Unusual hostels. The most unique hostels and hotels in the world
With bright geometric wall art and fruit motifs, this luxury Spanish hostel is an Instagrammer's dream. Even breakfasts are served here beautifully! Each room has a private balcony overlooking the old part of Valencia, and you can meet other travelers in the hostel's common living room.
Address: Carrer dels Cadirers, 11, Valencia, Spain
Coordinates: 39.475563, -0.378931
To book: Booking.com
Lucky Lake, Amsterdam
Lucky Lake is a whole complex of colored vans and huts, a five-minute walk from a picturesque lake in a park area on the outskirts of Amsterdam. The hostel's kitchen is located outside and is equipped with a barbecue grill. You can also rent a kayak here and go sailing on the lake - and, of course, take a few photos while doing it.
Address: Vinkenkade 75, Vinkeveen, The Netherlands
Coordinates: 52.251739, 4.963404
To book: hostel world
Artbeat Rooms, Portugal
Located in the center of Lisbon, this hostel will appeal to any art connoisseur. Each room is decorated in the style of one of the great artists - Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh and others. In addition, free breakfasts are served here and you can relax on the sun-drenched balcony.
Address: Rua São Nicolau 23, 3ºE, Lisboa, Portugal
Coordinates: 38.710476, -9.136424
To book: Booking.com
Old Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Hostel Old Plovdiv, as you might guess, is located in the heart of the Old Town in Plovdiv. Here you can travel back in time with antique furniture, a picturesque garden and a courtyard fountain. The painting that hangs in Room 8 is 125 years old.
Address: st. "Chetvarti yanuari" 3, Stariya grad, Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Coordinates: 42.149732, 24.752244
To book: Booking.com
Selina Manuel Antonio Costa Rica
Selina Manuel Antonio in Costa Rica is heaven for any Instagram fan. Everything here is impressive, from the graffiti on the walls to the yoga area in the courtyard and the reception desk, made in the shape of the legendary Volkswagen V4 hippie car. Whether you're lounging on the beach next door or exploring the jungle, photo opportunities are everywhere.
Address: Puntarenas Province, Quepos, Costa Rica
Coordinates: 9.402455, -84.152862
To book: Booking.com
Riad Verus, Fes, Morocco
Riad Verus serves free breakfasts, wood-fired pizzas and homemade Moroccan cuisine. With impressive interiors and a breathtaking view of the city, this place definitely deserves to appear in your feed.
Address: 1 Derb Arset Bennis, Fes, Morocco
Coordinates: 34.059475, -4.978896
To book: Booking.com
Memory Hostel, Da Nang, Vietnam
Memory Hostel boasts a rooftop bar and beautiful view from the windows of any room. Hostel staff can also teach you how to fish or take you on a motorbike trip to Son Tra Mountain.
Address: 03 Trần Quốc Toản, Phước Ninh, Hải Châu, Đà Nẵng, Vietnam
Coordinates: 16.065981, 108.223881
To book: Booking.com
Heyyyy Bangkok, Thailand
Far from the hustle and bustle of the city center, this boutique hostel in Bangkok is full of quirky vintage trinkets. But the main thing is that the cat Carmine lives here. He alone is already worthy of a whole series of shots.
Address: 2485 Phatthanakan Rd, Khwaeng Suan Luang, Khet Suan Luang, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon 10250, Thailand
Coordinates: 13.735990, 100.639446
To book: Booking.com
Reykjavik Bus Hostel, Reykjavik, Iceland
Reykjavik Bus Hostel has old board games, a bar with Icelandic beer and a terrace from which it is good to watch the sunset. If the bar and interiors don't make you reach for your smartphone to take a photo, it will definitely make for an incredible local sky.
Address: Skógarhlíð 10, 105 Reykjavík, Iceland
Coordinates: 64.134461, -21.919649
To book: Booking.com
People stay in hostels not only for the sake of savings. Yes, it's cheap, but often for a conditional 400-600 RUB per day you get not only a bed, but also an original interior, cheerful company, sincere service, parties and discounts on excursions and cocktails in a bar next door. There are many of them in St. Petersburg, because local residents use them too. We have selected 8 of the most interesting hostels where you can spend the night during your trip. Well, or if very inopportunely divorced bridges.
Hostel Taiga
"Taiga" has repeatedly received awards and topped the ratings best hostels in the country. The hostel is decorated in the style of Scandinavian minimalism, in addition to the standard amenities (air conditioning, Wi-Fi, cleaning, etc.), guests are offered bicycles for rent, free table tennis, iMac for public use and the Dandy console.
Taiga is not only a hostel, but also a popular hipster place with co-working, shops, cafes and exhibition spaces. So guests can attend all the events taking place here, as well as get a discount at a nearby bar or restaurant.
Address: Zagorodny pr., 21-23. Cost: from 340 RUB per day per person.
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Art Hostel Culture
This hostel is part of the Wing entertainment space. There are many different creative startups on its territory: an architectural bureau, a vinyl record store, culinary schools and educational projects. Also a hostel. The atmosphere and audience are appropriate: everything is stylish and creative, environmentally friendly. The rooms are very bright and there are eight shared bathrooms, so there is enough for everyone.
Address: st. Vosstaniya, 24/27B. Cost: from 400 RUB per person.
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Capsule Hostel Your Space
A suitable option for those who are late for the bridges and / or just want to sleep in silence. The capsule hostel is located in the city center, in the Golitsyn Loft art cluster and a stone's throw from the Summer Garden and the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. There is nothing superfluous here, the rooms are small, and the furnishings are as functional as possible: there is a bed with an orthopedic mattress, soundproofing, free Wi-Fi and a shower with hot water. If you want to communicate, you can go to the lounge area, where guests often watch movies together. The main thing is to agree on the language in which to include the film: the company is usually international.
Address: emb. Fontanki, 20. Cost: from 550 RUB per person per day.
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Fall in Love Hostel
The hostel with the romantic name "Fall in Love" fully justifies its name. At least here you can fall in love with St. Petersburg. This is a small - only 5 rooms - mini-hotel next to the Moscow railway station. The hostel hostesses are very sensitive to maintaining a homely atmosphere, so they treat guests here with cookies, arrange dinners for everyone in the evenings, play the old piano themselves and let everyone play. Important nuance: by prior arrangement, you can come with a cat or other animal.
Address: st. Marata, 61. Cost: from 1980 RUB per room.
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Baby Lemonade Hostel
This hostel is the epitome of hippie 60s aesthetics. Here you will find unexpected interior solutions: for example, vinyl records and Volkswagen buses in the form of a chandelier. The atmosphere is also from that era - freedom and sincerity. In the evenings, everyone dine together and play Mafia, and since the composition of the guests is usually multinational, some exotic dish is prepared here every evening. The hosts, in turn, love to treat guests with pancakes and borscht. A separate bonus: discounts on shots at Apron, Folks Bar and Terminal, as well as a map of the best drinking establishments in the city.
Address: st. Engineering, 7. Cost: from 350 RUB per day per person.
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Network of hostels "Friends"
The Friends hostel chain is named after the cult American TV series from the 90s and is decorated in the style of Central Coffee House, where favorite characters sat every day. The interior is decorated in the fashion of the 90s: everything is bright and acid, but at the same time cozy. In the courtyard of the hostel on the Griboyedov Canal for a long time a pink "beetle" with cardboard characters of the series inside was parked, which greatly amused the residents of St. Petersburg and guests of the city.
In total, there are about 10 hostels of this network in St. Petersburg, in each of them a series (guess which one) is played non-stop in the lobby, they play kicker and have parties.
Address: emb. 20, Griboyedov Canal, etc. Cost: from 300 RUB. from a person.
To save money, many tourists choose hostels to stay. This is several times cheaper than renting a hotel room. But if saving is not in the first place, and you want to stay in some original institution, we bring to your attention the most unusual hostels from around the world.
Do you dream of living by the sea to enjoy its expanses right from the window? Then you should definitely stay at the Rua Reidh Lighthouse, which is located on the northwest coast of Scotland overlooking Hebrides. There is no Internet, mobile communications and television here - this is really the "end of the earth." In winter you can see the northern lights here!
Price– from 42.5 pounds per person (breakfast included)
Photo: flickr.com/photos/msakr/6119874961
Photo: facebook.com/Ruareidhlighthouse
AmicitiA in Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Burg Altena in Altena (Germany)
Do you want to feel like members of the royal nobility? Stop at Burg Altena Castle, built in the 12th century on a hill. From here you have a magnificent view of the Lenne river valley and the city. The castle was both a military garrison, and a prison, and an almshouse. At the beginning of the 20th century, the castle was reconstructed and a hostel was opened here. Burg Altena is considered to be the first youth hostel in the world. There are three-, four-, thirteen- and fourteen-bed rooms here.
Price- from 60 euros per day.
STF Jumbo Stay in Stockholm (Sweden)
Absolutely unique STF Jumbo Stay hostel, which is located right in the Boeing 747 airliner next to international airport Stockholm-Arlanda. And the transfer from the airport is free. Your windows will face the runway. The room fits beds, a desk and even a TV. Breakfast is served from 3 am. There is also a bar on board the hostel airliner.
Price for a bed in a shared 4-bed room - from 45 euros (approximately 438 SEK), a room in a jet turbine - 78 euros (722 kroons). Breakfast included.
In Ireland's County Sligo, the Gyreum Eco Hostel is a 30-metre-high eco-friendly hostel amidst spacious landscapes. The hostel is equipped with a domestic and waste water filtration system, geothermal heating and wind turbines. You can choose to stay in a separate double room, in a five-bed dormitory room, or even book a capsule tent in the common room of the room.
Prices- from 16 to 27 euros.
HI-Ottawa Jail in Ottawa (Canada)
Are you wondering what it's like to be in prison? You have a great opportunity to experience this for yourself at the HI-Ottawa Jail Hostel in Canada. The hostel is located in the Carleton County Gaol prison, built over 150 years ago. You will stay in real cells with stone walls and wooden floors - bed linen and lockers are provided. In the morning, all "prisoners" are served breakfast. You can sit in the shared lounge or read a book in the library. Optionally, you can go on a tour of the prison building.
Prices– from 30 Canadian dollars (a bed in a shared 4- or 6-bed room). For those who want a separate double cell - the cost is from 80 Canadian dollars per day.
Now the hostel is no longer just a hotel, but another attraction of the city. To attract travelers, the owners try to come up with something original. Some offer to spend the night in a prison cell, others - to spend the night on chests instead of a bed. What unusual hostels are in Moscow in our material.
The owner of the hostel is American, so all the staff speak English. Any guest here can call the US or Canada for free. This hotel attracts tourists with its large space (located on all three floors of the building) and unusual design (graffiti, geometric patterns). Almost every room has images of the main character of the hotel - Godzilla.
The cost of living per day starts from 12 dollars.
Anti hostel
If you do not have a fear of confined spaces, then you are here. This is the first capsule hostel in Moscow. Here they sleep in capsules, not on beds. From the outside it looks small, but it's actually quite spacious. In his mini-room, a person can easily change clothes, sit, lie down with a laptop. To do this, each capsule has a separate socket, lamp and mirror. Due to special ventilation, the atmosphere inside is fully consistent with the atmosphere environment. In addition to the bathroom, this hostel offers free use of the sauna.
The price in this hostel per day is from 900 rubles.
HostelFactory
The hostel is located in the building of a former factory, so something from the factory time has remained in the interior. The hotel positions itself as a contemporary art gallery. When you enter it, you will see a large number of paintings by contemporary artists. Basically, the paintings are donated by the authors, for which the owner allows them to live in the hostel for free. Exhibitions, creative meetings, discussions and lectures on art are often held here. The hotel also has its own access to the roof of the building. In sunny summer weather, you can drink tea there and admire the sights of Moscow. To avoid injury at night, entry is prohibited there.
Price from 600 rubles per day.
The hotel is located on the third and fourth floors of a historic building on the Old Arbat. Five minutes from it are Red Square and the famous sights of Moscow. The walls of the hostel are decorated with graffiti, geometric patterns and photo wallpapers. In your free time from excursions or work, you can read newspapers from different corners countries and the globe, they are brought by guests for the collection of hotel owners. You can also play on PlayStation.
Price from 500 rubles per day.
NETIZEN is a hostel and a hotel under one roof. On Enthusiasts Boulevard, a building was specially built for him. Guests can be accommodated both in a separate room and in a multi-bed room. More than 250 people can live here at the same time. The rooms of the hotel are made in bed colors. The hostel is attractive with its large cozy hall, which is open to everyone (it is not necessary to be a hotel guest). It is made in European style with hanging chairs.
Price per day from 700 rubles.
You can plunge into the atmosphere of Provence in the Gindza hostel. The whole hotel is decorated in French style: beds, bedside tables, dressing tables, lamps. Each bed is separated by custom-made curtains. The atmosphere of home comfort is created by flowers on tables and window sills. Girls will like this hostel with a large mirror, illuminated from all sides by spotlights.
Price per day from 700 rubles.
Eurasia Hostel
The hostel is located 10 minutes from botanical garden and 20 minutes from VDNH. The rooms are decorated in the style different countries peace. Arriving in Russia, you can spend the night in France or Germany, China or India. Each room is decorated with photographs of a particular country, creating a cheerful and vibrant atmosphere. In the lobby you can see the main rarity of the hostel - a 130-year-old piano.
The price for a bed is from 400 rubles.
The Safari Hostel is located in a separate building in the center of Moscow. The interior of the rooms is simple, done in orange and white tones. There is a large common area with a modern kitchen decorated with two African paintings. There is a map of the world hanging in the lobby, where the buttons mark the cities from which the guests came. Here you can also drink tea or coffee for free.
Price from 450 rubles per day.
Hostel "Kotiki"
This bright hostel is located in the center of Moscow. It attracts guests with its design. There are cats on almost every wall: some are drawn in a realistic manner, others in a graffiti style. Even dishes with images of these furry animals. There is also a movie projector on which movies and video games are regularly shown. AT good weather in the hostel you can take the ball (on bail) and play in the yard.
Accommodation from 500 rubles per day.
Re: formarthostel
If you think gray makes a room look dull, then the owners of Re: formaart will try to convince you otherwise. They decorated the gray walls with drawings of the cities of the world: Moscow, London, Paris and others. The dining room is very creative, all the chairs here are different colors. Also in the hotel you can not only sleep, but also work. There are special tables in the lobby, and bean bags instead of chairs.
Price per day from 700 rubles.
If you want your trip to be remembered not only by sights, but also by a sleeping place, then you should choose an unusual hostel. Such hotels will bring into your life not only new sensations (for example, sleeping in a capsule), but new acquaintances. After all, as a rule, creative and cheerful people from various countries stop here.
*Prices are valid at the time of publication.
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Amendments to the Housing Code, known as « ”, have not yet been accepted, and St. Petersburg institutions have already begun to have problems. So, in mid-February, the court will close the St. Petersburg hostel « Friends" on Nevsky Prospekt: earlier residents of the house complained about it. Before that, a similar story happened with the Bagel hostel in Saperny Lane.
Petersburg over the past 10 years has become one of the world capitals of hostels. Almost all of them are located in residential buildings(often in settled communal apartments) and automatically fall under the prohibition law if it is adopted without amendments.
The most famous St. Petersburg hostel is Soul Kitchen in Lipin's apartment house built in 1863 on the Moika Embankment. A young married couple Lyubov and Sergey Sorokin opened it in 2012 after a project of the same name on the 1st Soviet street. This year, Soul Kitchen once again received the most prestigious Hoscar award from the Hostelworld website in five categories at once, including both « the best small hostel in the world." And the other day the hostel also received the Russian Hospitality Award as « best design hotel.
In October 2016, The Guardian magazine included Petersburgers in the top ten European luxury hostels. In January of this year, The Huffington Post listed them as one of the 12 « amazing hostels that every traveler should visit.”
Soul Kitchen is located in a former communal apartment (the Sorokins rent premises from the owner, who bought the rooms and initially rented them out for filming such series as « The Master and Margarita"). In the front there are both communal apartments and ordinary apartments. One of the neighbors of the hostel, Irina, told The Village: « When we arrived here, the hostel was already there, and at first it was a minus for me. But then I realized that the neighborhood brings only positive. The hostel is a guarantee of order and cleanliness. There have never been any incidents. We talked about this topic with neighbors: everyone has only a positive opinion. I am sure that the bill on hostels is not aimed at the benefit of small and medium-sized businesses, which are the basis of the economy of any civilized country, as well as at the benefit of an ordinary consumer.”
We talked with Lyubov and Sergey about whether there are any advantages to « of the law banning hostels”, about the difference between hostels in St. Petersburg and Moscow, as well as how they managed to please their neighbors in the front.
About the communal
Love: There used to be a community building here. About five years before we found out about her, she was resettled, and all this time the apartment was empty. Somehow it was even squatted by migrant workers - they were kicked out ... The room looked terrible.
The last room had an artificial thin wall, it was made to reduce the rent (payment was per square meter). We found a bricked-up window - removed the bricks and found newspapers from the 1920s (A fragment of one such newspaper was framed by the owners and hung on the wall in the hostel. - Approx. ed.). The windows had very beautiful long brass bolts. It would be difficult to install them on plastic windows, but we, of course, kept them. By the way, latches together with stucco are under state protection as a cultural value.
We save even strange objects that are not under protection. For example, there was a piece of wood, it is over 150 years old. There were holes in it: apparently, so that the wood would not lose its shape. Seryozha inserted light bulbs into the holes - it turned out very cool. The desks at the reception and in the computer room are made from old doors that we decided not to throw away during the renovation. They are the same age as the house, and some even have their original paintwork, as they have been preserved under layers of wallpaper. They kept a piece of a faucet: an awkward thing, but it was the same in the Hermitage - lead pipes are connected to brass (when repairs began, water flowed through one such lead pipe - I can’t imagine how people used it).
About neighbors
Love: When we moved in, the front door looked different: a classic Soviet staircase, the walls painted a horrible blue. Above us, on the third floor, there were two communal apartments. Then one of them was bought out, and in 2014, together with a new neighbor, we made repairs in the front door. The total investment was 1.2 million rubles, we shared the costs equally with him.
If something is scratched in the front door or someone decorates the front door, we will immediately clean it and touch it up. We believe that we should be involved in everything that is around the hostel. Now we are thinking of making a small stained-glass window on the landing.
Sergey: There is an apartment for rent on the ground floor. We are on the second. On the third, right above us, there is a communal apartment, and on the other side live the German consul for culture with his wife. On the fourth floor there is another communal apartment and an apartment.
Love: We often meet one of the neighbors from the fourth floor on the stairs. Once he said: "Oh, I heard about the law (about hostels in residential buildings. - Approx. ed.) Don't worry, I support you." It's nice.
About guests and employees
Love: Soul Kitchen is partly our projection. The hostel attracts people like us. Those who do not understand us will not come here. For example, our guests are not very happy with groups of schoolchildren who run and shout. We are a family hostel, but we will not accommodate school groups for any money.
Sergey: In addition, regulation takes place at the price level: we are more expensive than any hostels in St. Petersburg (and in Moscow, we know only one very expensive hostel). People come because they want to visit us. You can live in a hostel for 250-500 rubles, and with us - for 900. In summer, prices are even higher - 1,300-2,000 rubles per bed (competitors have 1,500 for peak dates).
Love: I read about people who changed their apartment to a hostel, and it seems to me that this is a terrible phenomenon. Yes, that's really what happens. Perhaps such centenarians contributed to the emergence of a bill to ban hostels in residential buildings. When people stay in a hostel for a long time, they start to feel too much at home. We understood this a long time ago, and we have a limit - a maximum of two weeks (although we sometimes make exceptions). We are a travel hostel. Those who come to St. Petersburg to work or study long term- not our ideal guests.
Sergey: We employ about eight people. Salaries are higher than the industry average. We are now recruiting new people. We try to look for friends and friends of friends, we take people from our circle. We will definitely not write an ad on HeadHunter.
Love: By the way, taking this opportunity: we want to find a person who speaks English and Korean. We have many guests from Korea, some of them have problems with English. In general, Asia in the general tourist flow is now growing. Chinese guests go mostly to cheap hotels, and our #1 Asian guest is South Korea.
About Hostelworld
Love: Hostelworld has their own algorithms according to which they calculate the winners of the Hoscar award. I think there are many factors, not only a high rating (you can have a rating of 9.9 based on just two reviews).
When a guest leaves the hostel, they receive an email from Hostelworld and can leave a review. First, he rates from one to five points on several parameters: atmosphere, cleanliness, staff, amenities, value for money, location. Then he writes a comment. There should be a lot of reviews, all of them should be real.
Often, new hostels have fake reviews at first. Hostelworld has an algorithm to detect fakes. In addition, sooner or later a review appears real guest who puts everything in its place. So there is no point in fake reviews.
Over the entire history of our hostel on the Moika, about 1,300 Soul Kitchen reviews have appeared on Hostelworld. We have a rating of 9.9, which is higher than anyone else in the world (if you do not take into account properties with a small number of reviews).
Every year Hostelworld organizes conferences, which attract about 300 delegates. We communicate with the staff of the site, but, of course, not on the subject of "introduce the right person to get an award." They help with the technical aspects.
About consulting
Sergey: We launched Soul Kitchen Consulting, but we do not consult very actively and certainly not to make money. We did this to meet new people. interesting people. We charge 7,000 rubles for an hour of Skype consultation. The cost of assistance in compiling a business plan or analyzing competitors is discussed separately. If we really like the project, we are ready to help with free advice.
Mostly people come to us from Russia. The questions are very different: from what resources to accommodate, to assistance in planning. The managers of one Samara hostel asked what innovations could be introduced. One of the first clients - a girl from Ecuador - was interested in what points to pay attention to in order to increase the rating.
Love: From a legal point of view, opening a hostel is not difficult. The question is how it will work. There are a huge number of hostels in St. Petersburg and Moscow, there is no such thing even in Europe. There are 360 hostels in St. Petersburg only on Booking.com, and even more in Moscow. Colleagues in Europe often ask: “How can you compete in such conditions?” But we have a big country, a huge number local residents travel around Russia.
At the same time, a huge number of hostels are closed or resold, because not everything is so simple. Many have this approach: put the beds - and that's it, you're done. Every low season, about 20 new hostels open, they dump, then close.
About the bill
Sergey: In theory, all St. Petersburg hostels can fall under the new law. And the main problem: like many laws in Russia, it can be interpreted in any way. There is no law yet, but some authorities are already beginning to understand that everyone can be closed under this sauce. The mechanism began to spin.
Love: After the first reading of the bill, the need for amendments was discussed. They, in particular, would allow the placement of hostels in residential buildings, provided that the neighbors do not mind. Here, however, the question arises: how to formalize the consent of neighbors? In general, we hope that common sense will prevail. We don't want to fear for our future. Uncertainty hinders development.
Sergey: Moreover, we are before the start high season We are planning to open a new wing. There will be eight more rooms for 36 people - about 200 square meters. Previously, there was also a communal apartment there, but last summer it was settled. We are currently doing renovations.
But in general, the entire industry is now slowing down: no one wants to invest money in something that can be taken away. On the other hand, this law can clear the market of unscrupulous players. But the same mandatory classification of accommodation facilities, which not everyone passed, already performs this function (accommodation facilities that have not passed the classification since January 1, 2017 cannot work, there is a law). It would be possible to write a bill based on the classification and register of approved hostels, but so far no one wants to do this.
Love: In this whole story, it is not clear what to do with the World Cup (Football World Cup - 2018. - Ed.). Petersburg consisted of a huge number of communal apartments, and now the main part of the room stock in the center is small hotels and hostels. If everything is closed, there will not be enough room for guests. In Moscow, this is easier: there are more large-scale hotels. We don't have that.
About Moscow hostels
Sergey: Colleagues from Moscow said that last year they came to their hostel from inspection structures and said: “You don’t have a no-smoking sign.” - "How?! Here she is." - "This plate is made according to a different GOST - that's it, shut up." We still have flowers, in Moscow everything is much tougher: it seems that the city government has given an unspoken go-ahead to close hostels.
