If you’re not yet familiar with the term hostel, you may soon find yourself in the minority. Hostels, a staple in the budget travel world for years, have entered the mainstream, with everyone from institutional investors to major media buzzing on what is poised to be one of the biggest travel trends of the next decade.
For the uninitiated: hostels are shared accommodation spaces, typically including bunk beds in dorm style rooms with shared common rooms and group activities. Travelers seek out hostels not just to stay inexpensively in new cities, but to tap into a social atmosphere and meet…
I fell in love with hostels during a college study abroad trip. By 2014, I had stayed in over 150 hostels in 30 countries. I’ve slept on everything from pillow-top beds with handmade duvet covers that could rival any Four Seasons all the way down to hammocks strung above dead cow parts on a cargo ship in the Amazon (advertised, of course, as a “luxury cot”).
When you stay in a hostel, it’s an adventure unto itself. You’re straying from the beaten path; you never quite know what’s going to happen next or who you’ll meet along the way. Guests…
I would like to tell you about the biggest lie in book publishing. It appears in the biographies and social media profiles of almost every working “author” today. It’s the word “best seller.”
This isn’t about how The New York Times list is biased (though it is). This isn’t about how authors buy their way onto various national best-seller lists by buying their own books in bulk (though they do). No, this is about the far more insidious title of “Amazon Bestseller” — and how it’s complete and utter nonsense.
Here’s what happened in the book industry over the last…
I fell in love with hostels during a college study abroad trip. By 2014, I had stayed in over 150 hostels in thirty countries. I’ve slept on everything from pillow-top beds with handmade duvet covers that could rival any Four Seasons, all the way down to hammocks strung above dead cow parts on a cargo ship in the Amazon rainforest (advertised, of course, as a “luxury cot”).
When you stay in a hostel, it’s an adventure unto itself. You’re straying from the beaten path; you never quite know what’s going to happen next or who you’ll meet along the way…
