Ugh.
I knew this day would come.  I hate hostels.

I  wasn’t sure what to write about this week so I thought I’d have a look back at our South New Zealand trip and have a bit of a rant post!
During our stay in Dunedin, we chose to stay in a hostel.
After our first day of almost failed camping, we thought it would be fun. We were wrong.

Before this post turns into just a big long rant about this one hostel I’m going to say I’m not going to name and shame them as I don’t think that’s fair.
I’m sure other people find it…. comfortable? Acceptable? It has enough good reviews, which is why I chose it.

As much as I don’t want to admit to anyone or myself that I’ve changed a lot since my teenage years, it’s been over 10 years. Of course, I’ve changed!

I remember my first apartment, I had dirty plates in the sink and on the side of the kitchen piled so high, they were growing their own ecosystem!!
And I was totally cool with that!

Now I won’t even use cutlery if it has watermarks!

Which brings us to our first point.
(Remember this does not apply to every hostel! I’m basing this on a few recent experiences in New Zealand & Australia and I may still be a bit bitter.)

1. Dirty Rooms, Dirty Everything!
   I’ve been in a couple of really gorgeous and clean hostels but they always seem to be brand new, not very well known and have invested in cleaners that actually clean. It seems to be the older something gets, or the greedier the management/owner is, the hostel in question gets run down, looks shabbier and dirtier.  And not in a cool hipster vintage way. More like a meth or crack den kinda way and it’s disgusting.Like I said before the teenage grunge in me would have been quite content to roll around the floor in there, now I’m afraid to touch the walls.

   

2. Shite Wifi
   This is where some people would say well, you should be talking to the people around you and not be on your phone. Yeah, that’s cool. Some total stranger telling me how to spend my time. F*CK YOU. If I want to spend hours scrolling through memes on 9gag.com rather than attempt to make any meaningful conversation with people, that’s my prerogative.No, I get it, sociable is good. But I just hate small talk and whenever you try big talk with most people in hostels I’m 9 times out of 10 gonna wish I stuck to the small talk.Besides that, you have no idea what I might need the wifi for. What if I’m trying to research something, talk to someone back home, apply for a visa, or in my case work?

   What’s the wifi code again?

   

3. Poor Design.
   I mean places that have not been thought out or planned or even decorated well. Some hostels don’t know what up-cycling is.
   I’ve been in some really poor areas where old items have been up-cycled and used to create really cool features in hostels. Some places just fall short. Put some effort into it.  The last hostel, the lounge was great, nice comfy chairs and artwork everywhere but as you walked to the rooms everything got really lacklustre and just crappy looking. I should have slept in the lounge.

   

4. Free breakfast? You mean bread.
   Now I sound REALLY ungrateful. Here’s the thing though, when we were in Nepal we would stay at a hotel for the equivalent of $10NZD a night and get the best-cooked breakfasts. Now I’m paying $60NZD and I get white bread.
   Oh, and I have to fight for it. I know it’s not the same but I still feel naff about it.  You know what? I’d just prefer to go to a cute coffee shop. Breakfast is, after all, the most important meal of the day.

   

5. Nonchalant Staff|
   Oh dear me, so this one got me bad… Indifferent staff.  I understand most staff are other backpackers and they don’t exactly have hospitality qualifications or anything like that.  For some, this might even be their first job. But please stop hiring self-entitled, indifferent brats who aren’t going to do their job at all. I mean if I was running a business I wouldn’t want these scabs to be the first thing my customers were faced with.
   Then again if you’re going to make your staff work when they are full of cold and in a shitty mood, you probably shouldn’t be running a hostel business anyway. This is all from our Dunedin hostel experience. Now I don’t know this girl personally. All I know is that if your front desk you or the brand ambassador for that hostel.  She didn’t check us in for a-g-e-s as we waited at the desk, was really disinterested and looked hella ill.
   Later on that night we went to the lounge to chill out.  There is only one sofa in front of the TV and she was laid along the whole thing laughing loudly at what she wanted to watch whilst actual customers had to sit on the chairs and move them to see.
   The next morning we found her in the kitchen eating customers ‘free breakfast’ complaining loudly about how she couldn’t wait to get out of this shithole.

   

6. Awkward, awkward, awkward
   The lack of privacy got me like… urk! Personal SPPPPAAAACCCCCCEEEE!!!!!
   This is more for everyone else protection, I got massive badonkadonks and I wouldn’t wanna put anyone’s eye out or hurt anyone’s pride or make anyone extremely jealous and feel bad about themselves.
   I need somewhere private to change. Have you ever tried to change your underwear in a mixed dorm bed? Or an open bathroom or even in a toilet. FFS. Awkward.

   

7. What the f*ck is going on in this kitchen??!
   This is actually just a personal problem of mine in general.
   I have the same problem in the house I’m living in at the moment. It’s shared and shit is everywhere. I actually like cooking. What I don’t like is…
   a) Searching for what feels like hours for a goddamn pan!!
   b) Bumping into people with hot pans in my hands!
   c) Fighting for the one effing sink to wash the pan!
   d) Being told I can’t use that pan because it belongs to so and so….
   I want my own kitchen.

   

8. Beds that Ruin your Back and LifeThere can be so many things wrong with hostel beds if they’re done wrong.
   I have taken a stand now and said I’m not staying in any more hostels with metal bed bunks. Noisy, awful things. Squeaky. Nope.
   Old mattresses are not good for you. End of.
   Bed bugs! EEeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww.
   Dirty sheets? Even more eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww.
   Dorm sex? I just can’t even.

   

9. Dickheads Everywhere
   Drunk People are fun when you are one of the drunk people. Otherwise, stay away from me and don’t bother me.  And for FFS no I don’t want to do a ‘shoey’ what’s the matter with you? Also, I don’t know why it’s still considered okay for people to practice the guitar at 2am.  If I got all my paints out on the dorm floor and made life inconvenient for you, you wouldn’t be happy.The obnoxious competitors, I know you find them everywhere, those people that whenever you tell them something they have always done something better. Pics or it didn’t happen.

   I didn’t want to bring up this one, but the judgy vegan types. Aw man, this one is a hard one. Look I don’t friggin know you. If you were a friend and making friendly valid points and how I should change my life and my diet I might listen to you, but you’re not you’re just being a dick. Your approach is all wrong man.

   Thieves. Food Thieves. Blanket Thieves. Thief Thieves. These guys win the gold medal for the Hostel Dickhead Championships.

Right rant over.
All this being said I’ve stayed in some lovely hostels before and I should really write about them someday. Especially the one we stayed in at Barcelona in 2017.
I’ll probably still book hostels, but in the future, I’m going to try and go for the smaller, newer, nicer ones.

Grunge me can stay in the past. I like clean sheets now.

P.s If anyone has anything to get me out of this rant funk that’d be great.