Home / Accommodation /Podcasts /Research /Reviews / 066 – Hostel Site Reviews 2008
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GOMIO:
Conclusion: Although we’ve been travelling primarily in Europe — gomio’s niche market –Â they’ve pretty much fallen off of our radar. They might suit you perfectly, but we’re happy without them.
HI HOSTELS
Conclusion: If you can’t find accommodation using a more general hostel booking site then check here just in case you find something that isn’t available online.
HOSTELZ
Conclusion: We really like their reviews section and refer to it if a place looks at all suspect. A hostel’s cost is very important to us, so the inability to see live prices from the start seems to slow down the research process too much.
ASIDE: TFT HOSTELS
Provides a comparison of listings for several major booking sites. Kind of like skyscanner for hostels.
HOSTELWORLD
Conclusion: I love the added value that hostelworld provides in terms of media but as an end user I don’t like the booking fee or membership system. I thought Paypal would be great for me, since I use Paypal quite a lot but the double validation is a huge waste of time. Thanks to a free gold card, over the last 12 months we’ve used hostelworld for about half of our bookings.
HOSTELBOOKERS
Conclusion: Great search results and no booking fee make hostelbookers a site we return to. We’ve used them for about 50% of our bookings over the last year.
Last year we announced our favourite site was hostelbookers, but late in 2007 and through the beginning of 2008 we found ourselves using hostelworld more and more. This will probably decrease again when our complementary gold card expires.
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Photo thanks to Peter Gene
Written by: Craig and Linda
Posted on: Sunday, July 13th, 2008
Posted in: Accommodation, Podcasts, Research, Reviews
Responses: 13 so far
Thanks for the link! I’ll check out that site. how did you get the hostel bookers affliate links?
also, you invited me to stumble- I’m already on it!! just look for nomadic matt!
July 21st, 2008 at 6:14 pmHey Matt, good to hear from you again. I’ll root you out on SU and email you with the hostelbookers details.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:34 pmSome other sites I would suggest you to check out are:
Hostelmania – New guys started in 2004, world wide bookings.
Hostelsclub – If you visit Italy checking this site is a must, world wide bookings.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:36 pmHi Craig,
I like your site very much, now there is a report on my blog about indietravelpodcast in german under http://www.hostelblog.de/hostelbuchungsplattformen-vergleich-bei-indietravelpodcastcom/
Your recent “show” about the different hostel booking sites is really great to hear, keep it up.
Kind regards from Berlin, Germany,
Chris
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:37 pmGood topic!
I’ve been travelling in South America for 6 weeks and found this site:
http://www.hosteltrail.com
- and it’s one of the only decent sources I’ve found for Colombia and Venezuela.
Enjoy.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:44 amThat’s right bro! How could you forget about us?! Thanks Marco from TFTHostels for mentioning us!
October 15th, 2008 at 10:27 pmHey Johan, you’re pencilled in for the 2009 review. And the hostelling ebook in early 2009.
October 16th, 2008 at 9:44 amThanks for the info
February 4th, 2009 at 5:12 am