Embarking on a road trip to San Diego last summer, our family arrived in Glenwood Springs at 10:30 p.m., needing a place to sleep before lighting out west early the next morning.
It seemed ridiculous to sink $80 or more into a motel room we would use for only a few hours. When we saw the sign for the Glenwood Springs Hostel and learned that our small family of four could spend the night for less than $40, we felt triumph.
We’ve stayed in hostels in South and Central America and in Europe, but this was the first Colorado hostel we’d encountered. The wallet-friendly price, the amiable staff and decent bedding were just what we needed that night.
Since then, we’ve become hostel converts, joining the foreign travelers and other cost-conscious Colorado residents who sometimes feel priced out of towns in their own state.
Colorado hostel rates are budget-friendly, as low as $12 per night for a dorm bed, and $90 or so for a private room.
A hostel tends to foster a social, if not gregarious, culture. Unlike motel rooms, a hostel room offers little more than a bed, a light and clothing storage – no TV, no mini-refrigerator, no mini-microwave, and usually no private bathroom.
Bunk beds are popular. At the Glenwood Springs Hostel, my husband and I climbed carefully to the top of a bunk bed with a queen mattress on top, and a double on the bottom. Clearance was minimal, and we had to remember to avoid knocking into the ceiling’s naked lightbulb.
Other hostels with bunk beds offer a little more headroom for the upper bunk’s occupants. Some, like Breckenridge’s Fireside Inn, add Pullman train- style curtains to dorm bunks, giving the illusion of privacy.
Nearly always, hostel lodgers share bathrooms – not dorm style, but the single-occupancy sort in most family homes. Most have several bathrooms, including at least one half-bath in addition to others that include a shower.
It’s understood that hogging the bathroom is a gross breach of hostel etiquette. More than 10 minutes for a shower and ablutions is considered excessive. Brevity breeds friendship.
Lodgers also share a common room that usually has a library of books, and perhaps DVDs or videos to watch on the living room television.
Most hostels have kitchens where cooking and clean-up are the lodgers’ responsibility. Typically, kitchens include a small stash of spices and condiments.
Assume the food – chips, cookies, fruit, bread, beverages, etc. – belongs to another lodger unless it’s prominently labeled otherwise. Often, other lodgers are generous with their food, freely sharing snacks.
The hostel movement is just beginning to catch on in Colorado, with hostels in Denver, Boulder, and an ample handful of resort towns. Colleen Norwine’s “Great Hostels USA” (Sedobe Travel Guides, $18.95) summarizes some Colorado hostels, as do the Lonely Planet, Moon and Rough guides to the U.S.A.
Breckenridge’s Fireside Inn is a member of Hostel International, and cozy proof that no longer is the word “hostel” necessarily prefaced by the word “youth.” When we stayed there in August, only one lodger was under 40. The rest were visiting artists in town for a festival and other parsimonious aging travelers.
The Fireside Inn offers a hot tub, comfortable furniture and gentility. Guests generally exhibit the decorum expected from the Fireside Inn’s British owners, observing quiet time after 10 p.m. and showing up on time if they’ve signed up for breakfast.
In contrast, there’s the Glenwood Springs Hostel, which meets and exceeds every stereotype of the genre.
Its lodgers use backpacks, not luggage. They are unsurprised to find fellow budget-minded travelers crashing on the couches and daybeds that cost less than the modestly priced rooms. They tolerate the garish paint job because they’re so dazzled to find thousands of vinyl LPs just waiting to be copied.
The LP collection truly is stunning. The staff told us that many people visit this hostel expressly for the vinyl tunes. (The famous Glenwood Hot Springs pool, perhaps a 15-minute walk from the hostel, rates a distant second – or third. This hostel attracts the crowd more interested in the Colorado River hot pots than the commercial pool.)
Perhaps the most surprising Colorado hostel is in tiny Antonito, a humble San Luis Valley village near the New Mexico border.
The motherly owner of the Conejos River Home Hostel (open seasonally from July to late September) tells prospective clients her place is as much fish camp as it is hostel. That way, she explains, people either are not disappointed or are pleasantly surprised.
Many hostels are affiliated with Hosteling International or another hostel organization, and offer discounts to lodgers who are HI members. The $28 annual fee includes a lodging discount, a map of affiliated hostels, travel insurance and other amenities.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
HOSTELS WORTH CHECKING OUT
Here’s a short list of Colorado hostels. All are open year-round, unless otherwise noted. For more information, go to hihostels.com.
CRESTED BUTTE INTERNATIONAL LODGE & HOSTEL
615 Teocalli Ave., Crested Butte
970-349-0588
www.crestedbuttehostel.com
FIRESIDE INN
114 French St., Breckenridge
970-453-6456
www.firesideinn.com
GLENWOOD SPRINGS HOSTEL
1021 Grand Ave., Glenwood Springs
970-945-8545
www.hostelcolorado.com
CONEJOS RIVER HOME HOSTEL (not pictured)
3038 County Road D.5, Antonito
719-376-2518
Open July 1-Sept. 30
