Hostel work for stay: what can I expect?
For anyone who has or wants to stay in a hostel, a work for stay programme can be great to explore a place, meet travellers and save a bit of cash on accommodation. I worked for my stay in Vancouver’s HI Jericho Beach Hostel for two and a half months from the start of November through to mid January.
If working for your stay sounds like something you’d like to do, hopefully this can give you a bit of an insight.
Living in a hostel
The key factor to consider when deciding if hostel work for stay is for you is if you actually can live in a hostel. Living and working in a hostel is different to just passing through for a day or two on holiday or backpacking. Calling a hostel home can be difficult at times and you want to make sure that you’ve picked a hostel that suits you.
For example, if you’re a bit of a clean freak there are hostels which won’t be for you. If you need a comfy mattress, the same applies. Try to read reviews or focus on a certain location. If you’re a party animal and want to spend your time getting shit-faced on hostel organised pub crawls, make sure that’s a possibility before joining. Likewise, if you’re a morning person with a passion for the outdoors, you want a guarantee you can get a good night’s sleep. Another thing to consider is to look at is where you can relax in the hostel. It’s hard to relax in hostel dorms and if you’re in a place in winter, make sure there’s a place you can kick it.
Working in a hostel can get on top of you at times. If there’s things that you know are going to annoy you before going, there’s a good chance it could spoil your time at the hostel. Living in a hostel isn’t for everyone.
The pictures below can give you a sense of what the hostel was like to live in. I was assigned a top bunk which was about as comfy as it looked. The other photos are taken from around the hostel and food storage.
The work
The pattern for work that I was 2 hours and 15 minutes a day, totalling to 15 hours and 45 minutes a week. For those of you who may want to use a work for stay as a way to explore an area, the work requirements I had would allow for you to make the most of wherever you are. The work I did was either washing and folding laundry or cleaning the kitchen in the evening- none of the work was fun but it was easy. I did almost burn down the hostel on my second shift by overfilling a washing machine though.
If you are hoping to balance working at a hostel with a full-time job elsewhere, time management can be difficult and having had a go at it myself- I wouldn’t recommend it. If you want to go down that route you need a strong work ethic and running two jobs while sharing a room with five or six others can be difficult. Quality of sleep is low in a hostel. For a lot of travellers, working 50 plus hours a week and living in a hostel can get old quickly. Having a part time job would be the best option if you need work.
Having talked with workers at other hostels, not every hostel sets their work for stay schemes up like this. Any information you can get before going will help so you can plan around your work.
The Kitchen looking clean. Depending on the guests we would have, sinks would frequently be blocked
The laundry room. The washing machine on the far left is the one I almost burned the hostel down using. It would be a rare sight for all of them to be working at the same time
During December we had some record snowfall and taking the bins out in the evening got cold.
People, places and pubs
One of the main reasons why people chose to live in hostels is for the social element of living with likeminded people. During my stay at Jericho Beach, I met some really cool people- both staff and guests. If the sole purpose of you trip is to meet people who are open-minded and enjoy travelling, working in a hostel won’t let you down. Hostels provide great opportunities to speak to people from all over the world and you can get to know people from the country you are living in. If you are looking for a chat, you can usually find someone who is more than happy to spend the night talking about their life- especially if you’re feeling generous with beers.
There will also undoubtably be staff and guests who you may struggle to get on with as well as you do with others. If you struggle to be around people you don’t see eye to eye with, maybe there’s better decisions for travelling than living in a hostel. In my last week at the hostel two guests had to be thrown out for different reasons. To give you a taste of how varied the guests could be, one guest had to be thrown out for being drunk and abusive. This one bloke went into the toilet late at night and started banging around before screaming at himself in the mirror. When asked to quieten down he became abusive toward members of staff saying demons came to him in the middle of the night. He had stayed at the hostel for a while beforehand and seemed ok but ultimately he was crazy. Living with people who were potentially crazy can keep you on your toes.
On the topic of guests being weird there’s two other funny stories come to mind. I was told one story by a guest when I was cleaning the kitchen. For some time there had been some oven cleaner sat on one of the windowsills in the kitchen. Apparently someone used oven cleaner while cooking thinking the can was spray on oil. I have no idea how they managed that. Another moment of madness in the hostel which made me double take was when I saw someone taking a shit while cleaning their teeth. Not that these moments were very common, but they did happen. Something to keep in mind is that you are cleaning up after these people.
Doing a work for stay in a city in the winter, there was also a reminder that a lot of the guests are not in the hostel by choice. Guests would sometimes be older and want to keep themselves to themselves. I would sometimes sit with our night receptionist and people would come through the door who really didn’t have much. There was one instance of a man that had to wait for someone to send him money so he could afford the night’s stay from the shift he had just worked. He claimed to have been a professional poker player in the past, but he looked down beat and there was never a time I saw him without a can in his hand. Professional poker player may be a translation for a gambling addict. Another example of the kind of character you could live with.
Away from the hostel, Vancouver is a great city to live in. The two main drawbacks of the city are being how expensive the place is and the rain. Think London prices and Manchester’s rain. Despite that, Vancouver is a fantastic city. The accessibility to the outdoors is amazing as Stanley Park and Lynn Valley are areas where it’s easy to forget you’re in a city and there are three local ski hills. They are small but with the option of night skiing, you can finish work for the day and go shred after. I don’t know where else in the world there are those kinds of facilities. Bored of the local hills? If you’ve got the cash to spare you can head up to Whistler on your weekends.
In terms of drinking, Vancouver is a city that is mostly set up for partying on the weekend. Village Studios in Davie Street is a cool spot where I was able to watch DJ Seinfeld and there’s loads of bars either side of Granville Street. Gastown is also a good place to sink a few beers- if you’re single get into the Blarney Stone on a Saturday night.
Vancouver is a beautiful looking city and during my stay, I was caught in the winter storm which caught the attention of the U.K media. It got cold as and tempratures would consistently get as low as -7°C. It was cold but the city looked great with the snow.
