Backpacking the UK: A Guide to Hostels

What to Know Before You Go

So you’re going to the United Kingdom and you’re planning on roughing it.  A hostel is the cheapest place you can stay, and can be a great idea if you’re on a budget.  The problem is you’ve never been to the UK before and you’ve never stayed in a hostel before either.  Not a problem.  That’s what this guide is for!

Many people in the United States do not know what a hostel is, or perhaps only have a vague idea of what a hostel entails.  Some may mistakenly think that it’s like a hotel.  It’s absolutely not like a hotel at all.  The best way to describe it to someone who has never been to one is that it’s like a dorm at a college or boarding school.  The biggest difference is that instead of two or three people per room, there can be anywhere between four and twenty people in one room.  This all depends on how big the hostel is and varies from place to place.  Some of them have varying room sizes and some even have private rooms that one or two people can rent for an extra fee.

Hostels are very cheap and generally run between £8-20 ($15-38USD) per night per person.  The cheaper rooms are usually the least private, having more beds than their more expensive counterparts.  Rooms at the same hostel may vary by price.  For example, a room with only two bunks will generally be more expensive than a room with eight bunks.  Also, some hostels are owned by the same people or have a reciprocal agreement, so keep your eyes open for coupons that might be in their lounge or foyer that would be useful on another stop of your trip.  I found that most of the hostels charged an average of £12 a night.