I was wondering if anyone had any stories/experiances about staying in hostels (and/or cheap hotels) in London and elsewhere in the UK and Ireland, maybe even Netherlands. Me and some friends are trying to go this summer and set our accomodation budget at $30 per night per person. I know this isn't a travel board (BS that is), but I just wanted to get you guys' opinions as I post on an actual travel board and am looking for diversity, you know?
I've done this quite a bit. I think $30 can be found. But don't expect ANY kind of luxury. You'll probably be in a room with about 5 other people in bunk beds, or if you get your own room you'll have about 10 square feet of space to walk around in. You might have a bathroom down the hall, or if you have a bathroom ensuite it'll be the smallest bathroom you've ever seen in your life. But honestly, how much time will you spend in your bedroom? If you're there to see stuff, hopefully not much time at all. I once stayed in a hostel across the street from the British museum where I was in a room with about 7 other people, the shower was on another floor and the drain was so clogged with hair it was gross, and it was pretty disorganized in terms of the staff. Bunch of italian teenage transients who didn't know how to hold a reservation. But the location couldn't be beat. I used this site to book a hostel for a trip to london coming up: www.hostels.com. They give you pictures of the place, description of where it is, and you can see what your room options are and book online.
Thanks for the reply, we (3 of us) are all college students that live in crappy dorms (except the one rich guy that has his own 1-person apartment, but hes good for it) so we are used to living in not-so-luxury. We are mainly going for a few reasons. I want to take a look at some meuseums that I did not get to look in before (we all went with a group a few years back), watch some WC group matches in pubs, drink beer, relax and look at stuff. So I think we will only be staying in the hostel to sleep. Also, another question. When you went did you have all your hostel/hotel reservations done (on the internet I assume) before you went. Or did you go on the go? You know what I mean?
This was in 1998, so online reservations weren't possible (that I knew of).The only reservation I made in advance was to a hostel in Dublin just so that I had a place to go once I landed and didn't have to worry about it. But the rest of the time I did it on the go. I had a guidebook and just made a list of places that sounded good and would just go down the list. If I was gonna be getting into a city late in the day I would make reservations for that city the night before, or if I was arriving early morning I would just hit a pay phone in the station and start dialing numbers on my list. Seemed to work well.
Try this place, if you're not expecting Ritz-like accomodations, but like the idea of staying inexpensively (think 12 to 16 to a room in bunk beds), being a few steps away from a cheap in-house bar, and meeting lots of folks from all over the world - not least lots of cute females taking classes at the ESL schools nearby.