How to Book a Hostel During Study Abroad

If you’re eager to travel during your study abroad semester, we highly recommend staying in hostels to save money, meet other travelers, and feel safe and secure during your adventure.

One of the most frustrating yet exciting parts of traveling during your study abroad program is finding a place to stay. Do you want to stay in a hotel amid the hustle and bustle of the city, or in a bed and breakfast on the quieter, rural outskirts of town? How about in an Airbnb in the less touristy area?

Well, you have ALL of those options because there are endless housing options for travelers, especially in Europe and Latin America. However, a much better student-friendly (and budget-friendly) housing option is a hostel.

I know what you’re thinking.

A bunch of grungy, lonely travelers smushed together in a room living like uncivilized nomads, right?

Wrong.

How to Book a Hostel During Study Abroad - Academic Studies Abroad

I quickly learned that the word “hostel” has a negative connotation to older generations when I would tell anyone above the age of 40 that I was staying in a hostel in Europe and they looked at me like I had lost my mind and didn’t understand how to vacation properly.

Due to the rise of online booking engines and travel review sites, hostels have upped their game offering more amenities (like free local tours) and upgraded clean accommodations. They are still budget-friendly, but they are cleaner, have more security, located in better areas and listed online for customers to research and view them prior to booking.

Before I jump into my personal favorite and a well-renowned site to book your stay in a hostel, here are a few booking sites where you can find hostels.

#1: Booking.com

Booking.com is a site where users can look up hostels, hotels, bed and breakfasts and other forms of lodging for their stay in other countries, but a lot of options reside in the U.S. So make sure you have a backup site to look for places to stay, because there may be a chance that the city you choose to travel to does not show up on booking.com.

However, if it does show up, then you will be shown some great deals and discounts for lodging! There is also a feature on this site that tells you how many other viewers are thinking of booking the accommodation you are looking at, which helps you realize how high in demand certain places are so you can have a better idea of when you need to decide on your accommodation by. Booking.com also has an app for smartphone users, so you can track your bookings easier and have access to endless lodging options at the touch of your fingers!

#2: Google

Google is the best search engine to use when you aren’t too sure what you’re looking up. You can type in a bunch of key phrases like “nice hostel in Germany” or “accommodations in Paris” and many different sites will pop up. Another feature of Google is that when it lists possible accommodations, it places them on Google Maps to give you a visual of where in the city the accommodation is situated.

Google can also be useful if you know the name of the hostel you want to stay in and decide to book your stay directly through that hostel’s site. Just type in the name in the search engine and you will be lead right to their website.

There is also a good chance that if you type the word “hostel” into Google (along with whatever combination of other words you decide) than different hostel booking websites will pop up. Most likely, hostelworld.com will be among the top search results!

#3: HostelBookers

HostelBookers is a very budget-friendly site. The same hostel could be a bit cheaper on HostelBookers than on another booking site, but remember that you get what you pay for. So there may be different perks (like free cancellation) to booking through sites that list accommodations at higher prices.

Regardless, HostelBookers is set up similar to hostelworld.com and has a broad database of hostels located around the world! The steps to booking your stay in one are fairly similar to hostelworld.com as well, so the next portion of this blog post applies to this booking site as well!

The most well-known hostel website is hostelworld.com, which lists hostels in every city in every country that has a hostel.

This site is wicked resourceful for travelers young and old, alone or with friends, on a budget or just wanting to have a more down to earth, grounded travel experience.

Below we walk you through the steps of finding a place to stay on HostelWorld. However, the booking process is similar on most sites. Remember to use the filters to find the specific style and amenities you’re looking for in a hostel. It is easy to get wrapped up in the appearance of a hostel or the amount of them available in a city, but you really want to hone in on certain features of a hostel to make sure you can have the most desirable experience possible!

STEP 1: Go to hostelworld.com.

STEP 2: Fill in the necessary information.

Hostels are great because you can stay in them for as short as one night or as long as a couple of months. Other accommodations, such as Airbnb, sometimes require guests to stay for a minimum of two nights or they only have a few days at a time spread throughout the month available rather than right in a row which complicates travelers’ stay.

Type in the city you are traveling to. For this walkthrough I chose London, England. London has some wicked intriguing hostels. I saw one with British flags covering every possible square inch of the hostel. Another had A SWING in the middle of the rooms that guests sleep in.

Next, type in the dates that you’ll be staying in the city. I chose March 15th 2020-March 23rd 2020, which is a typical spring break week. When studying abroad, many people choose to travel on their own, as opposed to going with travel agencies, during spring break. This is usually halfway through the semester and students feel more comfortable and confident with their traveling and adaptation skills. They also have found some pretty cool travel buddies by this point!

Finally, select the number of guests staying in the hostel, including yourself. I chose three: myself and two hypothetical friends.

STEP 3: Click “Let’s go!”

Don’t be overwhelmed when you see A BUNCH of hostels appear. There are so many to choose from it can be stimuli overload, especially if this is your first time. But if you follow my next steps you will know how to scan through them and identify the significant features of each hostel so you can easily choose the best one for you (and your travel companions)!

STEP 4: Scan through the hostels on the first page.

Usually, the best-rated hostel will appear at the top of the list, but from there it is a mixture of good and decent ratings that are not in descending order. That’s why you want to scan the whole first page, which shows about 30 hostels typically. You can always scan the second page and beyond, but usually, the first page has the best options.

I chose Astor Museum Inn which was the first hostel listed. Notice the three properties above that listing. Sometimes HostelWorld features properties with financial deals or ones that are neat places that you may have otherwise scrolled through if they weren’t added to the top of the page.

STEP 5: Check-out the significant features of the hostel you selected.

The difference in features between hostels is what separates a decent hostel from a great hostel, a memorable hostel experience from an unfortunate hostel experience. So pay attention and take notes! It is hard to just soak up this information. Grab a pen and paper and get ready to make a pro/con list for each place you find.

Things to look for:

Rating (shoot for at least a 7)
Number of reviews (better to have thousands of reviews to make the rating more accurate and reliable)
Wi-Fi inclusion
U.S. price $$
Cancellation policy (is there one?)
Private room option (some travelers don’t want to live in a dorm-style room with strangers, but they don’t mind doing so with people they know, so they opt for a private room, which usually costs extra)
What are the top 3 features/remarks (phrases listed above the rating with green icons)

Make sure you are comparing the hostel you have selected to research with other hostels, because sometimes what you think is the perfect hostel is missing a crucial feature that you wouldn’t have thought of if you hadn’t kept researching other hostels and found that they had said feature.

STEP 6: Go more in-depth with researching three of the most important features of a hostel.

Location, pictures, and reviews are three aspects of a hostel that can be a deal-breaker for some travelers. You want to be located close enough to the main area that you’ll be exploring while also not getting sucked into a tourist trap. The more pictures a place has the better. You need to see what it actually looks like from MANY different angles to get a feel for the size and layout. Reviews are to be taken not too seriously but not too lightly since they are subjective and not everyone has the same experience. So make sure these three features make it to the top of your pro/con list we just mentioned!

#1: Location

Click the “show on map” button to see where this hostel is in proximity to the center of the city/town. You can always google where the center of the city/town is if you don’t already know. Also from knowing where on the map the hostel is located, you can research more about what the atmosphere is like in that area to determine if it fits your travel needs and desires.

#2: Pictures

Go through the picture gallery by clicking on the cover photo of the hostel. You definitely want to see a decent number of pictures, and some should have travelers in them. The more realistic the pictures are, the better. Professional “realtor style” pictures are great, but you want a sense of what the hostel is actually like when people are there, what the breakfast really looks like, etc.

#3: Reviews

TAKE. YOUR. TIME. Read those reviews. Read the good and the bad. Look for themes within both types. And remember that everyone’s experience is different, establishments learn from their mistakes (especially when it causes a bad online review and jeopardizes their reputation) and you can always address any concerns you have with a property manager online or via phone if necessary.

STEP 7: Click on the name of the hostel

This will lead you to another page that includes more details and descriptions of the property.

This is where more key features of the hostel will be explained as well as things to do in the area it is located and what else is located in its proximity. This page is for the property owner to schmooze viewers so they are more tempted to stay at their hostel.

There are also tabs labeled Prices, Facilities, Map, Reviews and House Rules. Some of those tabs reiterate information that was on the screenshot of this hostel, which was on the page that listed all of the available hostels. However, there is usually new information incorporated in these tabs, so read carefully!

*Note if there is an age minimum or age limit for guests staying at the hostel you’ve selected to research! Some hostels cater more towards college students and others welcome people of all ages. This changes the vibe of the hostel, so keep that in mind!

STEP 8: Scroll down to “check availability” to see what types of rooms you can book.

This page will specify if rooms are co-ed or single gender and how many guests could stay in one room. The prices differ slightly based on what style of room you choose.

STEP 9: Choose the room style you want and the number of beds needed.

Some people forget that they have the option to alter the room style based on what they are comfortable with and what is available to them. Not every hostel has 20 beds in one room with mixed genders. Explore your options and consider everyone in your group’s preferences.

The beds in hostels are usually like college beds: twin XL or just a twin, so be aware of the one bed per person rule of thumb. Hostels aren’t like Airbnb or hotels where you can share beds and sleep on couches or even the floor to fit as many of your friends in one accommodation as possible while not running out of oxygen to share. Each guest gets their own bed.

Remember that the price listed for each room style is based on one bed for one night. So if it says $33 and you have 3 guests total (including yourself), then that is 3 beds, which totals $99 for one night.

STEP 10: DOUBLE CHECK THE NUMBER OF BEDS AND NUMBER OF NIGHTS YOU SELECTED TO STAY IN THE HOSTEL.

Don’t forget the total cost is multiplying the number of beds by the number of nights you will be staying in the hostel. Users sometimes forget that the $99 isn’t for 3 beds for 8 nights- it’s for one.

STEP 11: You only pay a portion of the total cost, which is listed next to “Payable Now.”

You can pay the rest of the costs later, and that total for everything is next to “Total.” Don’t make the mistake of adding the “Total” and “Payable Now” and thinking that this is your total cost. “Payable Now” is just a portion of the “Total” and acts as your deposit. If it was free to book hostels then everyone would be booking and canceling or not showing up, which would be bad for business.

*IMPORTANT: You can change the currency you pay in on their site if you think that your credit card company has a better exchange rate than HostelWorld does.

In London, the currency is the pound, so the site uses an exchange rate (not sure what it is or where they get it from) to translate the pound to US dollars (USD) if someone wants to pay in USD online. Depending on the exchange rate, it can be worth a little extra effort to figure out if you can get a better rate with your credit card company. It could mean the difference in cost equaling an extra night in the hostel in some cases.

Find out the price in the local currency, then call your credit card company and find out the day’s rate of exchange. Also, make sure that your credit card doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees. If they do, it might wipe out any savings you made on the exchange rate.

STEP 12: Click “Book Now.”

STEP 13: Fill out the details and payment.

STEP 14: Click “Confirm” once you’ve reviewed all the details and payment info typed in.

STEP 15: Check the email address you entered for your booking confirmation and receipt from HostelWorld.

You will hear back from HostelWorld closer to the arrival date of your stay to complete the other portion of your payment. Set a reminder on your phone for the last possible day you can cancel this booking (if it’s free cancellation) based on their policy in case things come up that cause you not to be able to go and you forget to cancel. Better safe than sorry.

STEP 16: Notice the “chat with us” orange bar at the bottom right corner of the page. There is live chat/customer support for you to ask general or specific questions.

This is what it looks like when you click “chat with us.”

Here are a few more travel tips as you prepare for your trip:

Make sure that if your friends leave the housing arrangements up to you, you send them a link to the hostel you are thinking of booking ASAP so they can check it out before you book it. Trust me it’s not worth the fight that’ll happen if they are annoyed by the place you stay and you were the one that made the call to stay there.
Venmo the person who is paying for the hostel on their credit card right after they pay. Only venmo them for the “payable now” portion and the remaining balance can be venmoed to them once you’ve paid that amount. This is a good tip because if you cancel the booking but have already venmoed that person your portion of the cost in full, you probably will be anxious to get it back. It’s not fun owing people money or waiting to be paid back, so take it payment by payment.
Always ask friends or family who have traveled to the same city what they did for their housing arrangements. Maybe they stayed in the same hostel and had a noteworthy experience (good or bad) that could influence whether or not you book it. Or maybe they have a housing recommendation they loved! Remember that HostelWorld isn’t the only site to find hostels on, but it does have the largest database and a great reputation!

If hostels aren’t your thing or you’re traveling with older people, who usually prefer to have their own space or have a bit more money to afford the nicer places, then check out Airbnb or google hotels in the city you plan to stay in. There are endless housing opportunities abroad, and it can be super fun to research places to stay! I definitely recommend being the one who handles that if you have the time and patience.

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By Julia Marshall

How to Book a Hostel During Study Abroad