Asian backpacker

Traveling for a year sounds fun to most people if not all people, but what many people don’t know is that it’s also freaking TIRING! There are so many things to take care of and organise, especially if you’re traveling by yourself. Research on the city/country you’re visiting, the language, money exchange, necessary visa, transport and most importantly accomodation. When I was still traveling, I lived by 1 rule. As long as I have a roof over my head then I’m all good. That’s why it’s important to find a good place to stay at to be able to do all the research you need to do, get good night of rest, good location. A well picked hostel allows you to meet similar minded people and meet new friends and travelmates. At the beginning of my trip I only used hostelworld to find and book my accomodation ahead of time. This was to make sure I had a place to stay even before arriving at the location. It was convenient, easy to use and most of all… you could sort on the cheapest prices as well. Quite useful if you’re on a low budget.

But as my trip progressed, I started to realise that some of the cheaper places are quite far away from where the action is. So that’s why I’ve also used wikitravel to find out where most of the sights are located and to pin point a good location that allows me to do many of the things on foot. They also show you the budget suggestions per city and I would often check hostelworld for the availability of the hostels and dorms. After I’ve found a good location, I start to look up hostels in that area and write down a few of them to check out when I’m arriving in that city. Eventhough there are pictures on hostelworld. The pictures might be deceiving at times and to get the right idea of the atmosphere of the hostel, it’s always nice to check it out in person. Mind you, I do spend some time walking around, checking hostels.

Now looking back at things. I feel I should have written down the places I’ve stayed at for other people, because afterall. I did spend some time looking for good hostels and some of them were quite amazing. But then again, we’re not all after the same things when traveling. Some like more peace and quiet, others are into the party dorms. I would say that in the beginning of my trip I was into the lively, active fun hostels. But towards the end I was more into the peaceful and quiet ones. So how do you guys look for your accomodations?