    |
Welcome to small-hostels.com! On this page, I would like to keep all our members and visitors in touch with the site.
The site is a free resource for small hostels and for travellers who like small hostels. We are dedicated to encouraging small, friendly hostels and also encouraging travellers to stay in them. There is no charge for a hostel entry; but this means that we have no funds either to publicise our site! Anyone who has ideas about how we can publicise our site at no cost, please tell me!
The cost of running this site is small. We are placing Google Ads on the page; these might make a very small amount of income. We would like also to make a small income from hostel bookings, although currently this seems unlikely (see below).
As you will see, the site is in a constructional state, and will continue so for some time. We hope to set up a facility, rather like a blog, for you to contribute to items on these news pages. For now, if you would like to tell us anything please just send an email to small@uktrail.com . If you are willing for your comment to be published on this page, please say so.
Thank you for finding your way to this site. Our desire is to tell you about the really good hostels that are scattered around the cities and small towns of Europe. Hostels where the owners or manager are enthusiasts who are in it for the joy of it, not for making maximum profits.
When you are travelling, especially if you are on your own, there's nothing nicer than to wind up in the evening in a cosy homely hostel, where the staff (often backpackers themselves) are friendly and helpful and may even show you round the town or go with you to the pub in the evening. You can cook your own meals and eat them in the company of others. Or, if you prefer to eat out, you will often find one or two friends to go with. And afterwards, you can play board games, make music, or have conversations with some amazing people over a beer or hot drink. And they're also, nearly always, among the cheapest hostels in town!
These are not usually 'party hostels', in the sense that alcohol is always flowing and music beating out into the early hours. If you prefer that sort of evening, great, there will often be a party venue or club nearby, and you'll get a chance of a peaceful sleep on those nights when you don't want to 'live it up'.
Of course, you may just want a comfortable bed and clean showers to use as a base while you take in the scenic sights by day and the nightlife later. If so, you can go to a booking service and find the best from a range of hostels. But always remember that the quality of the hostel can greatly improve your trip, and if you like that idea, look at our hostels first! Please read about the hostel here and book it through our site or direct with the hostel; this will give a little help to our finances and also save the hostel some commission costs.
I would like to assess hostels' opinions about booking engines.
First, from my point of view, running a website where I hope to make a small commission from hostel bookings: On my site uktrail.com, I am registered as an affiliate of 3 booking engines, and 3 years ago I was getting a useful number of bookings (up to 10 per month in the high season). Now, this has dropped to nil.
From the viewpoint of a backpacker: They now all know, or are told: "If you want to book a hostel in city X, go to Hostelworld". Or: "If you want reviews of hostels, go to Hostelworld." So ALL my potential bookings have now gone there.
From your point of view: As a hostel, you "need" to be on Hostelworld to be seen, so many of you are. And maybe many of you are not? But as a small hostel, you have fewer bookings than other hostels and so Hostelworld is less cost-effective for you. Do you prefer to receive bookings through other routes, such as GOMIO or through your own website?
All this means that your hostel will get very few online bookings unless you are on Hostelworld, and our site small-hostels.com will never process any hostel bookings. Is this what you think?
I would love to think that small hostels could be promoted as a genre in themselves, and that they could use a booking scheme such as GOMIO which would save them substantial commission, and many of those bookings would come through our site. Do you think this is a route that we should try to follow?
If you would like to make a comment, please send an email to small@uktrail.com .