When some people travel, their accommodation involves words like plush, champagne, spa, pamper, terrace, aroma, stunning, marble, spacious, and robe. You’re the kind of person who ends up on a site like Wait But Why, and your travel is far shittier. You may even be acquainted with the wide world of hostels, a world that embodies both the human race’s best qualities and its most annoying. A culture that manages to simultaneously be a liberal utopia of open-mindedness, acceptance, and diversity—and a factory of cringiness. If Gandhi mated with the douchiest guy you went to high school with, their offspring would be hostels. Hostels are everything the world should be and everything the world shouldn’t be, all at once. And while every hostel is unique, the crowd passing through tends to be more or less the same. We’ll scratch the surface today by breaking down 12 of the common characters: Defining Characteristics: Making serious facial expressions; Length of Their Trip: 10 weeks

He had to find a place for it in the overhead bin on the plane, which wasn’t easy. zixtro backpackHe held it on his lap on the crowded bus. topo backpack melbourneHe carried it for a mile and a half from the bus station to the hostel.backpack kopen waar op letten But sitting there on the backrest of the couch, plucking those sweet strings, embodying literally the best aesthetic ever—it was all worth it for The Guy Who Plays The Guitar In The Hostel.15l backpack sprayer Defining Characteristics: Down to party; rental gear ohakune

Length of Their Trip: 2 weeks There are three kinds of guys you’ll find in hostels:backpack ttw 1) Dudes (age 19-32) 2) Men (age 33-70) 3) The 38-year-old who’s gonna just go ahead and pretend he’s still a dude and he’d really appreciate it if you would just roll with it and not say anything about it Every hostel has one dude who’s a little too old to be acting like a dude. He knows he’s 38, you know he’s 38, and this is just kind of his move. He doesn’t really care what you think because he’s never gonna see you again anyway.Eager to say a lot of words to a lot of people about a lot of things Length of Their Trip: 8 days You’ll know them when you see them. They’re young, wide-eyed, and they’re pretty sure this is everyone’s first backpacking trip, not just theirs. When they leave the hostel, they head to a restaurant to be five times louder than the second-loudest table there.

Length of Their Trip: 6 months Amateur travelers pack a lot. Pro travelers pack light. And then there’s the guy who brought two changes of clothes. There are things you may doubt in life, but you’ll never have a doubt about whether this guy is in the room with you.Telling stories about last night; Having fun plans ahead that night; Length of Their Trip: 5 Weeks There they are, having fun, enjoying the shit out of each other, and all you can do is stare longingly. No, you’re not in the group, and no, you’re not invited to wherever they’re going next. As you head up to bed alone, the sounds of their incredibly hilarious drinking game serve as a reminder of how alone you are in this country, planet, and universe. Defining Characteristics: Tongue rolls; A straight face as they do tongue rolls Length of Their Trip: One month You’ll find these people all over the world, but nowhere do they thrive like Latin America.  To be clear, they do not visit Buenos Aires, Argentina, they visit Buenos Aye-des, Adhentina.  

They won’t be caught dead in Nicaragua, but love a good visit to Neecadagua.  They top off their act with 0% self-deprecation about pretending to be foreign.  They will look you dead in the eye without a trace of a smile as the local sounds roll off their tongue. Defining Characteristics: Reading their Lonely Planet at all times Length of Their Trip: 15 days You know one of these when their Lonely Planet looks like it’s from 1936 even though they bought it a week and a half ago. Their relationship with the book is intimate, mutual, and all-encompassing. Length of Their Trip: 2 months Defining Characteristics: Calls the staff members by their first name Length of Their Trip: 3 months Just so you know, this guy is in the inner circle at the hostel. He basically works there—he’ll direct you to the bathroom, correct your misguided placement of the communal olive oil on the non-communal rack, and he even helped a staff member bring out the trash last Thursday, so.

Defining Characteristics: Quiet condescension Length of Their Trip: 4 months This is her 83rd country, she’s not that impressed by it, and she’s certainly not that impressed by you. She rolls her left eye at the Lonely Planet All-Star and her right eye at the over-excited American. Defining Characteristics: Being a happy fucking little team Well aren’t they cute, with their matching backpacks and their shared experiences. Oh, and look who has too much chemistry to sleep in the communal dorm bedroom. These people have little consideration for any dramatically lonely solo travelers in the vicinity, just plowing ahead with their public bonding. Defining Characteristics: Knows the people at the local grocery store by name; Not that into questions about his life Length of Their Trip: 2.5 years and counting He’s adventuring less than he used to, he gave up sightseeing long ago, and he’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t really ask him about his job, his life back at home, his relationship with his parents, or the law in his home country.