I love hostels. I’ve had some great experiences and some really bad ones, but despite these, I just love them. While you’re young and travelling on a budget, and comfort isn’t your top priority, why not? If you find the right ones, you can end up in some great places, with the best stories, and find yourself doing things you hadn’t expected.

But I’d say the best feature of hostels is the people you get the opportunity to meet. It doesn’t always come naturally, sometimes it takes a bit of a push, but they can end up being the most memorable part of a trip. So, here are some of the people I’ve met and what I learnt from them.

Esme- You can find genuine friendships in hostels

I was on a trip with a friend, and we were in a hostel of around 8 people. On the first evening, these two girls noticed we were around their age and asked if we wanted to go out that night. We enthusiastically agreed and extended the invite to a girl who was lying on the bottom bunk across from us, who was solo-travelling. And that’s how I met Esme. Ten minutes later we’re all in a karaoke bar down the street, doing rounds of shots to get up the courage to perform a song on stage all together.

Despite being from different countries, we managed to find a song we all knew- Take On Me– what a classic. We had a great night and even spent the whole of the next day together, exploring the city together. It was great, just deciding to stick together and make the most of the day by getting to know each other and doing random activities we probably wouldn’t have done separately. Like rent a 5 man pedalo or go to the hostel’s organized bar crawl that evening. We all loved it.

The next day, we were all going off to our respective destinations and had to part ways. It was bittersweet, we’d all had a lovely time together but it was a shame it was for such a short amount of time. Long story short, I ended up staying in contact with Esme, as we particularly hit it off. We still catch up regularly, despite her living in the Netherlands, and have visited each other a few times since. I love these sorts of things. When you just happen to become great friends with someone who randomly got allocated to your hostel room (out of about 5 busy floors of 6 rooms might I add) and stay friends years later, despite only having spent a day and a half together initially.

Bob*- don’t trust holiday romances

*His name is not Bob I’d like to be clear. But if for some godforsaken reason, he ends up reading this, at least I’ll have a tiny bit of dignity left by pretending it could be someone else.

Let me set the scene: I was staying in a hostel with a friend, but on the first night she persuaded me to join her on a double date with someone she knew. It was awful. Let’s just say it was the most uncomfortable and awkward dinner of my life thus far. They were going clubbing after dinner but I told them I was feeling tired and would just spend the night at the hotel instead. So off they went and I returned to my dorm. When I got to my room, my four other roommates that I hadn’t yet met were getting to know each other, I joined in the conversation, it was great! I particularly got on with this one guy, and as the others started dropping out of the chat and falling asleep, it ended up being just us two talking.

We just clicked, we had the same interests, sense of humour and music taste- amazing! I’d never experienced such quick chemistry. You might argue that this was bolstered by the horrific double date- but hey! For all I knew, I actually liked this guy. By 6 AM we were still wandering around the hostel, chatting. We spent the whole day together, wandering beautiful old streets, having delicious food and visiting the sights of the stunning city we were in. We had dinner with his friend who he’d met in the first leg of his interrailing, and had a great night. I really liked this guy and he made it clear it was mutual. He had to go home the next day but we continued texting and calling for weeks.

He talked enthusiastically about long distance, how he’d come up to my uni to come visit and everything. A few days later I found out he was also trying to make another relationship work with a different girl- his friend we’d had dinner with. Plot twist! So in conclusion, don’t trust holiday romances, they never seem to end well sadly. But I must say, I have heard of one or two Wattpad-type holiday romances that have ended very well.

Smith and Tate- there’s more than one right way to travel

One of the first times I ever stayed in a hostel was when I was 18 in Berlin. I was doing an interrailing trip with my best friend, and this was our second destination. We were in a room of 4 with these two guys from Birmingham who were in their mid-twenties. They adopted an older brother type of role, making sure we were okay. Looking back, we had no idea what we were doing and I don’t know how we survived that trip. But, they were just so kind. They’d been travelling for a couple of months and this was their second time interrailing, so they knew what was what. I remember getting to our room after a jam-packed day of visiting the sights and trekking around the city in 40°C heat. We’d talk to them about our day and I remember they used to always have spent the chillest day. They’d found a river out of the city with rapids and had spent the day sun lounging and swimming in them, or they were hungover so spent the day going from park to park. Obviously, when you have a time constraint and feel you want to see the important parts of a place before lounging about, that’s fair enough, but at the time, I appreciated seeing that there were different ways to experience a city, or wherever you’re travelling. They were really cool guys, a few years later and they’re now living their best life in Australia. It suits them!