Hostels in Australia

Australia is the homeland of 'backpacking'. Backpackers are usually students and other young people who travel around the world while making stops to work and earn enough money in order to carry on with their trips. Since their budget is based on temporary and hourly paid jobs, they prefer to save some money when it comes to 'not so fun' part of life (like sleeping) in order to have more money to spend for the 'really fun' part of the life like travelling further and drinking until they fall under the table.

At a hostel the guests do not have to book the complete room but just a bed in a multi-bed room. The hostels are equipped with shared bathrooms, shared kitchen and laundry. They are more in dormitory style and everyone is expected to clean after her/himself. The level of cleanliness and quality totally depends on the hostel itself and they are usually priced accordingly. You get what you pay for! For those who do not want to spend the night with strangers, double rooms are also available in most of the hostels and sometimes even single rooms.

Although facilities that are offered by hostels (like breakfast and linen) completely depend on each hostel, almost all of the hostels in Australia offer pick up service from the airport. At all international airports there is a hostel info stand where many hostels in the city have their advertisements. It is possible to drop a free of charge phone call to them, in order to get picked up from the airport as soon as possible. Some hostels may require several days of bed/room reservation to offer this service for free.

The hostels usually do not have a common standard. But there are some hostelling organizations all over the world that ensure a certain level among their member hostels. Youth Hostels Australia (YHA) is a part in the world's largest backpacking network, Hostelling International. YHA hostels offer higher quality than all of the average hostels and their prices are accordingly higher than the others. The room prices also depend on the low/high season and the location of the hostel. It is possible to be a member of YHA by paying some yearly fee and this membership brings discounts at all YHA hostels.