Advice on Hostels

[karlbiermann]

A friend and are are going to be backpacking through Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Greece) from mid may through mid June. I was wondering if it would be better to make reservations at hostels and also If I should get some sort of Hostelling Card. Also any info on where to get a hostelling card would be appreciated. Thanks

[jabroni79]

Check out www.hostelz.com. It is the best site for info and booking of hostels. I would reserve a hostel for the first city you plan to visit and then book hostels a day in advance for the next city you plan to visit. Have at least 2 or 3 hostels picked for a city b/c one of them by be booked up.

I would only get a card if a majority of the hostels you plan to stay at give discounts for the card. Check out www.hiusa.org for info on youth cards.

[Atle]

StudentUniverse offer online hostel reservations, our booking engine lets you reserve a bed in thousands of hostels worldwide.To find great hostel deals go to the 'Hostels' tab.

[ivybell]

Germany, Austria and Switzerland might be good places to buy a card for as they have extensive networks of their own, some of which you need to have a card for. As for the others, there are many independent ones so the card won't really be useful. Other hostel sites that are good are www.hostels.com, www.hostelworld.com, and www.hostelbooker.com. i agree that www.hostelz.com is good, but for some places the other sites have better coverage, I've found that for some trips I'll end up using all the sites as they complement each other.
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[cgilvarry]

I especially like [link] and [link] as you can read reviews by guests who have just stayed in the hostels. That way you can be pretty sure you're making the right decision when you choose a hostel to book.

[wilson49332]

Yeah you dont need any kind of card- there really not worth it. I would use the advice of others and do some legwork before booking by checking review sites. Compare two- three of them (hostels and websites). hostles.com and hostelz.com are best as mentioned before. Make sure they have been rated 70%, 3 stars or better. If they mention bugs etc then you know to look elsewhere!

As to reservations you can make them here or my exp has shown that as long as you know where you want to stay and print the details, you can walk in to most and find a bed (unless its in Germany during the Cup season in June). But yeah most times itll work out you get the one you want by walk up. Otherwise, reserve them in Europe when you get near a phone booth (have the info ready). And if they dont have anything, theres usually another real close by or a hotel that is cheap next door.

[nicky407]

I would like to go through Germany, Czech Rep, Austria, Italy and France and stay in hostels. Some of you are recommending booking by phone a day or two before you arrive at the given city.

This might be a silly question, I don't know, but do hostel employees usually speak English?

Hopefully I will be able to learn some survival phrases in the other languages, but I worry about the difficulty of successfully reserving a room over the phone if there is a language barrier. At least when reserving over the internet, I don't have to worry about such things, although it does make my schedule more permanent once I'm over there.

[jabroni79]

A majority of the time, there will be someone at the hostel that will speak English. You might have a problem in small towns, but I would not worry about it. The better hostel have a multilingual staff. Just in case, you could look at the website of the hostels you are interested in staying at and see if they have a English speaking staff or not. That why, you will know before hand and you can avoid the hostel that do not speak English.

[wilson49332]

Yeah, 99% do speak English. Remember the croud that stays at hostels for the most part are from America, or Canada so English is a must. 75% of Europeans also speak a little to a lot of English as well as it is an easier language to learn then most (our language is lazy if you know what I am saying!)

[rlw03uark]

I agree- check out the hosteling sites given in past replies.

I don't think a hostelling card is worth it. Most the best hostels I stayed in were independent and with the websites available now you can check customer reviews to see about the quality instead of relying on the hostel's membership in HI or something as assurance.

[Hosteltraveler]

The best hostel site I know is If you haven't seen them I would check them out

[WingDing]

This is my favourite:

[link]

A lot of sites quote prices in dollars but this site is a European site so it quotes in euros (by default) which is helpful if you are budgeting in euros.

[nele10]

Hi there,

As it's been told I'd suggest you to have a look at . We've got many and you will also find lots of information about activities and events worlwide as well as travel news to keep you uptodate of any problem it might come up before travelling.

All information you'll find on our website about hostels is real and most of our hostel are rated by people who have stayed there. Therefore, you'll some feedback from people before booking.

Hope this helps,
nele10