10 Must-Have Accessories When Staying at a Hostel

Hostels can be an amazing place. They can be a gateway to lasting friendships or the vessels for a memorable experience. However, as great as hostels can be they can be equally as awful. IF you don’t come prepared. When staying at a hostel there are some key travel accessories that will make your stay way more comfortable. Here are 10 Travel Accessories That are a MUST When Staying at a Hostel.

Luggage Locks

If I tell someone who has never stayed in a hostel that I frequent hostels when traveling, one of the first questions is, “how do you keep your things safe?” That answer is with luggage locks. Sometimes I’ll end up at a hostel that doesn’t have lockers in the rooms. To give myself that extra piece of mind my luggage locks lets me lock up my belongings and explore without worrying about my things.

Padlock

It may seem redundant to have a luggage lock and a padlock but when the hostel provides lockers I always use a padlock to lock my things up. Often times hostels will not provide you with locks for your locker so it’s your responsibility to bring a lock with you. Unless you want to pay to rent one. Avoid having to pay the extra fees for renting a lock by bringing your own.

Headlamp

One of the rudest things you can do in your hostel room is turning on the light in the middle of the night or in the early morning when you have a red-eye flight. Seriously. There’s a level of consideration that’s expected of people that stay at hostels. If you don’t want it done to you then don’t do it to other people. If you wouldn’t want the lights turned on as soon as you fell asleep then don’t do it to other people.

This is why a headlamp is so handy. Rather than having to turn on the light you can just grab your headlamp and find your things without bothering everyone in your room. It’s also helpful if you’re like me and need to do a bit of light reading to fall asleep some nights. Instead of trying to finagle your phone to stay up so you can read just pop on your headlamp and read that last chapter before catching some Zzz’s.

Flip Flops

Think of hostel showers like your gym locker room showers. If you wouldn’t go in those barefoot, don’t do it at a hostel. Basically, it’s just a hygiene thing. I’m not at all implying that hostel bathrooms are a disgusting place. That’s not true at all and some hostels have incredible bathrooms like Hostel Majdas with the best shower pressure I’ve ever experienced in my life.

BUT a lot of people go in and out of those bathrooms and you can clean up without any worries that you may catch a bit of athlete’s foot during your travels.

Headphones

Sometimes you want to tune people out. When you’re sleeping in a room with 7 other people this isn’t always easy. There’s always some friendly Frank that wants to strike up a conversation. NOT TODAY FRANK. Your headphones can create that personal space that you might need. Headphones is basically a universal symbol for “please don’t talk to me because if I wanted to talk I obviously wouldn’t have these headphones in.”

It’s also nice if you want to listen to music in bed, catch that season finale episode on Netflix or tune out the person snoring above you.

Microfiber Towel

There are some hostels that don’t offer you towels. This is actually most hostels. I never said you were staying at a hostel for luxury reasons so don’t come into this post acting all shocked to hear that you don’t get a towel. Guess what…sometimes….you have to pay for bed sheets too! But that’s another conversation that we can have at a later time.

Avoid spending the couple extra bucks by having a fast drying, microfiber towel that you can toss in your bag and not have to think twice about it. Keep in mind that if you’re heading to the beach don’t use these towels on the sand. No matter how many times you wash that baby you’ll never get all the sand out.

Sink Plug

Nobody wants to worry about getting their laundry done while they’re on the road. Until you’re left with your last clean pair of drawers and you’ve been wearing the same shirt for three days straight. Sometimes you need to wash things on the fly and you don’t have the luxury of a laundromat nearby. Luckily you can avoid the dilemma of being left without any clean clothes by packing a sink plug.

You can wash some pieces to hold you over in the sink until you get a moment to wash the rest of your stuff. You can speed up the drying process by ringing as much water as you can out by rolling your clothes up in your microfiber towel. Then hang to dry by a window in your room or over your bunk.

Ear Plugs

The worst thing in my opinion that you can end up with in your hostel room is a snorer.  I also had a guy in Melbourne who would grind his teeth at surround sound volume. But yet again, another story for another day. Snoring may not bother everybody, especially if you’re a deep sleeper, or the snorer yourself. For myself, hearing someone loudly snoring drives me CRAZZZYYYYY. I would be lost without my trusty pair of earplugs and they have helped me block out plenty of nonsense.

Eye Mask

This is something that I don’t necessarily travel with but a lot of people who I meet swear by their eye mask. For most, it will help them get to sleep and block out all of the chaos that may come in a shared room.

Power Strip

You can easily be the MVP of the room when you find out there’s only one outlet and you whip out this power strip by Belkin. There have been plenty of situations like airports, train stations, and especially hostels where everyone is trying to figure out a way to charge their devices and then I pull this guy out and make it so everyone can get charged up.

It’s also nice when you have to charge multiple devices. Sometimes I’ll need to charge my phone, my gopro, my external battery and my kindle. Having a power strip that allows me to charge all those devices while I knock out is crazy convenient.

I love staying at hostels. I really do. I always meet inspiring people who become friends, find out the best parts to visit and have an overall once in a lifetime experience. But, it’s taken a lot of trial and error to nail down exactly what I need to make sure a visit goes down without a hitch. These accessories play a huge part in that.

What are some of your go-to travel accessories when staying at a Hostel? Comment below and let me know!