On the list of mankind’s greatest fears, staying in a youth hostel ranks just above fear of your own imminent and inevitable death. Without seeing the movie “Hostel” and thinking some wacko (yet super sexy) girls will trick you into a seemingly innocent night of partying, only to be tortured at length by a sadistic mad scientist with a drill, you may still have reservations. Either your parent, your cousin, or your friend have stayed in one, and they have either been robbed blind, contracted some strange flesh-eating parasite from not showering with sandals on, or have woken up in their bunk bed to cooing in their ear and a tight embrace from Olaf, the weird Danish roommate who refuses to wear a shirt.
You thought I was kidding about these fuckers?
Granted, these things happen. Let’s get this straight: if you’re the type of person that goes camping where they have running water or gets weirded out by sleeping on a friend’s couch, this is not the place for you. I’m just saying, you might have to sav out sometimes.
Most hostels are clean with plenty of amenities, and almost all are a steal you can’t pass up. When $16 buys you a bottle of liquor AND a night’s stay, you might start lighting your cigarettes with $1 bills.
But really the best part about hostels is a ready-made group of like-minded, similarly-aged people who are all ready to regale you with tales of their adventures. The availability of cheap lodging has the ability to funnel in a variety of twenty-somethings living on a shoestring, who by virtue of not having much to spend, have all lived out equally as crazy experiences as yourself.
Poverty breeds adventure, and always has. Being poor used to motivate young Englishmen and Frenchmen to sign up with royal navies, and in a year’s time they were plundering Manila galleons in the Pacific or getting cannonballs shot through their ass in the Caribbean. “Making your fortune” was about earning a little dough, but really more about finding your destiny.
Nowadays setting off from your shores is more like a business venture. You begin with a bit of startup capital, and then you start bootstrapping for funding. This creates an atmosphere where you are squeezing drops of water out of every last metal cent you have, and through a logical progression, this results in a more well-adjusted, appreciative, and eventually cool, individual.
Follow my reasoning: if you don’t have money, you will not be heading to a resort town. Monaco is probably not happening without some parental funding. You will also be unable to stay in fancy hotels. This means you will be going to regular cities and staying with regular people, either with locals or in hostels.
Sadly, you will have no HBO or hotel porn [ I know 🙁 ], so you will definitely be leaving your room as soon as humanly possible. The awkward situation (or general disarray of a hostel) will motivate you to go out on the town, and conversely, the youthful clientele of a hostel is available to accompany you (who, like you, are trying to forget that some strange dude was belting Tina Turner in the toilet stall while they were brushing their teeth that morning). While you both want to explore, you really just want to bitch about that weird guy to a sympathetic ear and drink to forget it all. This means instant friendships and guaranteed good times.
Close it off with the fact that your available money only minimizes, forcing you into more desperate, and hence more adventurous, situations, meeting similarly desperate, hence hilarious, individuals, and complete that equation to n=50. Give it a hot shower, and the product is a supremely cool person with plenty to tell. Everyone loves a good survival story.
Some hostels exhibit feats of superior technology for the closing of doors.
The craziest motherfucker on the high seas that I have had the privilege to meet was a British guy named Harry. Skinny, blonde, with teeth too big for his mouth, Harry would gladly pepper your day with another travel story between the German cigarettes he chainsmoked. Harry was fond of taking serious risks with his life, and given that this was the low season, and about 4 people were staying at the hostel, I was happy to listen. It helped the day pass.
This swashbuckling attitude towards life, one he must have shared with the cabin boy ancestor deep in his family history who set out to sail the seas, was charismatic and attracted you to his tales. I was not the only one. According to him, various local women had invited him to their villages for family get-togethers where he had gotten a true feel for the countries he had visited.
But charismatic and worldly aside, he was still brazenly asking for death or incarceration with his behavior. He felt compelled to visit Kosovo in 2008 when they had recently declared independence and massive, sometimes violent, protests still plagued the streets. He willingly traveled to Transnistria, the breakaway Moldovan region that holds steadfastly to a semi-Communist system to this day, and had to bribe a border guard heavily to escape the country. He even hopped a military fence to take pictures of the Ukrainian navy because he thought it was “cool”, setting himself up nicely for a multi-decade prison sentence for espionage.
As Greek as it gets.
I met Harry in Greece, where I listened to every story with admiration, wondering why I didn’t have the guts to do whatever struck my fancy. In fact, I agonized about it. Every story made me, and by extension, my trip, feel inadequate, as if I could have done something better. The furious, regretful pondering of how things could have been better flooded my mind until everything was too waterlogged to think.
Then one morning, Harry and I were standing in front of a supermarket. I had just bought some necessities and Harry was munching on a bag of grapes (yes, it’s important to the story!). While talking to Harry, I noticed half his grapes were being tossed in the air, and at some point, annoyed by his lack of attention, I followed one’s trajectory through the air with his eyes.
The target was apparently a group of young toughs in track jackets and shaved heads looking around menacingly. Greece has a xenophobic, right-wing, fascist movement called Golden Dawn alive and well in the country, and these guys looked like the poster-boys for it. They looked ready to stomp a brown person’s head in with little provocation, and happy to oblige as well for the white people that pissed them off as well. And with each progressive throw, Harry’s grapes were getting closer.
But really, who can be angry with food this delicious?
“I’m not jumping in for you if they decide to punch you, man,” I proclaimed with seriousness. He stopped, turned to me with a devilish smile, and that’s when I saw it. He wasn’t brave, like I had thought. He looked for trouble, and due to a sickly fortuitous bit of luck, to this day he had suffered no consequences. He knew exactly what he was doing, and in the near future, I could see his come-uppance being fast-tracked, accelerating like a roller coaster of knuckles flying down the first hill straight at his big ass teeth.
Lesson learned: You always must create the situation for an adventure, but some people create them at serious risk to their person. There is nothing wrong with being cautious, and being alive to tell your stories.
–Reed (23), New Jersey, throwing fruit at psychos in Greece