The best hostels in the world.

The best hostels in the world.

As everybody knows, the situation in the world is fucked up at the moment. Due to this virus and all implications it brings with it, my life, and pretty much everyone else’s, is on hold. Apart from the practical and economical implications of this pandemic, it also strongly influences many people’s lives. 
I know a number of people who don’t seem to care much about this as they are quite comfortable with sitting at home most of the time, ordering their groceries online and watching Netflix for entertainment. 

For me, it is different. I am a very outgoing person. I normally spend very little time at home. This is not because I don’t like being at home. To the contrary. I have a great house in Dublin city centre, and a lovely flatmate and I get along with her very well.
The thing is, I have this strange state of mind that tells me in the back of my head that, when I’m at home, others will start the biggest party of the year and I’m missing it. 

I need to go out regularly to make sure I don’t go nuts. On top of that, I have travelitus. I am always planning trips, or thinking about planning trips and there are always several things in the pipeline that I’m working on. And this is, obviously, where the problem lies at the moment. All the pubs in Ireland have been closed for over a month now, and it’s driving me nuts. Then, to make it even worse, there’s no way to travel anywhere at the moment, so I’m torturing myself by looking at photos of trips past and staring at my homepage on Hostelworld where it currently says “You have no trips planned”.

This has not happened in many years. There is always something coming up but, last weekend, when I had to cancel my reservation for a hostel in Aberdeen, I hit an empty travel plan for the first time in years. 

To give my self something to do in this dire situation, I have decided to look back at trips from the past and tell you about the best hostels I’ve ever stayed in. Hostels are always the preferred accommodation for me, as they are way more fun than regular hotels, you meet lots of people in the common area and there is always a party going on. I have made some great friends in hostels over the years, and with many of them, I’m still in regular contact, despite maybe not having met them in person for years. 

Some hostels are great, some are good and some, as in every other industry, are straight up garbage. As I always try to focus on the positives, I will ignore the bad seeds and focus on the ones that are truly outstanding

I have listed them in random order, so the ones mentioned are, for me, all in the number one position. I’m in a positive state of mind and am convinced that this will all be over soon so that I can hit the road and the skies again and meet up with my fellow backpackers around the world. 

In the meantime, enjoy the story.

Hostel One Ramblas Barcelona

I know I said just a few lines up that all five hostels on this list are tied for first place, but if I HAD to pick one as my personal all time favourite, it would be Hostel One Ramblas in Barcelona. 

The hostel is located about 20 minutes walk from the Plaça d'Espanya which is, conveniently, where the express bus from the airport stops. The first time I walked in the door, it was 10.30 in the morning on a Friday. I was greeted by a cute girl from Argentina who checked me in in no time, gave me a room key and told me that the room would be available from 2 in the afternoon and I was more than welcome to hang out in the main room until that time. She picked up my backpack to put it in safe storage. Would I like a cold beer?
Wow, this hostel was off to a great start. 

I joined a group of half a dozen Australians who were watching a rugby league game on a flatscreen TV. I soon deducted that they were all either drunk or jetlagged or both. After some prying during a lull in the game, I found that they were both. They were great fun to hang out with and I watched most of what was left of the game with them, but after my 3rd beer (an absolute steal at a Euro a can) I decided to have a wonder around the neighbourhood. I found a park where it was apparently legal to do graffiti as it was midday and several artists were working on murals. I also found a grocery store around the corner that had dedicated roughly half its floor space to alcohol, which was very convenient. In my years of travel, I have found that there is always a direct correlation between the presence of backpacker hostels and the abundance of liquor stores. You gotta go where the business is.

Hostel One Ramblas is a small hostel and has only 4 dorms. 2 of them have those cool pod beds, were you can essentially close yourself off from the rest of the room. It has comfortable beds with a reading light, 2 sockets for charging your phone/camera/iPad/etc. and curtains to block out light from outside your bed. It’s amazing. I have stayed in the pod dorms on all but one of my stays and had some of the best nights sleep I’ve ever had. There is also a 4 bed dorm to the back of the building, next to the backyard terrace. 

This terrace is great. There are some benches built out of wooden pallets, with cushions on them, a central table, some assorted patio furniture and the hostel’s washing machines. Throughout the day, you can always find people there, hanging out, playing games and having a drink or a joint. Every night at around 9, a free dinner is served in the main room. This is financed from the tip jar, so I’d encourage anyone to donate freely to keep this great tradition going. 

In 2016, I celebrated new years eve at this hostel and it was an amazing experience. Throughout the day, starting at 10 in the morning, there were drinking games, food sharing sessions and just an amazing atmosphere. In the afternoon I went for a quick pub crawl in the Universidad area, a 25 minute walk, where most of the main craft beer places are located- BeerCab, BrewDog, Garage, Mikkeller and the sadly now defunct Napar brewpub. Upon return to the hostel, I found that a group of Australians had parked themselves in the main room (this seemed to become a bit of a theme on my stays here) and they were loudly proclaiming that their homeland was the greatest in the world (I can see where that came from, Australia is an amazing place). To put their money where their mouth was, they had liberated the liquor store around the corner from most of its stock of Bundaberg rum and they were now passing shots to anyone who was interested. Not wanting to be rude, I accepted a Bundy&Coke and joined in the festivities. Spurred on by a sudden burst of patriotism, I walked to the liquor store and got a liter bottle of Jameson. 

The atmosphere that night was amazing. Everybody got along so well that it is hard to explain to people who are not familiar with hostel culture. You’ve never met before, but you’re great friends immediately. In a few days you’ll all go your own way and you will not see each other again for years, if ever. But the memories remain. 

Around 11, one of the hostel staff started rounding up people to go to the fireworks on the Plaça de Catalunya. Not wanting to miss this spectacle, I got an half empty Coke bottle, topped it up with whiskey and put it in a plastic bag with 4 pint cans of beer. That should keep me hydrated during the fire works show. When we arrived at the Plaça de Catalunya, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There must have been a million people there (the paper confirmed it as 1.4 million the next day) and I lost all my hostel mates in the crowd within 10 seconds. I didn’t mind to much, I knew they’d all filter back to the hostel over the next 6 hours or so, so I started to look for a good vantage point for the fire works show. As I’m afraid of heights, I decided to just climb on the plinth of a statue, giving me just enough elevation to look over the top of the crowd, without running the risk of breaking every bone in my body by falling off in my state of intoxication. 

The show was absolutely amazing. In the run-up to midnight and the actual fireworks, the song Barcelona by Freddy Mercury and Montserrat Caballé was played over the PA and shown on a huge video screen. I love that song anyway, but hearing it here over a PA system, on the Plaça de Catalunya, was a surreal experience. 

As the song reached its climax, the clock hit midnight and the fireworks began. 
I have never seen such a fantastic display of fireworks. The beautiful setting, the amazing fireworks, the atmosphere.. It was something I will never forget as long as I live. I was close to tears. 






After the show ended, I waited for some 15 minutes for most of the crowd to disperse, and then walked back to the hostel. Back there I found some of the people form our group who had left the show early and preferred the relative peace and quite of the hostel to the mass crowds. I sat down on one of the comfy couches and joined in the conversation. Throughout the early hours of 2017, I worked my way to the remains of my bottle of Jameson and half a dozen cans of San Miguel until, somewhere around 7AM, I finally gave in and returned to my pod.

Barcelona is one of the world’s great cities and if you ever find yourself looking for accommodation there, you know where to go.
Great staff, comfy beds, free dinner everyday, a great crowd to hang out with and beer for next to nothing. Life doesn’t get much better than that.