Hostels get all the love but a $15 guesthouse beat every one I tried

Everyone swears by hostels for saving cash, but last year in Lisbon I booked a tiny guesthouse for $15 a night and it changed my mind. The owner, an older guy named Rui, gave me a handwritten map with 6 food spots his family actually ate at, not tourist traps. I spent 3 nights there and never paid over $6 for a meal, while hostel folks I met were dropping $12 on group dinners. He even let me use his washer for free when my clothes got soaked on a day trip to Sintra. Hostels are fine for meeting people, but for real budget living, a local guesthouse with one person running it gets you way more for the same cash. Has anyone else found better deals skipping the hostel route?

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jasonf351mo ago

Three nights at a single guesthouse and you got a washer and a map, sure. But I paid $12 a night at a hostel in Barcelona and got a locker, breakfast, and a front desk that found me a doctor at 2am when I got food poisoning. Hostels have infrastructure, guesthouses are one guy who might be great or might just be Rui. My buddy tried the guesthouse route in Prague and the owner "forgot" to mention the shared bathroom was down three flights of stairs, no hot water after 9pm. You also lose the whole point of hostel life, which is walking into the common room at 6pm and finding someone to split a pizza with. Rui sounds like a gem, but one good old man in Lisbon doesn't beat a system that works in 90 countries.

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