Continuing on the theme of The top 5 of Hostels with the kick off of the best Hostels I’ve stayed in SE Asia and the top 3 best hostels I’ve stayed in South America, I thought I’ll take a Darth Vader like turn and tell you about the top 5 worst hostels I’ve ever stayed in all my travels.

Now, as you can see, it’s the top 5 hostels ever IN THE WORLD so it’s very rare for me to completely despise a hostel. But the 5 hostels below is the worst in my opinion. They may have been REALLY fantastic for other backpackers but it may have been the wrong time and at the wrong place for me.

Nomads Mad Camel, Auckland, New Zealand

With my expectation of this country to be the best country ever, which proved to be the case, I was taken a really bad dent in my confidence in that idea when I first arrived in New Zealand. With Ryan of JustChuckinit living there for a long while in his time there, I was really looking forward to be kicking off my travels in New Zealand here. However, it was not to my satisfaction. It was easily located and the staff at the front was very helpful but once I climbed onto my floor to my bed, I was pretty horrified. The doors unsecure, I stepped into the mini kitchen and living quarters to find it ABSOLUTELY messy of beer cans, week old food stains ever way and don’t get me started on the smell. Shocked, I walked into my 8 bed dorm only to find, despite a large room, absolute mess. You couldn’t even step on the floor without crunching something, let alone put your bag down. Throughout the 2 nights I stayed there, I had to ask my sheets to be changed thanks to pubic hair, out up with the constant din throughout the evenings (I took out my hearing aids, and I could still hear them.) and there didn’t seem to be any cleaning going on at all. The showers were flooded to my disbelief thanks to very lukewarm water trickling out of the head. To be honest, I was pretty glad to get out of there. When I came back to Auckland twice more, I stayed at either BASE or YHA. Okay, I do realise that the people in my dorm would have made the experience intolerable and wasn’t the fault of the staff who were very helpful but maintenance stuff should have been sorted out. It was a huge shock to me given the great reviews and I actually thought it was worst than third world country standards. But the staff were its saving grace as they helped me with orientation particularly to Mount Eden, pub crawl and setting up my NZ mobile number.

Bus Station Guesthouse, Thakek, Laos

Now, I don’t need to explain anymore once you read this post about my time in Thakek. It truly was absolutely the worst hostel I ever stayed in. I’m sorry I didn’t get the name but I was just in a rush to get out that I didn’t even have the chance to look at the sign. Dirty, buggy, unsafe, bad mannered staff, too hot, unexplained screams, and a hell of a chance to get out while you can!

Nomads Cairns, Cairns, Australia

Now I just want to get this straight. This hostel is actually rather good. But for me, it was the place when I went through the most darkest period of my travels. Suffering from tonsillitis, I never felt so alone in this hostel. Full of rude French and Swedish backpackers, I couldn’t even communicate with them properly if they wanted to. The other English-speaking backpackers were either comatose from drinking heavily the night before, having sex in the bed RIGHT NEXT TO ME, or getting wasted over drugs and drink. I couldn’t even find a connection. The staff was great but I thought they were pushy to make me sign up to rather expensive activities. The room was actually fine barring the sex maniacs (okay, I was jealous) and it was actually rather pleasant. But I just never felt so alone. So spending at least 8 days there, I was so ready to get out of Cairns, where I consider to be the worst Australian city to be at. Thank god I met Smera who I travelled with for most of my Australian time on our trusty campervan kicking off with a trip to Cape Tribulation.

Pak Up Hostel, Krabi, Thailand

Despite its great reviews with HostelBookers and claiming an award for the best hosts in some category, I didn’t agree personally. After a great stint with my fellow travel buddies for the last 2 months, I suddenly found myself on my own again. Flying from Vietnam to Krabi, I checked in this hostel recommended by some backpackers. Now, you definitely feel that this place is extremely exclusive and I couldn’t fault the rooms at all as they had everything you possibly needed. So what was wrong? The staff was really, really rude and sighed all the time everytime I asked for some advice. In the end, I ended up going to a hostel 2 doors down for some advice! Also, there were hardly anyone there. With the wet season approaching, I couldn’t hang out with anyone and for me, Krabi was SOOOO boring! I was trying to get to Ko Phi Phi but in the end due to storms, I settled going to Phuket instead. I’m sure it’s just the wrong time to be there but even so, there weren’t any jovial atmosphere at all and I just had enough of the stupid soaps that the staff had on the blaring tv that they would rather be engrossed in than help out a lonely backpacker.

Nomads Ko Samui, Thailand

Check out my review for this hostel. Actually, it’s a hostel within an exclusive hotel. It’s quite hard to figure out sometimes. I wasn’t exactly pleased with the first impressions. They booked us in the wrong room, and instead turfed us to another room, which had plenty of fly infestations. I had to complain at least 3 times within an hour about issues in the room. It really wasn’t ready to have a hostel within this hotel. The staff I found were really rude, ill-informed about hostels and basically in the end hated us. I was so glad to leave. But it has huge potential to be a fantastic hostel and I hope since then after a year, it has improved dramatically.

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