to stress about having no money to your name while you are alone in a new place. Instead, you could just open up your locker and retrieve the money that you stashed away for a circumstance like this.
For each time that you will be entering the hostel, you should avoid doing so when night time has arrived and it is dark outside. This is especially true for the first time that you check in to the establishment.
It will be the most ideal situation to arrive tot he hostel for the first time when the sun is out, so that you can ensure your own safety and get familiar with the layout for future reference throughout the duration of your stay.
One of the more obvious safety tips is to stay in a gender-specific hostel. When it comes to traveling and staying in a hostel as a woman, there are plenty of concerns including the people who are sleeping around them.
This entire issue can be eliminated with the choice of staying in a gender-specific room at the hostel. Some hostels are completely one gender throughout. For instance, you might be able to find an all female hostel that only caters to women.
Most of the time, however, there are separate rooms in the same hostel building, one for men and another for women.
If you would rather not risk being around other people at all and would like to know that you are sleeping at night with the upmost security measures, you can opt for a private room instead of a bunk in one of the common areas.
While this is a great option for the more private individuals, there is not always an option for a separate room in every hostel that you might find.
What Do You Need To Stay In a Hostel?
Now that you have learned all about how to locate the safest hostel options as well as the safety tips that you should follow for the best experience, you might be wondering what else you need for a great hostel stay on your next vacation.
In this section, we will be going over the travel essentials that you will need to stay in a hostel, as outlined in the sample list below.
Hostel Travel Essentials:
• Earplugs
• Sleeping mask
• Packing cubes
• Headphones
• Backpack
• Padlock
• Toiletries
• Universal power adapter
• Phone charger
• Bag for dirty clothes
• Written address of hostel on paper
The first two items on the list are quite obvious, and will be needed when you are sleeping in bunks beside strangers. You never know who you might be bunking with, and what their snoring habits will be. By coming equipped with earplugs and a sleeping mask, you won’t even know that the other people are there while you sleep.
For the best packing experience, you should put your belongings in compressible packing cubes that will fit into small spaces for optimal organization. A good backpack is also great to have for keeping all of your things in once place. Understanding how to travel lite is key.
In order to use the personal locker that you will be given during your stay, you should have a padlock on hand to secure it. This is a must-have for any hostel stay, because without it, you might as well just leave your things out in the open.
Some of the other more obvious luggage items include travel sizes toiletries, headphones for music or noise cancellation, and a bag for all of your dirty clothes that is separate from everything else.
The last thing you would want on your trip is to not be able to charge your phone, which is why you should bring a USB cord as well as a universal power adapter, which will come in handy in foreign countries as well.
Lastly, you will want to bring a piece of paper with the written address of the hostel on it, just in case your phone dies and you are not able to get back when you are out during your vacation.
Should I Stay In a Hostel?
After reading through this article, there is no doubt that you are an expert on staying in a hostel. There are a number of factors that you can double check to make sure that the specific location will be safe and ideal for you to stay in.
With all of that being said, does this necessarily mean that you should stay in a hostel? Take a look at the list below to find out if this type of accommodation is right for you.
Things To Consider:
• Guest reviews
• Safety
• Sleeping arrangements
• Cost
Some of the main points to consider when making this decision are the guest reviews and the safety precautions that the hostel itself will take while you are in their care. There should always be adequate locks and security anywhere you are staying. Now you should be prepared to book one on your next trip. Possibly a trip to Asia or Europe or maybe just staying in the states.
Additionally, you will want to make sure that the sleeping arrangements are ideal, from gender separation to a private room. As long as the hostel of your choice fits your budget and meets all of these requirements, you should be good to go.