Don’t Stay in a Hotel, Stay in a Student Hostel
If you’re very adventurous and you don’t want to stay in a hotel because it might be too expensive, then consider staying in a student hostel next time you go on a trip. Don’t be deceived by the name, they aren’t exclusively for students. Anyone can use a student hostel in most cases. There are some things to remember though and some differences to a standard hotel.
The first is that most student hostels will have some sort of a curfew. It’s generally very generous and it has to do with the fact that they are trying to save as much money as possible (which is why they can afford to give cheap rooms in the first place) and don’t have the resources to employ reception staff at all hours of the morning. For this reason, they have a curfew in many places.
On the other hand, you can find hostels that don’t have curfews, especially in many European cities, but the disadvantage to these is that you might have lots of very loud people coming back from a party at 3 in the morning. So the places with the curfew can be very good, because you’re guaranteed a good night’s sleep.
Staying in a hostel is also cheaper because the bathrooms are usually shared and there’s usually several people to a room. Everyone usually has a small safe for themselves with a key to keep their valuables in when they go out, so it’s usually not necessary to worry about your valuables. There are also storage areas for larger items such as suitcases which you may not need every day of your journey.
Student hostels also have communal eating areas and one advantage of these is that they are either very cheap or included in your rooms. So this is another way you can save a lot of money.
