Whilst I usually like to travel without booking accommodation, there are occasions when it’s best to book before you arrive. It can be a good idea to book your accommodation prior to a long flight for example or perhaps well in advance when arriving in a very popular area.
Thankfully this is pretty straightforward over the Internet and thousands of hostels can be booked online.
Here are some of the top hostel reservation sites that you can use to book budget accommodation on your travels.
HostelWorld.com is perhaps the biggest and one of the oldest hostel booking sites. Recently it has been through a re-vamp and is looking very good indeed. HostelWorld.com has a wide range of hostels that you can book for a small online deposit, you pay the rest when you arrive at the hostel.
There are some great reviews to help you make the right decision. Hostels themselves see online reviews (especially those through HostelWorld.com) as a big challenge as much of their business is generated this way. Some hostels have been known to allocate different rooms for those backpackers that have booked though HostelWorld.com in order to generate favourable reviews.
The site itself is straightforward, easy to use and also offers a free sms reminder service.
HostelMania.com was established in 2004 just after the likes of HostelWorld.com and HostelBookers.com but it is very easy to use and has plenty of information. Hostels from all over the world can be booked online. The site itself is simple, effective with a fresh look. I found it clear and easy to use.
HostelBookers.com, like HostelWorld.com is a well established hostel booking site. It was set up in 2003 with the aim of providing hostel reservations without a booking fee.
Like most of the booking sites HostelBookers.com was fairy easy to use and had a great google map display of the hostels in a particular area. Although many other sites have this feature I felt it has been particularlly well excuted on HostelBookers.com.
VIPBackpackers.com started out in Australia where they aimed to build alliances with independent hostels that offered good quality and good value. VIPBackpackers.com has over 1,200 hostels across 83 countries in the alliance and offers discounts for members.
As VIPBackpackers.com is focused more on quality rather than the sheer quantity of hostels they tend to have less hostels to search. This isn’t always a bad thing, but can be frustrating if you are searching for a hostel in a little known place. The VIPBackpackers site was simple, clear, effective and easy to use.
There you have it, a small selection of hostel bookings sites. It’s by no means a definitive list of sites but just a small selection of sites that can be very useful on your travels.
