You wrote: ” …I recently visited “The Nutty Squirrel Backpackers” in Riga, Latvia, probably the best hostel I’ve ever stayed in …”

You are probably right … For this, I would be glad if you could write a review on

http://www.hostelman.com/Europe/Latvia/Riga/The_Naughty_Squirrel_Backpackers_Hostel/

HW, HB,… have one negative thing, you can not book smth like less than 24h before you walkin … and sometimes it is important to find a place for to sleep, for example if you hae missed your tain, bus… or you just had the idea to stay in this city.

I agree with Ian about 6 months being too long to hold old reviews on Hostelworld. I know of hostels that have an average monthly rating in the 90s (%) but because of issues early in the season their overall ratings aren’t as good as they should be.

I forgot to ask Milene. Which hostel in Sydney do you work in? I lived in Darlinghurst for a number of years.

You need to contact Hostelbookers and ask them to change your release period. It can be changed so that bookings can be made up to 4pm on the same day.

I find that people are more likely to leave a review if they’ve had a bad experience than if they’ve had a good one. I had one the other day that was nuttier than squirrel poo. Some left a bad review complaining that they got a free beer when they checked in. I’ve pasted it below so you can have a laugh as the person is obviously quite insane.

It says its an 18-30 hostel, free beer on arrival, soup all day and breakfast included. I can honestly say its the worst place i have stayed. I checked and the bedding smelled clean. A few drinks tonight and I might be able to fall asleep without noticing. This place makes out you can grab a free beer from the bar on arrival [all we say if free check in beer], well you have to ask for it and grab a can of stella from the owners personal fridge. Really really strange. No soup!!![apart from the packets next to the kettle alongside the Milo, tea, coffee, hot chocolate and cordials] Then the breakfast well its on the reception [true but in reality the reception is in the TV/common room and has tables and chairs]. Grab a crossiant and take it back to your dirty room. Bon appetite!!! I left this place as soon as possble. The communal showers are mixed sex. For £60 [most places are chage 80-100 with no extras] I thought i would have a resonable place to relax amongst sight seeing. This place is disgusting and is too expensive for what its worth.

Great comments! I think you always get a different perspective on these sites from a hostel point of view.

I remember speaking to many hostel owners who thought many of these sites have too much power over them. Many who concentrated on getting great reviews in order to push business. I guess from a customer point of view this is great.

I recently visited “The Nutty Squirrel Backpackers” in Riga, Latvia, probably the best hostel I’ve ever stayed in. The owner went out of his way to help and in return I gave them a good review.

Thanks,

Paul @
TravMonkey.com

I run an exceedingly small backpacker’s in London so I get to see these sites from a completely other perspective.
I think the big two, as far as where most my bookings come from are Hostelworld and Hostelbookers, of these I would recommend Hostelbookers to any traveller for the following reason:

1) No booking fee other than the 10%. I think here I should point out a common misconception. This 10% is commission kept by the agencies. If you cancel part of your booking you will lose the deposit for that part of the booking. I’ve know a lot of people thinking that hostels are lining their pockets with part of their deposit which is just not the case. They never see a penny of that.

2) Hostelbooker’s review system is a lot more up to date. Their system relies on the average score of the last 25 reviews. Hostelworld’s review system is the based on that of the last six month. A hostel can change a lot over six months; staff, management and ownership can change, a hostel my start to need refurbishment and indeed be refurbished. They may have outdoor facilities that are only available part of the year.
All these make a great difference and to a hostel. If they has been great for four months and a new owner comes if and takes all the freebies away, reduces the hours the cleaning staff work then I hostel with a fairly high rating may in reality be a real hole. Of course the reverse is applicable and somewhere with poor ratings could have become a great place to stay but you wouldn’t book as they had a low rating.

3) Hostelbookers are selective about their hostels. If a hostel is consistently underachieving then they will be removed from their books. They also limit the amount of hostel per city which means that good hostels stay on the system and bad hostels don’t but those leaving give a new hostel a chance in their place.

4) Having run my place for five years Hostelbookers are the only booking agency to have actually visited us. They chatted with me, inspected the hostel. They also came round about a year ago to film the hostel. When you look on a microsite for a hostel on the site you can rest assured that that is what the hostel is like as it was the agency, not the hostel, that took the footage.

Well I’ve waffled on long enough. I’d imagine you’ll want to be going as the pubs will be opening soon and beers doesn’t drink itself.

I may update this post soon with a couple more resources for booking hostels.

Thanks for commenting!

Paul @
TravMonkey.com