Budget Travel - U.S. hostels struggle to live up to European counterparts

AUSTIN (AP) — Wander through any major European city and you're bound to stumble upon dozens of hostels, their doorways crowded with rucksacks and chatting, laughing backpackers.

The cheap, dormitory-style lodging and lively social scene are fixtures for European travelers on a budget. Hostel life abroad has been chronicled in books and movies, with tales of free-spirited youths and their devil-may-care attitudes.

But they've never quite caught on across the Atlantic. Numbering about 10,000 worldwide, there are only about 350 hostels in the U.S., according to Hostelling International-USA. The few available suffer from a lukewarm reputation, a transportation system that doesn't favor backpackers and — perhaps the most fatal flaw — anonymity.

Most Americans "wouldn't even understand the word 'hostel,'" said Mark Vidalin, marketing director of HI-USA. "If you asked them to define the word, they would have some misconstrued idea of it."

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/hotels/2006-06-19-usa-hostels_x.htm

I tend to agree with the article. I encounter a lot more foreign guests at U.S. hotels than Americans. Of course, with priceline rooms in some cities at $40-50 a night, they can be a good alteranative to hostels ( I have upcoming DC bookings at $55 a night). I have a booking at the Seattle HI hostel this summer because priceline deals in the city are over $100 a night unless you want to stay at the airport, which I don't.

I think the basic problem is the fact that a hostel is supposed to be cheap. That doesn't fit well with American business psychology.

Another example is the B&B scene. In the US, B&B's try to be upscale properties with elaborate meals, swimming pools, and so on. They typically charge from $100/night on up.

Talk about being "unclear on the concept". :)

... I have a booking at the Seattle HI hostel this summer ....

Well, if it's HI on Union Street (http://www.hiseattle.org/) then it's one of the nicer ones around. My last time through Seattle I didn't book early enough and it was fully booked :(

EmailKid

The U.S. has no real equivalent to gap year or O.E., and everyone I know who's done the fabled post-graduation cross-country road trip has done so in a pair or a group (where the economics of staying in a hostel is no better than staying in a cheap motel, and where you're probably stopping over in a podunk town instead of a tourist destination). I would think low supply, above all, is attributable to low demand.

Portions of the post that previously appeared in this space have been deleted. I would provide you with a reason why, but doing so would likely be against the TOS.

Well, if it's HI on Union Street (http://www.hiseattle.org/) then it's one of the nicer ones around. My last time through Seattle I didn't book early enough and it was fully booked :(

I booked about 3 months out. I know that one, particuarly, gets completely booked in the summer (and they also have free wi-fi, so I bring the laptop along).

They should instead try to meet New Zealand standards, which offer (by far) the best standard in hostel accommodations I've ever experienced.

I have stayed in hostels in Wellington, Queenstown, and Christchurch this year, and was able to book single rooms at around $US40 a night in all of them. Pretty happy with all of them, and look forward to going back. The hostels I've stayed at in Australia (Brisbane, Sydney) were just as nice, as is the HI St Pancras in London.

I've stayed at YHA hostels in Seattle (near Pike's Place), Portland (Glisan Street), and San Francisco (both the Presidio and the downtown locations) and found all of them to be pretty good. If traveling with someone else, I'll probably use Priceline, but I'd still consider hostels if revisiting those places on my own.

Got to agree with you there tom911, good hostels are hard to come by on a regular basis in the US. One of my favourites happens to be in your neck of the woods, Elements (http://www.elementssf.com/) in the SF Mission District. A new build a couple of years ago, I'd love to see a few more, to equivalent standard, open in other US cities.

A couple of others I recommend in the US would be Orbit (http://www.orbithotel.com/) in LA and the Jazz (http://www.jazzonthepark.com/) hostels in New York.

I tend to treat hostels as options of last resort, as my budget resembles a twentysomething's but the age no longer does. You're also not very popular in the dorms if you snore.

Priceline has definitely cut into the business for hostels for me in the U.S. As I've posted elsewhere, Priceline is a pretty exclusionary thing if you think about it: You have to have internet access and some competency there (still a barrier to some, though fewer than before), have to plan ahead and be confident enough to plop down money that can't be refunded (a biggie) and have to have a credit card that has enough available credit (another real biggie). That screens out a lot of people (think Kenny's family on "South Park"), and I'd bet those people as a group tend to be tougher on the rooms (kids, smoking, pets, etc.)

At 2-star level it seems the extended-stay places might be a further screen, as they usually provide maid service only once a week unless you pay extra, and have minimal common amenities, making them suitable mainly for either business travelers or people who don't make too much of a mess. The latter group has been subsidizing everyone else in hotel rates for eons. But now, thanks to Priceline, bids from $27-35 have been going through for 2* extended stays in cities where even Motel 6 is around $45.