Top Five Backpacker Sleeps - Europe

Today I start a series of tips on backpacking accommodation across the world. I will look at different regions of the world and talk a little about the best places I have stayed - mind you they will all be budget options! They certainly won't be four or five star hotels, but instead hostels and budget digs I have personally stayed at in my travels. Where possible,  I will give a link to the place, and talk about why I liked it so much.
Hostels and backpacking accommodation is a real adventure, you never quite know what you're going to get (a little like a box of chocolates). You can be surprised by how brilliant a place is, or dismayed that you paid twenty pounds for a bed-bug riddled bed in a massive dorm that smelt exclusively of feet. So perhaps there will be a follow-up worst of at the end of the best ofs! We will see.
Please remember that I am only comparing places to other places, in the same region, that I stayed in.

Regions I am going to cover:
Europe
Africa
North America
Japan
South-East Asia
Indian subcontinent & Iran
Central Asia & China

Today I start with Europe, because it seemed the easiest to get my head around. For my tips on getting started backpacking, plus tips on hostels and hostel stories, please check out my ebook : Backpacking Basics.

Honourable Mention: Vienna City Hostel, Vienna, Austria. Great bar, good rooms! 

5. Pretty much all hostels in Iceland

The Hostelling International chain have many hostels through Iceland and they are all, at least the few I stayed in and I have every reason to believe that most are the same, superb. They are spotlessly clean, generally the rooms don't have 100 dorm beds but more like four, and they usually have a great kitchen to use for self-catering. If you are headed to Iceland there is no reason to fork out for a hotel, the hostels have all you need!


4. Hostel Mostel, Sofia, Bulgaria

When approaching Sofia from Plovdiv, I had someone recommend this hostel to me. The name put me off straight away, it sounded... well ridiculous. But it was the only recommendation I had, it was a new hostel at the time and the price was right at less than 10 Euro a night.
Well, it was a great place with a friendly and chatty owner. It was clean and the breakfast was excellent with a wide selection of meats, breads and cheeses. Full of information about Sofia and other parts of Bulgaria as well. When I was there a Russianb Aerobics team was also staying there. So it was a memorable stay.
Hostel Mostel does seem to have moved location, however I am seeing that reviews are still extremely positive for this one and the new building looks better than the original!


3. Ace York Backpackers, York, England

In the north of England, York is a brilliant town with amazing architecture and streets, and the quaintest and fondest museum to Richard the Third. Ace York Backpackers is housed in a big building, the dorm rooms are big but airy thankfully, the kitchen could be a little bigger but there is a great bar and on the basement floor there are several excellent rooms for recreation including a great TV room. They have movie nights as well. The bar is the perfect place to meet people as well and is very well appointed. It's relaxed there and there's plenty of room over the various floors. The building itself, I think, is of historical importance and is very regal with real character. A great place to stay.


2. The Riverhouse, Cardiff, Wales

Cardiff is an incredibly underrated city to visit as a traveller. This hostel was well positioned near the river, spotlessly clean, relaxed, great common areas and an excellent kitchen too. Friendly people around every night, TV and dining room, outdoor area to chill and relax, small dorm rooms (I stayed in one with four beds) that were kept clean. It looked modern, very comfortable. Highly recommend this place. Lots of books to look through as well. They also do a mean breakfast.

My e-writings on Bulgaria - Dhaka to Dakar Chapter Seven: Bulgaria

1. Retro Hostel, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

This hostel was without a doubt the friendliest I have been to. I met great people here that I am still in touch with and Cluj itself is actually a really nice city, well positioned for day-trips and jumping off points to nearby areas and such.
The breakfast was the BEST hostel breakfast I have ever had (just beating out Hostel Mostel), the same sort of deal but also cereal as well, and you eat it in the cellar! Yes the building has a cellar! Very atmospheric. Any info needed the staff bent over backwards to help. Exemplary stuff. I was in a 10 or 12 bed dorm on the top floor yet had good nights' sleeps there. I will always remember my stay from ten years ago now at 'Retro Hostel'.

My e-writings on Romania: Dhaka to Dakar Chapter 8: Romania

Also, including Romania and Bulgaria (the chapters linked above) and more, the second book:

Dhaka to Dakar Book 2: Europe

Top Ten Countries: Number 9 - Romania

Not so far from the tenth country on my list, number nine is the incredible Romania. At present Romania is going through hard times, being very badly hit by the economic crisis, so why not journey there and pump some money into the economy? You’ll find it one of the most beautiful places in all the world, there’s no doubt. It had breath taking mountains, castles galore, a mind-blowing capital, warm-hearted people oh and you know, Transylvania, a place too many people associate with vampires, but in fact as beautiful as any region in Europe that there is!

Bucharest street near the station.

Start with the capital. Look, it certainly isn’t the highlight of Romania, Bucharest, but it’s at the very least an interesting place. Parts of it still echo the name ‘Ceausescu’, the somewhat heavy-handed brutal communist dictator, and in some ways the communist past of the city is what is interesting. The streets are wide and leafy, the buildings often grey and foreboding. The Peoples’ Palace is for certain one of the most impressive buildings in the world, the cost of building to the Romanian people though suggests it was not worth it.

The Palace of the People.

There’s even a few museums, including a nice outdoors one, and a replica Arc De Triumph, as the dictator dreamed to make Bucharest the ‘Paris of Eastern Europe’. What he did create was certainly an impressive and unique city.

Bran Castle

After Bucharest I visited Transylvania, simply a beautiful, green part of the world full of mountains and castles and wonderful medieval cities such as Brasov. Not too far from Brasov is Bran, a small town up a mountain with beautiful Bran Castle, fabled to be ‘Dracula’s Castle’, although this is not actually true. The castle though is worth visiting, perched sort of on a rock above the town.

Just down the road from Bran I found a place called Sinai, where you can find a really beautiful palace.  Peles Castle, which to me was more of a palace according to the images of what is what in my mind, is stunning, a little bit gothic, and provides the visitor with a wonderful tour where you can see much of the inside of the castle. It was one of the many highlights for me in Romania.

Peles Castle

Sigisoara

Sigisoara is a truly beautiful, again slightly gothic, medieval town in Transylvania. A place with arch ways over cobblestone streets, beautifully creepy graveyards, a couple of small museums and history with Vlad the Impaler, from whom the Dracula legend was born. I adored this small city/town. It has a wonderfully romantic (in a scary way :D) atmosphere and should not be left out of any trip to Romania.

Outside Transylvania to the north-west of the country is Cluj-Napoca, also just known as ‘Cluj’. The second biggest city in Romania, it’s big but beautiful in a way Bucharest

Cluj-Napoca.

isn’t. An old city with a young soul, it’s a university city. Not so far away are many places for day trips, including the Turda Gorge which is a wonderful place for a day hike. That in turn is close to the Turda Salt Mine, an incredibly expansive mine which these days you can take a tour into. When I was there, we basically had the run of the place which was unbelievable, the sort of place as a child you long to run around inside with no-one telling you where you can and can’t go (although there was a clear course laid out). Those were the days. But it’s really impressive without or with a guide.

Turda Gorge

Finally the mountains not so far from Cluj offer more fantastic hiking. There are small villages to be discovered and there was a wonderful ice cave as well. Romania will always have a special place in my heart. Like Slovakia, you won’t find it as expensive as Western Europe. Today it’s a little more on the tourist trail than when I visited in 2004, but it doesn’t make it any less beautiful or stunning. Most people don’t need a visa like I did nine years ago either.

Transport is good to the main centres, trains connect a lot of Romania, and indeed to neighbouring countries – I came in from Bulgaria and left to Serbia. Trams and trolley buses are popular in the cities, and of course there are always buses to the harder to reach places.

Salt Mine at Turda.

Two words that sum up Romania: Gorgeous and Stunning.

So:

10: Slovakia

9: Romania

What will be number 8? Stay tuned.

Kindle writings on Romania:

Dhaka to Dakar Chapter 9: Romania

Dhaka to Dakar Book 2: Europe