Hostels: Basic Needs

It was about a week before my trip to Kyoto, Japan that I began to seriously consider where I was going to sleep at night. After all, I was going to be visiting for five days; finding somewhere warmer than the streets to sleep was somewhat a priority. On the other hand, I was a college student, just wrapping up a semester abroad in Tokyo. Spending hundreds of dollars a night for the rare opportunity to eat twenty-cent ramen in such a cultural capital was about as appealing as wrapping myself in newspapers on a city bench.

There was, thankfully, a happy medium: a hostel that offered a single bedroom for 25 dollars a night. I took a quick glance over the location- Gion, geisha district, Memoirs of a Geisha, blah blah blah - before booking and printing the ticket.

About a week later, as I wandered aimlessly through a city I'd only seen before in postcards and travel channel specials, it occurred to me that I knew next to nothing about hostels. The only information I had on me was the location and the price of where I'd be spending the next five days. Even the location was vague; after riding a bus to a stop specified by the website, I had to spend several minutes wandering down little back alleys before finding my bed for the night.

Hostels have interesting connotations. The uninitiated may think of the horror films; veterans from hostels of the distant past may recall something far worse, especially in the case of bathrooms. Others yet may think of them simply as cheap hotels with no room service, or a drunken kids' dream hangout- Hey guys I just had my first beer in Munich am I cool yet?

This particular hostel was as quiet as the back alley I discovered it on, likely due to the small temple directly across the street from it. It also felt much more like walking into someone's home than a hotel; I was required to leave my shoes at the door, and was given my own key to access the premises any time I needed to.

My room, located on the second floor, was indeed a single. Barely big enough to fit one person, it held all of four standard features: the light, the A.C./heater unit, the bed itself, and a small nightstand. The nearest sink was in the hallway, and the nearest bathroom was two floors down in the basement, along with the showers.

As I headed downstairs to check out these facilities, I flashed back on a memory of my mother recalling her adventures in Europe- particularly about the big holes in the ground with a rope hanging over them for balance. I shuddered at the idea, but took heart in the fact that I highly doubted such conditions would exist inside without there being an obvious... fragrance to the place.

My momentary fears were unfounded. Not only did I find modern amenities, but heated commodes for those cold winter mornings. The showers, though available for the entire hostel to use, were private singles with locks and separate showering and dressing compartments. Satisfied, I made my way back upstairs for sightseeing.

Hotels- particularly higher-end options- tend to be as inclusive as possible. Laundry facilities, fitness centers, lounges, bars, cafes, swimming pools, and so on. Hostels do tend to have one or two of these, but very rarely do they try to cover all. The point of hostels- including the one I was staying at- was to give visitors a place to crash every night that didn't break the bank.

So because of that, the laundry facilities were available, but extra. There was a computer with internet connection, but it was slow and worked only half the time. There was a lounge of sorts, but it could fit no more than five people at once and had little more than a small bookshelf of old Lonely Planet travel guides and a television with a bright green line running down the middle of it. There was a kitchen available to cook meals in, but no food or cookware provided. All of these things together combined to encourage visitors to head out to seek entertainment.

But at the end of a ten hour day of getting lost, eating strange foods, asking for directions in a language you don't fully understand, giving Buddhist monks some spare change, and snapping photos, what does a person really need? A hot shower, a meal, a place to collapse? I grabbed one of those things at a restaurant along the way back 'home', and found the other two waiting for me.

There will be a time when I once again decide to visit a strange city where I don't have a friend or an obscure family member to crash with. When that comes, I plan to seek out another hostel. I'll leave the fitness centers and room service to those who use them, and stick to paying what I can afford for what I need.

(847 words.)

(Note: This is completely different from what I planned, I know. It's also all over the place; I hope to clean this up and focus it more on a needs vs. want scenario for my second draft.)