Japan Youth Hostels

[Brooker]

Hi all, I'm back. I just returned from a brief trip to Japan. I checked out various accomodations while there including youth hostels to get a better sense of the accomodation scene in Japan. Here's my take on a youth hostel I stayed at in Yokohama (Kanagawa)....

The biggest pros..
The best thing about staying at a youth hostel is having a chance to meet other travelers from all over, especially if you're traveling alone, you've immediately got a group of friends to do things with. One of my roommates, from Korea, asked me to join him for sight seeing. It's very natural at a youth hostel to band together with the other hostelers. At hotels you never seem to meet anyone. Also, hostels are relatively cheap (in this case about Y3000, roughly $30 US).

The biggest cons..
I don't mind the lack of luxuries at a youth hostel, but something that was a big problem for me was their hours. You have to check in between 5pm and 10pm (which is not flexible). The first night I intended to stay there, I had some unforseen delays and missed the check in time. Luckily, I was meeting some friends that night who were able to put me up or I probably would have spent the night on a bench at a train station. The next day I couldn't check in until 5pm. I hadn't gotten much sleep from my partying the previous night and was feeling some serious jet lag and all I wanted to do was take a nap and do some laundry. Instead I had to bum around for hours until I could check in, which was a major pain. Also, you have to be in for the night by 11pm, which is a big problem if you plan on having a late night out, a common thing in the big cities.

So, in conclusion, if you want to stay at a youth hostel, they are fairly cheap, but you've got to be pretty motivated to stay there. When things get inconvenient, you may be temped to just flop down at a hotel.

For more information about Japan youth hostels go to....
Youth Hostels in JAPAN

Happy hosteling.

 

[Keiichi]

So you mean you would've had to bum around with your luggage overnight if you never had friends to meet that night? Yikes.
Out of curiosity, what kind of people (ethnicities) were there in the hostel, and how many people in all in the one you've stayed at?

Keiichi

 

[Brooker]

Most of the people in the hostel were Asian. I was expecting more Europeans, Americans, etc. Many of them were Korean and Japanese. I certainly wasn't expecting that many Japanese would be staying there. The only non-Asian person I met was one guy from Germany.

 

[MeAndroo]

I had a pretty good experience at the hostel I stayed at in Nagoya with a friend of mine. We weren't allowed to check in early, but they did let us leave our baggage there at around 2pm, letting us go sightseeing and catch a bite before actually checking in. The early door closing policy was kind of annoying, but we had plans to get up early the next day anyways. We paid about 1700 yen each for the night, and it would have been cheaper if we were members of the international hosteling group...I don't recall the actual name. I got great sleep, met an American missionary with whom I spent about an hour debating about Christ with, and got out of there more or less satisfied with my stay as a whole. I also saw a lot of Asians, which surprised me as well.

 

[Keiichi]

There were a lot of Asians there, huh? That's quite a surprise. I still prefer a business hotel, but considering the low prices of those hostels, it makes me wonder. But I still get some kind of icky feeling when I stay in a place with people I don't know. ^^'

Keiichi

 

[Brooker]

The hostel I stayed in wasn't very full. There were about 12 beds in my room, but only two other people were staying in the room. I'm sure it depends on the day and time of year.

 

[Hero]

I stayed in 2 Youth Hostels in Japan.
They were both quite nice but I did have one major problem with them.

One of them (I think it's the Hiroshima one) was on this very high up hill far from the city. All of us students didn't want to make the 30min trip down, sight see or drink, whatever; then take the grueling 40min+ walk back up.

The second one was in the mountains and there was nothing around... I took a walk on the road at night without a flashlight and I got freaked out after 9+ min of walking alone in the dark where the only light was from the hostel and the moon, haha.

There was a korean prostitute also staying at the Hiroshima hostel trying to pick up on some of my fellow students using her very fluent English. She sat around in the dining/living area with just a skimpy, silk robe on. I thought it was just part of her culture to wear it, hahaha. I didn't find out 'til next day she was prostitute (darn! j/k) and the Hostel & the University apologized about it. One of the professors even talked to me about the "Prostitute encounter" as he called it, lol.

 

[Brooker]

Hero wrote....

There was a korean prostitute also staying at the Hiroshima hostel trying to pick up on some of my fellow students

I think that's a pretty unusual situation for a youth hostel.

 

[corporate punkk]

sounds like a wonderful encounter to me, you just convinced me to become a hostel customer