There’s a coworking space upstairs, empty. I’m better here.
Table of Contents
The assumption is always the same: hostels are for 22-year-olds on a gap year, people sleeping in 12-bed dorms, going out every night, moving on after three days. If you’re older, if you work remotely, if you’re trying to stay somewhere for a month — the assumption is that hostels aren’t really for you anymore.
I’ve been living and traveling slowly across Latin America for two years. I stay almost exclusively in hostels. And the number of times I’ve had to explain that no, it’s not because I can’t afford anything else — is more than I can count.
Over time, I’ve realized I don’t really think of hostels as accommodation anymore. They’re infrastructure.
For me, they’re not just a bed. They’re a place to meet people without forcing it, a source of information about where I am and where I’m going next, a workspace, a social life, and a flexible base that lets me decide whether I want to stay somewhere for three days or three months.
That doesn’t mean they’re the right choice for everyone. There’s no single way to do slow travel or nomadic life. The setup that works for you depends on your work, your personality, and what you’re actually looking for in a place. Anyone telling you there’s a formula is selling something.
Everyone builds their own system
There’s no single way to do slow travel or nomadic life. The setup that works for you depends on your work, your personality, and what you’re actually looking for in a place. Anyone telling you there’s a formula is selling something.
In my case, I teach Spanish online. That means I need quiet spaces at specific times for classes — but also that a lot of my other work can happen in more flexible environments. That combination matters. Someone who spends six hours a day on back-to-back video calls would probably find my setup unsustainable. I’d find theirs equally unbearable. Neither is wrong.
The point is: the accommodation question isn’t just about price or comfort. It’s about what your day actually looks like — and what kind of environment makes that day work.
Why hostels — and it’s not the price
Yes, hostels are cheaper. That’s part of the equation. But if I’m being honest, it’s not the main reason I choose them.
The social infrastructure
Staying alone in an Airbnb or a hotel is fine for a night or two. For weeks or months, it can get isolating in a way that sneaks up on you. When I first started traveling, I stayed more in private apartments. The space was quiet, the setup was comfortable — and I’d sometimes go entire days without speaking to anyone. Not because I was introverted, but because the structure of the place didn’t give me a reason to interact with anyone.
Hostels solve that without requiring you to make an effort. You run into people in the kitchen, in the common area, on the way to breakfast. You don’t need to plan social time — it just happens. On a day when I’ve been working for six hours and my brain is done, the difference between walking into a common room where there are people versus walking into a silent apartment is real.
The networking that nobody plans for
This one surprised me more than anything else when I started doing this. Hostels are full of people with wildly different skills who are generally willing to share them — especially in a context where they’re not in a rush and have no particular agenda.
I’ve had someone walk me through my ads strategy over a beer. I’ve traded Spanish classes for design work. I’ve gotten recommendations, connections, and useful information about places I was headed — from people who had just been there. None of that was planned. It just happens when you’re around people who are doing interesting things and have time to talk.
The infrastructure
This one tends to get overlooked: hostels in Latin America are often better equipped for remote work than private accommodation in the same price range. Common areas that are actually designed for spending time in, coworking-style tables, reliable Wi-Fi that’s been tested by hundreds of people before you arrived. And they tend to be well located — central neighborhoods, close to what’s actually happening in the city.
Availability and price stability
Hostels almost never sell out completely, and the rates don’t move the way short-term rentals do. That matters more than it sounds. It means I don’t have to commit to a month in a place before I know if I like it. It means I can extend without negotiating. It means I’m not locked into anything — which, when you’re traveling slowly and your plans are flexible by design, is worth a lot.
The party hostel myth
When people imagine a hostel in Latin America, they picture something specific: a bar, loud music, a crowd of backpackers, everyone nursing a hangover at noon.
That exists. But in my experience, it’s not the default — and it’s also not as incompatible with working as people assume.
Most hostels are quiet during the day. Guests are out. The common areas are calm. Even in places that do have a bar or run evening events, there’s usually somewhere else to be if you don’t want to be in the middle of it. A hostel that’s lively at night and workable during the day is not a contradiction.
And even the social side of it — the events, the shared dinners, the people hanging around in the evening — is opt-in. Nobody is making you participate. But having the option there, without planning anything, is the part that makes the difference on the days when you want it.
But is it actually sustainable?
Short answer: yes. Longer answer: it depends on how you manage it, and honestly, there isn’t that much to manage.
Shared living means sharing space with people who aren’t always thinking about anyone else — but that’s true of any living situation, not a hostel-specific problem. And travelers, in my experience, generally aren’t looking for conflict. If something bothers you, you say something, and most of the time that’s the end of it.
What actually surprises people, I think, is how much the staff changes things. The longer you stay somewhere, the more you stop being a guest and start being part of the place. At the hostel I’m in now — going on six weeks — I’ve heard the staff introduce me to new arrivals as if I live there, as if I’m part of the furniture. They check in if you’ve been out for more than a day. If you’re a woman traveling alone, that kind of low-key attention is worth something.
The real tradeoffs: Kitchens vs. Restaurants
There are real tradeoffs. I miss having a kitchen — cooking is part of my routine, and a shared one isn’t quite the same. The hostel I’m in now has a restaurant instead, so there’s not even that. I deal with it by mixing: sometimes I move to a place that has one for a while, then go back to something like this. You rarely find a hostel that checks every box at once, and at some point you stop looking for it.
When things go sideways (The puzzle incident)
And there are moments that test you. Last month someone decided that the coworking table I’d essentially adopted — complete with a 1000-piece puzzle I was about halfway through — was a good place to hook up. They knocked everything over and broke my mug. I went to reception, they checked the cameras, found the people responsible, and asked them to leave. I got reimbursed for everything, plus a little extra. It’s not that nothing goes wrong. It’s that a well-run hostel has ways to deal with it.
When something does get to me — someone waking me up, something going sideways — I have a mantra I come back to: “Nati, you chose to be here.” Not to dismiss whatever just happened, but to put it in context. Sometimes it’s even simpler: “you don’t have to wake up early tomorrow anyway.”
On theft and perspective
And on theft — because everyone asks: in six countries and more hostels than I can count, I once lost a perfume I’d left on my bed. That’s the full list. I’m careful with things that matter, but I’m not paranoid about it. Plenty of stuff has lived outside my locker without going anywhere.
How to actually choose one
Not all hostels work the same way, and choosing well is most of the work.
I use Booking as my starting point. The first filter is neighborhood — being well located matters more than almost anything else for slow travel. Then price range. From there, I look at the beds. I used to filter by the number of beds in a dorm — smaller felt safer. I don’t do that anymore. What I look for now is capsule-style beds. It doesn’t matter much if the dorm is full; capsule setups tend to be more comfortable and give you enough of a boundary to actually sleep, regardless of what time your dorm-mates come in.
After that, I look at the photos for common areas and workspaces. A hostel with good communal spaces usually functions better as a base.
Reviews matter, but with some calibration. Wi-Fi score is the one I check specifically — it’s the most useful signal for remote work. The rest of the reviews I read with a bit of distance. Someone leaving one star because the hostel was “too social” is telling me something different than someone complaining about cleanliness or broken showers.
Once I have a shortlist, I search on Google and cross-check on Hostelworld. Sometimes there’s a price difference. Usually Booking is cheaper, but it’s worth the two minutes.
The thing is: even with all of that, you won’t really know until you get there. The vibe of a hostel depends heavily on who’s staying there at that particular moment — and that changes constantly. A place that was perfect two months ago can feel completely different now, and vice versa.
The 2-3 night rule
I almost never book more than two or three nights upfront, especially somewhere new.
It’s enough time to get a real sense of the place — the energy, the noise levels, the internet in practice versus on paper, whether the people there are someone I want to be around for a while. If it works, I extend. If it doesn’t, I haven’t committed to three weeks somewhere that isn’t right.
Hostels make this possible in a way that other options usually don’t. The rates don’t spike because you’re booking last minute. The availability is almost always there. You can make the decision based on actual information rather than on hope.
That flexibility — the ability to stay or go based on what you find when you arrive — is one of the most underrated advantages of building your travel system around hostels. Not having to decide in advance how long you want to be somewhere is a very good way to end up staying exactly as long as you should.
➜ If you’re planning a work exchange at a hostel and want to make sure your Spanish is actually ready for it — that’s something I can help with.
Start here