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PSA: I swore hostel dorms were dead to me at 34, then one in Lisbon changed my mind
Two years ago I paid $210 a night for a private room in Lisbon because I was sure I was too old and too grumpy for a hostel dorm. Last month I gave a 10 bed mixed dorm a shot at $19 a night, mainly to stretch my trip from 5 days to 9 days on the same budget. The thing that got me was the free walking tour and family dinner, where I ended up splitting a $6 bottle of vinho verde with two guys from Brazil who showed me a laundromat that charges by the kilo. I saved about $170 a night over 4 nights, which paid for my train down to the Algarve and a pastel de nata habit I refuse to apologize for. Earplugs and a sleep mask did more for me than any hotel pillow ever has. If you wrote off dorms after one bad stay in your 20s, what finally pushed you back to trying one again?
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drew_west10d ago
That $6 bottle of vinho verde story is what gets me, because the money math is never the real story with these places. You said the walking tour and family dinner were the thing that got you, so I'm wondering how much of that was the setup itself versus the two guys from Brazil you clicked with. Like, would the same hostel have worked for you if the dinner had been awkward and nobody talked? I ask because I've had one dorm stay where the crowd made it feel like a party I wasn't invited to, and another where some random guy showed me his grandma's bakery map on day one, and I can't tell if the place was different or I was. So was it the hostel, the people, or just finally being in the right head space at 34 to not care? Because I keep hearing people say the social stuff is the whole point, and if that is true then a quiet dorm with a good price would still flop for most of us. Curious if you'd have bailed on night two if the dinner had been a dud.
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