I swore I'd never take a hostel bed again, then I paid $19 a night in Medellin and changed my tune
I told myself back in 2022 that dorm rooms were done for me. I spent two weeks in a 10 bed room in Lisbon where a guy snored like a lawn mower and someone ate my leftover pizza out of the shared fridge. Fast forward to three months ago, my monthly rent in Medellin jumped from $600 to $850 because the neighborhood got popular, so I booked a private room in a hostel in El Poblado for $19 a night just to buy myself time. What I got wrong before was treating hostels like one single thing. This place had a co-working table with two monitors, a standing desk, and wifi that hit 200 down, which is better than the cafe I used to pay $40 a day to sit in. The people at the table were doing the same stuff I do, freelance writing and client calls, and by week two we had a little group that split groceries and swapped leads. I stayed five weeks and paid way less than any apartment I looked at, and honestly the social part fixed the lonely streak I'd been in for months. Has anyone else flipped on hostels later in the game, or am I the only one who wrote them off too soon?