Sunday 2 June 2013

Hostels in Amsterdam

With Brel's song in mind (Amsterdam), I started looking for a hostel in Amsterdam. Just in case. Because I usually travel in the low season. But not this time. And it appears the city of vice might get crowded in June.

Conclusion : when hostels get full without any effort from the owners, there is no need to offer a good service. When you look at this, the average rate on hostelworld, for any of these hostels, is pretty low. Cleanliness, staff, apparently, everything is "not so good".

So I gathered my informations from friends living in Amsterdam. They confirmed : the hostel world in that city is a jungle.

A jungle because you might end up with smoking, drinking, noisy roomates. With the Red Light nearby, you know... That's where you might want a hostel with a no-smoking, no-drinking policy.

A jungle too because when you read previous customer's comments, you understand it's gonna be pricey for average service. When your description states the showers don't work that well... and you don't plan on fixing them, it means you probably still make a lot of money out of your crappy hostel.

Other downer : unless you want to go far away from the city, the fares double for a bed on Saturday. Yes! You won't find a bed under 60 $... in a dorm.

Anyway, I booked to ensure I would sleep somewhere. Took a cancellation insurance. If I find some people to share a room, it might be cheaper in a hotel...

That said, I won't hold back from commetning once I get there. Stay tuned.

La Nouvelle

On another subject, I now write a column called Le Bourlingueur in the weekly newspaper La NouvelleFrench readers will find me there once a week.

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