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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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by jennm
