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The Thinkers' Guide to Staying in Buenos Aires: Youth Hostels

Travel writer Matt Chesterton may know more about the Buenos Aires hotel scene than anyone else on the planet, our words not his. When he isn't hiding from his creditors he is out and about in BA. For the next two weeks he will be busting myths and spouting off about the BA hotel scene. For starters, he has told us that La Cabaña is not the best steakhouse in Argentina, and rather, a national embarrassment, the kind of place that in previous epochs of "our" history would have been firebombed--reserved for Steakhouse Suckers, his words, not ours. This is exactly the kind of unadulterated sentiment you can expect to find here in the next couple of weeks--plus he is hilarious. If you wish to use this time to ask him a burning question you have about BA hotels, shoot it our way, and we will hand deliver it to him. Enjoy.

Ostinatto Hostel, Buenos Aires

Euphemisms rule. If an enemy accidentally drops high explosives on your home and wastes you, you're 'collateral damage'. If a buddy accidentally drops high explosives on your Humvee, and wastes you, you're a victim of 'friendly fire'.

We could drone on in this sub-Jerry Seinfeld vein for ever, but what's it got to do with accommodation in BA? Not a lot, except perhaps this. There doesn't seem to anything called simply a 'youth hostel' anymore. It may look like a youth hostel, it may sound like a youth hostel, it will sure as hell smell like a youth hostel. But the owners won't market it as such - not when they can call it a 'chill house', a 'design budget lodging' or - and this is our favorite because it sounds like a cross between a frathouse and a train station - 'party central'.

This isn't a sneer, it's a cheer. The youth hostels we remember from our distant youth had one thing in common: they all blew. The ones we remember from travels round our British homeland blew the hardest of all. They were owned by the kind of hippies other hippies avoided. The 'menu' was lentil stew for supper, tea with powdered milk for breakfast, lentil rissoles for lunch. The architecture could be described thus: one thing over your head to keep the rain from hitting you, four things surrounding you to keep the wind from hitting you. If you were really lucky there would be a ping-pong table in some freezing outhouse, with a sagging net and bats with the rubber peeling off. For the honor of flopping in such a hellhole you had to do 'chores'. At least in the army they give you decent food and some expensive lethal gizmos to mess around with.

So why do we feel a twinge of nostalgia for such places? Same reason people miss their brutal boarding schools. The more dismal the environment, the crueler the authorities, the more esprit de corps in the ranks. We were all in this shit together. The worse the conditions, the more fun it was to whine about them. Friendships forged in these old-school hostels would last for days, sometimes even weeks.

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Tags: Buenos Aires Hotel Reviews / Buenos Aires Hotel Guide / Buenos Aires Budget Hotels / Matt Chesterton / → All Tags

The Thinkers' Guide to Staying in Buenos Aires: Budget Hotels

Travel writer Matt Chesterton may know more about the Buenos Aires hotel scene than anyone else on the planet, our words not his. When he isn't hiding from his creditors he is out and about in BA. For the next two weeks he will be busting myths and spouting off about the BA hotel scene. For starters, he has told us that La Cabaña is not the best steakhouse in Argentina, and rather, a national embarrassment, the kind of place that in previous epochs of "our" history would have been firebombed--reserved for Steakhouse Suckers, his words, not ours. This is exactly the kind of unadulterated sentiment you can expect to find here in the next couple of weeks--plus he is hilarious. If you wish to use this time to ask him a burning question you have about BA hotels, shoot it our way, and we will hand deliver it to him. Enjoy.

Gran Hotel Hispano Atrium

Exclusively for the readers of HotelChatter, we are about to reveal a fact that will doubtless shock and disgust you as much as it has shocked and disgusted us. We have uncovered the existence of a group of people whose habits - indeed, whose very existence - is an affront to contemporary civilization and to the values that nourish and sustain our society. Those readers who prefer to remain in blissful ignorance of the presence in our midst of such evildoers and miscreants are strongly advised to hit the 'back' button now. We won't mince our words. This is XXX-rated stuff.

What we have learned is this. There are people living among us who don't want to pay $150 per night to stay in a BA hotel.

Take a deep breath. Wait for the room to stop spinning. Then read on.

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