Living in Hostels

Throughout our trip, we’ve been staying in Youth Hostels. Though hostels tend to get a bad reputation, I personally think that this reputation doesn’t give a fair representation of what they offer. While hostels do not offer many of the same luxeries one would expect to find in a hotel, they offer a much more valuable experience. Hostel living is very similar to dorm life actually. There are multiple beds to a room, that you usually have to make yourself and there are usually communal bathrooms. This may not sound like an ideal stay to you, but the interactions these circumstances create are invaluable. Having to live so closely with other people, which are usually other students, forces everyone to interact with one another.

Through our various stays in Hostels in Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane, I have met some of the most interesting people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I have made friends with people from Germany, Japan, China, Indonesia, Italy, Australia, Spain, Canada, various parts of America, along with many other places throughout the world. I think that the conversations I’ve had with these people are just as important to my experience on this trip as all of the activities we’ve done while here. The incredible thing about getting to know other travelers from other parts of the world is that insight they can offer. Everyone has had different experiences depending on what they have seen, what they have done, where they have lived, where they have been and the people they have met.

One night in Canberra was particularly memorable. Brady, Jared, Brittany, Dan, Devin, Bridget and I had dinner with two people from Tansania and a backpacker from Botswana. The backpacker from Botswana was your typical hippie, but he had traveled throughout the world and offered new ways of thinking that challenged me to open my mind. In contrast, the two men from Tansania were your typical country hicks. These men couldn’t have disagreed more with the man from Botswana’s ideas, yet there we were, having a nice, polite intellectual dinner conversation.

Living in Hostels has enhanced my experiences here in Australia more than I ever could have imagined and the friendships I have made in them will no doubt be lifelong.

Mariah