This article is a minor allegory for a small decision making process that is going on at the moment. I’m in one of the nicest parts of Britain (check my instagram feed!), but on my way here, I passed through London…
Many people maintain Australia is an expensive country to travel around. Coming from Britain, but not having stayed in hostels there, and arriving when the exchange rate was very poor from my point of view (August 2012, the Australian dollar was worth almost £0.70), I found the hostels in Darwin and Sydney to be expensive. The cheapest regular prices I found were in off-season Queensland, at $22/night. Darwin high season prices start at $31 and while Sydney has a big range, $25/night isn’t usually a lovely establishment, and the big chain hostels charge nearer to $40/night. Five years later in London, our plans changed at short notice and we found ourselves booking a London hostel, the morning before, between Christmas and new year. The going rate was between $40 and $60 for a dorm bed in a lot of the hostels, and the ones that were cheaper had approval ratings below 50% or were in out of the way places. Saving £3 on the hostel and spending it on the train twice is pointless. We payed £18 in the end.
Paying £18 (so $35-40) in Australia would get you a secure dorm room with a locker, access to clean toilets and showers, and a common area. They do tend to charge extra for internet access at that end of the scale, but at least its fast, reliable internet access. In London, it gets you an 18 bed dorm attached to a pub. No kitchen, up-and-down WiFi, and sharing the one bathroom with the punters. This is no criticism of the hostel we stayed at, it was in a reasonable location and was very cheap within its own market. They may have crammed a few more bunks into the dorm room than is really appropriate for its size, and there weren’t quite enough lockers, but if I’d pay $25 to stay there, I wouldn’t be filling TripAdvisor with my moanings. Having travelled around Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Denmark, all supposedly expensive countries – I’ve found my hometown to be the most expensive for hostel beds. £18 is the bottom of the market in London, it’s the top everywhere else!
ducksoftheworld 