Travelling the world you meet a lot of characters, and hostel life is no exception. Stereotypical characters that appear and reappear in hostel after hostel are both a source of amusement and help to make each hostel stay feel familiar. Below is just 10 that I have come across in my travel:
1. The “Bragger”
We’ve all met this person. You cannot share any of your excitement because they have to tell you about how their experience was better. How your travel experience pales in comparison to their very same experience.
This traveller, though only having been there for a couple of days, insists they know everything about the place. Openly and often without solicitation, they will offer their wildly inaccurate input on the best way to do anything.
2. The “Party Animal”
This particular species of backpacker is more often than not organising their travel itinerary based on the festivities, or which hostel arranges a pub crawl. They are also the ones who return from their holidays, hungover and looking like they have been hauled up in a Thai prison. A barrel of fun if you are in the party mood, but annoying as hell if you are searching a conversation about local culture and traditions.
3. The Couple
This can actually be divided into three categories of couples.
The InstaFamous Couple
This couple share an Instagram profile and are overly concerned with attaining a picture perfect photo. At least one of them is immaculately dressed all the time and while they are well traveled they are constantly on their phone, concerned about WIFI passwords and can only discuss their followers count.
The Super-in-to-each-other couple. This couple stay together, always in a private room and they don’t communicate with anyone but each other. So involved with each other, they can kind of leave you equally jealous and grossed out by how obsessed with each other they are.
The Awesome Couple. This couple will stay in the dorm rooms but are aware that people don’t want to see them making out. A dynamo couple together, they are also happy to do things apart.
4. The No budget traveller This is the person who is so ill prepared to finance their trip, that they steal other peoples food from the communal fridge, and don’t actually see any of the places that they visit as they didn’t realise that entry tickets were part of the budget. Everything is expensive, but they are a great source of information as they are all across the free and cheap places in every city.
5. The Wannabe Music Hero This person is the one that, despite never having learnt how to play guitar, insists on serenading the hostel with their best Oasis number. 6. The Organic-Vegan-Hippy person. These travellers are the ones that reside in the hostel, long term. They take the hostel as a platform to educate other travellers on how much better it is to be vegan, whilst wearing vibrantly coloured hemp pants, and basking in their infrequent showering habits insisting that their hair is now cleaning itself. 7. The volunteer person What they are doing is great! You love hearing the interesting tales from these people however you also feel guilty that your trip is very self serving. 8. The adrenaline junkie This person is super fun and exhausting to be around. Hearing and seeing the GoPro footage of their adrenaline packed adventures leaves you wondering ‘how are you still alive?’. They are the first ones to say yes and always seem to have boundless energy. 9. The “Alway Late” traveller This traveller struggles with schedules. Always confused as to how they missed their flight when they were ready to check in their luggage 10 minutes before depature. They are impossible to include in group activities, no matter how fun they are, because they always miss the departure time. 10. The Old Creepy Guy There is always one guy in the hostel who is vastly older than the average age of 20-30year old travellers. They always insist on staying in dorm rooms despite not having anything in common with the other travellers. Wearing their high end camping brands and fanny pack, they usually travel solo and leave hostel guests wondering if they took a wrong turn.
This is just 10 characters that I have seen. Sometimes you meet just one of them, sometimes the traveller is a combination of the above, but what I can guarantee is that you WILL meet them if you travel in hostels.