The youth and budget travel market demands more today than ever before. Travelers are street wise and globally savvy, they know what they want and at what price. If you ask any young person what they want to do in life they probably wouldn’t give you any sensible answer but one thing they definitely know is they want to travel the world and  visit as many places as possible before they settle down.

There is a “can do travel” attitude in young people as well as more and more older people .  They want to travel from Sydney to Beijing, from New York to London and Prague, from Lagos to Cape Town then possibly New Delhi and the Caribbean too, all on a shoe string budget. This attitude has been inspired by the boom of budget airlines and cheap air travel. This has also brought about the boom in cheap accommodation, which is the fastest growing sector in the accommodation and tourism industry.

Time has been a friend to hostels and the people who stay in them. Only a few years ago if you stayed in a hostel it may not have been the best experience but now things have definitely changed for the better. Some people in America used to refer to hostels as toilets because of the poor standards, outright neglect and lack of customer care. Not so these days. The prices of hostels and cheap hotels are still the most competitive yet the quality of the accommodation and service given by the staff has improved 10 fold.

Some of these changes have been brought about by the emergence of the internet and online hostel booking sites which use a rating system and demand high standards from the operator. This lets backpackers and budget travellers know what type of hostels, hotels and cheap accommodations they are booking before they get there. A cool feature is that after staying or even while staying in the accommodation, they can send in their feedback and rating of the accommodation to the online booking site.

These days online booking allows the traveller know what they are getting into before they confirm their booking. This gives the traveller the opportunity to know what type of facilities there are, full description and photo’s,  directions, comments from fellow travelers and much more. You can find hostels in most cities around the world with private single,  double and family rooms with en-suite facilities,  free internet access and WiFi . There are many hostels with full guest kitchens, meeting rooms and some with gyms and swimming pools, things which you would only expect from more expensive hotels and private apartments.

Even if you prefer to stay in the classic dormitory style rooms these have also been transformed, with ingenious things that make your stay more enjoyable, like free in room security lockers,  en-suite bathing facilities,  reading lights for each bunk and privacy curtains or partitions. Hostels today are run like a business that care for its customers and not half way houses for delinquents.

The quality and variety of facilities provided in many hostels and cheap hotels make you think you are staying in a far more expensive hotel. It is good to know you have found a great deal. All in all, hostels have improved dramatically over recent years and by online booking sites insisting on best standards this has forced the standards to rise dramatically.

There will always be exceptions, but as a whole, if you have never stayed in a hostel before there is no better time than now, to try one out and save yourself some money. You will be pleasantly surprised and you might even be converted into a hosteller.

Guest Article by: Piyagarn_Golden

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