When some people travel, their accommodation involves words like plush, champagne, spa, pamper, terrace, aroma, stunning, marble, spacious, and robe.
And then there’s you.
You’re the kind of person who ends up on a site like Wait But Why, and your travel is far shittier.
You may even be acquainted with the wide world of hostels, a world that embodies both the human race’s best qualities and its most annoying. A culture that manages to simultaneously be a liberal utopia of open-mindedness, acceptance, and diversity—and a factory of cringiness. If Gandhi mated with the douchiest guy you went to high school with, their offspring would be hostels.
Hostels are everything the world should be and everything the world shouldn’t be, all at once.
And while every hostel is unique, the crowd passing through tends to be more or less the same. We’ll scratch the surface today by breaking down 12 of the common characters:
1) The Guy Who Plays The Guitar In The Hostel
Defining Characteristics: Making serious facial expressions; Thrilled with self
Length of Their Trip: 10 weeks
He had to find a place for it in the overhead bin on the plane, which wasn’t easy. He held it on his lap on the crowded bus. He carried it for a mile and a half from the bus station to the hostel.
But sitting there on the backrest of the couch, plucking those sweet strings, embodying literally the best aesthetic ever—it was all worth it for The Guy Who Plays The Guitar In The Hostel.
2) The 38-Year-Old Guy Who’s Pretending He’s 24
Defining Characteristics: Down to party; Wrinkles
Length of Their Trip: 2 weeks
There are three kinds of guys you’ll find in hostels:
1) Dudes (age 19-32)
2) Men (age 33-70)
3) The 38-year-old who’s gonna just go ahead and pretend he’s still a dude and he’d really appreciate it if you would just roll with it and not say anything about it
Every hostel has one dude who’s a little too