The 9 Worst People You’ll Meet at a Hostel

Hostel traveling has a lot of benefits, with the low price and heightened sense of community being the most prominent. I much prefer hostels to hotels as a rule, but the more I stay, the more I realize that the same types of ‘bad neighbors’ seem to present themselves over and over again. The following are, in my experience, the nine worst and most common offenders, whose obnoxious behavior can detract from the generally positive experience of staying in a hostel. Don’t be these people!

1//The Nudist

Once, when visiting London, I was staying in a six-bed mixed dorm on the 5th floor of a hostel. Because we were so high up and there were so many people in a rather small space, the room would get toasty very quickly when we were sleeping.  As a result, we would generally leave the window open at night to get some air moving. One morning I woke up sweating to find the window closed. I looked around, and the Italian guy in the bunk across from mine had thrown his covers off and he was naked as the day he was born. Though I’m generally perfectly comfortable in mixed dorms, I was the only woman in this room full of men, and I already felt a little weird about it. After exchanging some looks with my bunkmates, I opened the window and the guy eventually covered up.

To make a long story short: don’t be inappropriately naked in a hostel. You should probably not sleep naked, especially in a mixed dorm (unless you’re confident you can keep your downstairs mix-up covered), and walking around in your room naked is also probably not a particularly good idea. It’s not that I’m prudish, I don’t really have a problem with naked bodies, I just can’t imagine that I’m alone in not wanting to see your bits when I wake up in the morning, ya know?

2//The Thief

Now, I’m not talking about a major thief here–not the person who takes a laptop, passport, or camera that isn’t locked up. This type of thief is more subtle in his thievery, but incredibly irritating. This is the person sees all communal areas as a free for all, especially the hostel kitchen. If it is not on a free shelf, or you didn’t buy it yourself, DO NOT TAKE IT. Ever. I’ve had food taken out of sealed and labeled bags in the fridge, as well as, worst of all sins, beer taken from under my bed. Nothing like waking up in the morning to find that someone took one of your apples out of your grocery bag, took a bite out of it, and then left it on the refrigerator shelf next to your bag. (True story: it happened to me in Iceland last year).

3//The Guitar Guy

I know I’m going to get some flack for this, but ‘the guitar guy’ is probably my least favorite kind of obnoxious hostel neighbor. This is not to say that all people that bring guitars that stay in hostels are annoying, there are plenty of fine musicians traveling with guitars so they can busk for money to keep traveling and such, and this is not who I am talking about. There’s a particular type of hostel guitar guy that just really hits a nerve. He plays loudly and constantly in any common area where the most people are, trying to woo one girl or another with a mediocre rendition of an Oasis song (why always Oasis?). If people aren’t paying enough attention or aren’t impressed, he gets annoyed and thinks you’re ‘too uptight’ or ‘just don’t get it’. Listen, if you want to bring your guitar on the road and hang out and play some songs with people, that’s great, but when you’re belting “Wonderwall” for the fifth time that night, don’t get butthurt when your fellow travelers just don’t care.

Comedian Mike Birbiglia puts it pretty perfectly in his song “Guitar Guy at the Party”

4//The Exhibitionist

Ok, I get it, sometimes you’re traveling and you meet a cool babe, or you’re just really drunk and someone is talking to you. Either way, after spending some time together, you both decide you want to take the hump truck down the thighway to the bone zone. I get it! There’s a big world full of sexy people out there, and sometimes you want to get naked with one of those sexy people. But then an obstacle presents itself: you’re staying in a hostel, in a dorm with 4 to 20 or so other people. You go for it anyway, right?

Please don’t. There are few things weirder than waking up to a shaking bunk bed because your upstairs or downstairs neighbor made a new ‘friend’, or to weird noises from an indeterminate area of the room. This is not to say that you should not be able to get freaky if you are staying in a hostel, but be considerate about it! You’re presumably an adult, so you have options. Get a private room. Find a bathroom. Wait until your bunkmates are gone out for the day (easier if you’re not staying in a giant room). Just try really hard not to make sleeping in a room with a bunch of strangers weirder than it already is.

5//The Shower Hog

If you’re showering during peak times, keep it short. You know who’s showering at 9 am? Everyone that just got back from breakfast. If you want to take a long shower, wait for weird times so that no one will be waiting on you. Simple as that!

6//The Rustler

One funny thing about traveling is that you somehow always end up with a seemingly endless number of plastic bags. They accumulate quickly, from grocery shopping, tourist shops, etc. What’s great about these bags is that they can come in really handy for things like wet bathing suits, separating dirty clothes, and separating your food in the communal refrigerators. Unfortunately, these bags also have a downside…they are majorly noisy.

In the general day-to-day, this isn’t all that much of a problem, but when you’re going through your bag to find your toothbrush late at night, or are packing your backpack to leave for an early train, these bags can be incredibly annoying for those trying to sleep nearby. Compression bags can be a noisy culprit as well. Some try to pack more slowly and deliberately, but that doesn’t make the crinkling quieter, just last longer. If you need to find something in your bag at night, try using a headlamp or the flashlight in your phone to minimize the time blindly feeling around in your backpack. If you’re organizing your things to leave, bring everything into the hallway or kitchen table where you can spread out and not worry as much about noise.

7//The Light-Flipper

This probably could have been bundled with The Rustler, since the behaviors are similar, but it’s so rude that I thought it warranted its own entry! The Light-Flipper is the person who turns on the lights in the room, regardless of the time. A good rule of thumb is to not turn on the overhead lights after 10 pm or before 8 am. If you need to find something during later hours, it’s worth investing in a headlamp or using the flashlight on your smartphone, if you have one.

8//The Outlet Hog

With travelers relying more and more on technology for guidance, entertainment, and of course for work, almost everyone will have several gadgets to charge. Unfortunately, some hostels are a little behind the times, and there can be some serious competition for outlets which may be few and far between. Every so often, someone will decide that they should take all of a room’s four plugs to charge their phone, their camera, their laptop, and their kindle all at the same time. Not only is this rude, but it is totally unnecessary.

A couple ways to avoid outlet-hogging:

• Find a place to park it with your laptop for a while to charge up. You can charge some of your devices simultaneously via USB, and you can catch up on emails, news, photo editing, etc at the same time!
• Invest in a travel surge protector. This little power strip has three outlets and two USB ports, which means you could charge 5 devices at once, or make some new friends by offering to share your newly available extra outlet space.
• Buy a mobile charge pack of some kind, either something like this, which can charge any USB-charged device, or a Mophie battery case, which is a smartphone case with a built-in charger.

9//The Competitive Storyteller

The competitive storyteller is a person that has a bit of a superiority complex about their travels. There’s at least one in every hostel. Have you been traveling a long time? They’ve been traveling longer. Been somewhere cool? They’ve been somewhere cooler. Had a heartwarming/life-changing experience somewhere? Their experience made hearts even warmer and lives more changed! They’re correcting your pronunciation of the name of a French village they’ve never been to, and they definitely have more stamps in their passport than you do.

It’s natural for people with similar interests to talk about that interest a lot when they get together, and so travel talk is prevalent at hostels. With everyone gathered around the kitchen table drinking beer and swapping tips and stories, it can sometimes be hard not to get carried away. Always remember, travel is not a competition. Everyone’s experiences are different, and no matter what you think of someone else’s travel stories, plans, or priorities, they find these things meaningful, and it’s best not to belittle them.

Got any crazy stories about bad neighbors in hostels? Share them in the comments!