Need A Cheap Place To Stay? Consider HostelBookers.com

I know what your thinking.

The image of the hostel brings forth the memories of the movies Hostel 1 and 2, where the dumb tourists get kidnapped and taken to a torture factory for the rich and deprived.

If that’s what your thinking, you watch too many movies my friend. The modern hostel is more akin to a dorm room at the average college, and is definitely a good deal if you want a room for cheap while exploring a new city.

That’s where a site like HostelBookers comes in.

Hostelbookers is a site very akin to Hotels.com, where they connect you with hostels in various area, allow you to see where they are located, get descriptions of the facilities and in many cases get a peek at the actual place itself. They also have user reviews so you can get an idea of what other people thought about the place during their own stay.

For example, the top rated hostel in New York was Urban Oasis, a hostel found on West 31st Street in New York City, NY. We visited it to see what exactly one of the best rated hostels in New York City looked like and just what kind of place would rank a 97.6% satisfaction rate on Hostelbookers website.

From outside the building you might make the wrong impression, as your greeted with a small hallway and elevator to take you to the top. But stepping into Urban Oasis I was quickly reminded of stepping into a friends living room, or at the very least a friends common area of their dorm room. Located on the 10th floor of their building, Urban Oasis doesn’t have to worry about loud neighbors overhead making noise long into the night, and is high enough from the street level that at least during mid day the sounds of cars, trucks and the city below didn’t seem noticeable.

The owner and manager Szilvia was quite pleasant and was ready to answer any question and give me a tour of their space. Urban Oasis currently consists of 6 double rooms, ie 6 rooms that can hold the maximum of two people each and currently are booked up for the next few months this year. They have internet connections available for those who might need them, a decent sized flat screen TV, board games, washer’s and dryers and two full bathrooms on the facilities. I was even able to see peeking out through one of the windows that the Empire States Building lie right outside it if I looked up, giving a rather impressive view of the old girl.

Urban Oasis has been in its current location for the last year.  To say the least, I came away impressed with my first time in a New York hostel and may very well have spoiled myself by going to whats the best one New York has to offer.

If Hostelbookers top rated hostel in New York is indicative of then kinds of places they are recommending people to stay then I have to recommend the site totally. For those in need of a place to stay, that may definitely be cheaper than the average hotel in the bigger cities and don’t mind meeting and perhaps conversing with some new people along the way, HostelBookers is a definite site for you, and if your planning to come to New York later this year and tire of the average hotel experience, try Urban Oasis. They might just change your idea of what hostels can truly be like.

Further pictures can be seen at on Facebook or at our flickr page.