For anyone reading this who is a first time traveler, or is about to be, or wants to travel in a different way, heed my warning: hostel living is the tenth circle in hell (they did make a horror movie about it)

If you are staying for a night, you’re grand. Bring locks with you (locker, luggage and bike locks so you can lock your bag to your bed if said bed permits), flip flops for the shower and not a tonne of luggage and you’ll be laughing. BUT. If you are staying for a few days, there are things you need to be aware of. First, try and stay at a hostel with a self serve kitchen. This allows you to save money on food by buying some groceries and cooking up something for yourself instead of always going out to eat. Laundry within the hostel is usually cheaper than the coin laundry on the streets, so do it there if you can. Luggage storage is lovely for the days you arrive and leave if you have early and late flights. Towel rentals are handy and save on space in your luggage so that you have room for those $200 worth of clothes you just had to have because there’s nothing like them back at home (there is). Also, you should probably like people.

Some people are blissfully ignorant that they are in a dorm room with up to 24 other people (try for the ten bed dorms or less). These people have no problem whatsoever with coming in at 2AM or getting up at 6AM and turning on all the lights and/or talking quite loud and/or making as much noise as they can while they find their underwear and noisy hair tools (think of it as a 14 year old coming home drunk to their parents for the first time and trying to act like they aren’t. Only these people are not drunk). They are also probably the same people that spray copious amounts of deodorant/perfume/cologne/Axe whilst in the room, serving as a smoke bomb dropped and the rest of us suffocating, puking and eventually seizing on the bed, gasping our last breaths. There is always at least one who will do this. I had one at the hostel I was overjoyed to stay in last week.

Lets call him Bob.

I can’t recall Bob’s nationality, but he was in his mid to late 40s and he had a booming voice at every hour of  the 72 hour period in which he stayed. The first night he was in the dorm, he came in at 12 at night and was talking on his phone and opening up his trunk that was stored under his bed and kept pounding the lock against the wood. After five minutes of fiddling and clanking around with the lock, he opened it and proceeded to whisk around his trunk the plethora of aerosol cans he brought with him. Finally, an Argentinian girl who was across of him poked her head from behind her curtain and asked him to keep it down, she and her friend above her were trying to sleep. He answered with a barrage of questions for her such as where she was from, who was her friend, was it a boy or girl, how long were they staying, where were they going next, did they want to have breakfast together.. She ignored him and closed her curtain. Poor Bob. He finally got his stuff figured out with a great deal of huffing and sighing and went to bed. That same morning, at 5AM, Bob thought it was 730AM and decided it was time to turn on every single light and start the process of playing around with his lock and trunk again. This is when Jeremy woke up and starting losing his English/Irish biscuits at Bob, calling him a plethora of colourful English names – all of which I made mental notes of because some of them were quite brilliantly inventive. Bob quietly retreated back to his bunk and waited until it was actually 730 to return to his lock and trunk duties.

Jeremy was an unusual, half English, half Irish character who gave me the proper heebie jeebies on more than one occasion and kept weird hours. He slept all day and went out around 8 at night and wouldn’t return until 430 at the earliest. He also had a skullet comb over. Think about that and let it sink in for a second. Not a good look, is it? Unfortunately for me. the skullet was not the only think Jeremy had against him. I made the very. very. bad decision to get changed once in the room. It was just after 23:00, most of my dorm mates were either far gone into their dreams in bed or were out. So I went to the corner, hidden partially by the bunks and put my back to the door. My back is almost fully tattooed and it tends to garner attention whenever any skin is bare and that night was no different. I was shirtless and about to unhook my bra when Jeremy happened to merrily stumble into the room which proved to be quite early for him. I quickly scrambled and slid my shirt back on, but it was too late. I was slowly being backed into my corner and was getting blasted with drunken questions. I answered them with short, quick answers and brushed him off. I had my back to him as I was gathering items off my bunk when I felt it. All the hair on my body stood tall as I got that feeling of a hovering hand over my back and then it happened. He lightly brushed one of them. Which caused me to jump and rip into him and then I crawled into my top bunk, drew the curtain and curled into the fetal position while texting a buddy in London for comfort as Jeremy kept whispering sorry. I had nightmares that night that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

The first two nights, someone was snoring so bad. It sounded like they were trying to gobble up the world with every intake of breath and then they’d motorboat as they exhaled. I never thought I’d encounter anyone who would give my mother a run for her snoring money but apparently I was incredibly wrong. I couldn’t stop laughing at first. But then I got over it right quick when I couldn’t fall asleep.

One dude who only stayed one night kept talking weird in his sleep, and then would laugh maniacally throughout the night. Thankfully this didn’t happen while Jeremy was there, or else I’m pretty sure I would’ve ended up in a padded room.

The last night I was there, I’m pretty sure someone puked in their mouths and swallowed it again. At least that’s what it sounded like.

And someone stole my pajamas off my bed.

It’s not always like this. It may just be me who has these types of hostel experiences. I have had necklaces stolen, I have been locked out at 2am, a street away from a street full of strip joints (we were later let in by someone staying at the hostel who thought we looked Canadian enough to let us in. We then broke in to the manager’s desk and stole our room keys and let ourselves in), and have had a dorm squatter sleep under my feet. But I’ve been told lovely stories about everyone else’s sociable and enjoyable hostel experiences. Hopefully there are those out there who have had it as bad as I (misery loves company in this instance) and if so, please do share. I will say this, if I didn’t have these stories, I really wouldn’t have much to talk about after I travel. My stories tend to go: the scenes were fantastic, people were good, food and beer were great but boy, let me tell you allll about what happened at the hostel!