Primary Research - Interviewing people who have previously travelled
Where and when did you travel
How was your overall experience - accommodation wise
What would you say was missing when you were travelling? (e.g experiences etc.)
What websites did you use for booking accommodation and why?
How did you find social interactions when travelling?
Were there any challenges when it came to socialising?
Eastern Europe, Summer 2023 - stayed in mainly airbnbs and hostels but travelled as a couple
Very positive - prices were quite competitive against hostels as a couple per night. Loved travelling, was really easy, took trains, apps and internet made travelling straight forward
Ability to get local knowledge, relied heavily on Lonely Planet and trip advisor, but having a local's advice or guidance to get local secrets and favourites. Met some local people when in Prague and they suggested places to visit we had never heard of even after doing our own research
Hostelworld - hostel experience , Booking.com - good for hotels and rewards, Airbnb - easy and was cheap in some cases
with locals people were nice but were aware that I was a tourist so the connection wasn't really there. Interacting with other tourists was more common and also more friendly
Through activities like pub crawls and hostels but it was all tourists and travellers
Sometimes people weren't very welcoming or weren't open for socialising from time to time - language barrier sometimes was an issue
Vietnam, December 8th- 23rd (2 weeks)
Accommodation was one of the best parts of the trip, super cheap, lots of availability, especially in the cities like Hanoi, Saigon, Hoi An. (Could book on the day no problem, if one is sold out there’ll be another 10 with space) left room for spontaneity and took pressure off planning. Super social, I did stay in the touristy ones so can’t speak for the others
I would say the only thing missing was maybe more daytime activities, most of the events arranged by the hostels were night stuff (pub crawls, games nights, lots of drinking) which was fun but would’ve liked more tours, day meet ups etc
I used Hostelworld for pretty much every booking cos the app is super easy to use and mainly because it’s super social (made for backpackers to meet people etc) they have a section where u can see who’s staying at the hostel at the same time as u and join group chats, arrange meet ups etc. Rlly good for solo travellers. If Hostelworld was booked up I would use Booking.com but bit more complicated to use and no social aspect
Personally I found it rlly easy especially cos Vietnam is a long thin country so everyone’s either going North to South or other way round (end up doing the same journey as everyone). Also in general if people are staying in the well known, social hostels they’re there for the reason to meet people & socialise. I booked a private room one night cos I needed some me time, staying in a room with 10/15 people every night can be a bit draining but everyone respects peoples privacy cos we’re all in the same boat, dorms are there to sleep and if we wanna socialise properly would just go to common room
^ pretty much answers this question, but I met pretty much everyone just in the hostel common room, people from my dorm, sometimes on the buses, and sometimes on nights out. I would say the most time I met people was in the hostel events
I guess the only challenge was if you meet a big group of people it’s hard to wiggle in, cos they would be travelling as a group to have fun with each other as opposed to going alone and forming ur own travel friends.
