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Tags: Budget Hotels / Fort Lauderdale Hotels / South Beach Group / Hostels / → All Tags
South Beach Goes Hollywood, Budget Hollywood
No, no, the SoFla folks aren’t coming west, just heading north. The self-described “hip hotel group” The South Beach Group has just announced a new property in Hollywood Beach, Florida. But don’t look to their Miami Beach boutique hotels—Catalina, Riveria South Beach, Whitelaw, et. al—for clues to the new digs: this baby is a two-in-one, the Hollywood Beach Hotel + Hostel.
Tags: Hostels / Philadelphia Hotels / Budget Hotels / → All Tags
What The Economy Hath Wrought: Hostel Stays
IKEA furniture, an eye-assaulting color scheme, and a bongo drum can mean only one thing: we're in an American hostel. It's Apple Hostel, a member of Hostelling International in Philadelphia's Old City, to be more precise. Unimpressed with the hotel offerings in Philly and determined to keep our entire weekend trip under $100, we revisited this institution of responsibility-free youth and got in touch with our inner vagabond.
Everyone may be familiar with European hostels, those dens of Aussie accents and pub crawls, but American ones done right turn out like Christian youth centers; in fact some of our roommates were in town for anti-gun protests. Overall, this was the quietest and least-partying hostel we've ever stayed at, and we've slept across the rainbow of hostels in our day, from bedbugs in Brooklyn to luxury in Luxembourg.
Tags: Los Angeles Hotels / Hostels / Hotel Promotions / → All Tags
Hotels Do the Weirdest Things To Get Press
It might look like a Pier 1 Imports display or a Pottery Barn catalog. But the bedroom window display in the Downtown Los Angeles with living, breathing people in it is a hotel. Or at least a peek of a new hotel/hostel hybrid.
That's right. Five actor/model/personalities will be living--on display--in two storefront model hotel rooms as part of new and hot Stay's "Stay in a Bubble" Promotion.
How do we know it's hot? Well, from the press release which included descriptors like youthful, high-energy, high-tech, simple, stylish, and inexpensive for the hip and spend-thrify traveler. Also, because they have a wacky marketing campaign. (This is also secret code for "decorated by Ikea.")
Tags: Odd Hotels / Airport Hotels / Airplane Hotels / Hostels / Sweden Hotels / → All Tags
Swedish Hosteler Converts Jumbo Jet into an 85-Bed Hostel
We've all salivated over those fancy first class airplane seats up front that fold down into a bed, but unless we come into an inheritance soon, we'll never get out of the back of the plane.
However, there is a novel way of sleeping on a 747--by spending a night at the Jumbo Hostel.
Gizmodo reports that Oscar Diös--a hostel owner in Sweden--managed to purchase a grounded Boeing 747, finagle all the necessary red tape, and convert the plane into a hostel anchored at the entrance to Arlanda airport (north of Stockholm, in case you're wondering).
If you're headed to Sweden in December or later, you should book one of the 25 rooms. WiFi and flat screens (showing departure times) are included in the 6-square-meter rooms. Private facilities, for the most part, aren't.
If you're feeling splurgey though, you should definitely try to nab the pilot's digs -- the luxury suite in the converted cockpit with a panoramic view of the airport.
We hope Oscar has better luck with his hostel than the plane's last owner, the bankrupt Transjet.
[Photo: Gizmodo]
Tags: Hostels / Philadelphia Hotels / Hotel Technology / Wii Hotels / Budget Hotels / Facebook Hotels / → All Tags
Where to Play Wii in Philly:: The Loftstel Philadelphia
Combine "loft" and "hostel" and you have the pretty-tricky-to-pronounce Loftstel Philadelphia, a neat looking hostel that caught our attention because they have a Nintendo Wii you can use for free in the communal living room.
Beyond the Wii, there are other reasons to crash at the Loftstel if you're traveling on a budget. They cater mostly for long-term guests--the average length of stay is five weeks--so it's the kind of place you might want to stay if you're moving to Philly and looking around for a place to rent, or if you're interning there for the summer.
Tags: Hostels / Tangier Hotels / Budget Hotels / → All Tags
The Best Little Hostal in Tarifa
Yesterday we mentioned how when we visited Tarifa, Spain, in preparation for a trip to Tangier Morocco, we stayed at a hostel--certainly not something that made T+L's It List, though it does deserve to be on the list of any budget-minded traveler who appreciates friendly staff, a clean room and a hot shower.
Hostal Alborada offered us a large double room (though with a bit of an anti-view), full bath (all rooms here have full baths), TV and free working WiFi for just $94 per night.
The family-owned operation also houses it's own café, serving up small items like croissants and fresh-squeezed O.J., as well as two clean and sunlight indoor "patio" areas.
Tags: Hostels / Budget Hotels / Hamburg Hotels / → All Tags
A Hip Hostel for Hamburg?
Our inbox just brought word of a recently opened hotel/hostel/lounge in Hamburg, Germany, and we must say that staying in a hostal has never looked like so much fun.
The place is called Superbude, a name we find ourselves partial to for no other reason than that it reminds us of the hilarious "Superbad." Rooms, priced from about $90, come with up to four beds and are spread across six different colored floors. Guests get to choose whether they want to stay on the brown, grey, red, pink, green or blue level.
Amenities include in-room TVs, a Wii sports room, an in-house "private cinema," Skype cordless phone rentals and a Kitchen Club, comprised of three fridges full of food for the paid-taking. However, the best part may just be rooms' individual showers. Turn the loo's red light on to turn it into a discoteque: the mirror, your discoball; the showerhead, your mic.
Problem is, the hostal is so new (it opened April 18) it lacks guest reviews. So, if you've recently stayed here, let us know about it, bathroom concert review optional.
Tags: Hotel Video Tours / Uruguay Hotels / Hostels / → All Tags
Hotel Video Tours: El Diablo Tranquilo
We don't normally talk about hostels here because, well, the site's not called HostelChatter. Still, even we've been known to stay in a place or two with bunk beds--just not in the dorm rooms.
During our Uruguay Field Trip for Jaunted, we stopped at a sleepy beach town called Punta del Diablo. Pretty much everything in town is a week-or-longer vacation rental, so since we were only staying for a couple nights, El Diablo Tranquilo was basically our only option.
Fortunately, the property has two suites that are plenty nice and come with a private bathroom and balcony. And before you say, "I'd never stay at a hostel," know that our ocean-view suite was just $40 a night.
Tags: Barcelona Hotels / Hostels / Green Hotels / Hotel Hype / → All Tags
Chic and Green Urbany Coming to Barcelona Budget Scene
Whoever thinks traveling must be expensive and environmentally unfriendly hasn't yet heard of the Barcelona Urbany. The Urbany is actually a hostel, with plans to open from June 1 this year, but it's certainly not going to be a run-of-the-mill, downscale backpackers.
The green side of the Urbany has already begun with the building process. They're using a special material to create a noise-absorbing facade and installing a rainwater harvesting system, and when the hostel is up and running, they'll be recycling 50% of the water being used.
Since it's a new place, it's also easy for them to start out right with energy-efficient, low consumption lighting.
On the "we're more than a backpackers' hostel" side, Urbany will have free Wifi for guests, a large swimming pool, and as well as dorm rooms will also offer single and double bedrooms with en suite bathrooms. In total, they'll be able to accommodate 400 guests in a 13-floor building.
Rates haven't been published yet, so we'll keep an eye on it closer to the 1 June opening date to find out if green and fancy can still translate to a reasonably-priced hostel.
Tags: Sydney Hotels / Budget Hotels / Hotel Renovations / Hostels / → All Tags
The Base Hotel: The Pod Hotel's Down Under Cousin?
It seems like hostels and budget hotels in Sydney are starting to meet in the middle--especially if you consider the case of Base Sydney, a hostel that markets heavily to backpackers but is trying to aim higher.
Base has just done A$2 million worth of renovations to target the "affordable yet upscale" market of travelers, young and old. Gone are the days when hostels offer just huge rooms of bunk beds filled with snoring backpackers; Base now offers suites with king-sized beds, ensuites and plasma TVs. Much like NYC's Pod Hotel which got a similar high-tech face lift.
If you shack up with some other travelers in a dorm room, a night at Base will set you back from A$28 (US$25), and the suites with bathrooms start at $99 (US$89). Very reasonable already, especially for the center of Sydney, but then they throw in extra deals like free airport pickup if you book three nights or more. Ok, so this is more like the totally cheaper Pod Hotel cousin.
Some of the recent guest feedback lists complaints like cold showers and broken locks, but perhaps the couple of million bucks has fixed this.
Related Stories:
· Bigger Base for Sydney Backpackers [ehotelier]
· Hotels in Sydney [HotelChatter]
· Travel Stories in Sydney [Jaunted]
· Hotel Video Tour: The Pod Hotel [HotelChatter]
Tags: Anti-View / Amsterdam Hotels / Hostels / Hotel Hell / → All Tags
Anti-View: 14 People To A Room And Here Is What You See
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
[Update: Ok, we screwed this up, the view Joe sent us was not from the Flying Pig, it was from another Amsterdam hotel. However, the F'ing Pig still does sleep 14 to a room, you can see a room that sleeps at least 6 above--but that view is actually kind of killer. Sorry, but rest assured, the photo above is a view from the F'ing Pig.]
Editor's Note:
[We don't usually talk about hostels, but when hotel mavens stay in places like the Flying Pig, we can't help but laugh, oh and share. Hotel Maven Joe is a man of many words.
We parsed Joe's Amsterdam Anti-View tale of woe in two--Part 1 is here and just read more for Part 2. Enjoy.
Thanks Joe!]
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