There’s a lot of things I love about my short visit to Wroclaw, Poland, and the hostel I stayed at surely contribute a lot. The name’s Grampa’s Hostel (And here’s their website)
Let me tell you one thing I love the most about this place : How it feels so cozy and homey.
I guess, hostels are expected to give the homey feeling : it’s a place where backpackers come and go and interact. Socializing. Where people with the same passion (travelling) could meet and then built everlasting relationship. Where the travel stories begin and cross-country friendships bloom.
Sadly, at least in my experience, hostel cater less than all that. Maybe it’s the culture, maybe there’s good and bad hostel, but hostel can be so cold and unpersonal.
This hostel though, make my rating goes through the roof. The first time we step into it is at dusk, 4 AM, after we, admittedly, a bit lost and shivering after searching for the hostel.
This hostel is not in the city center, and it’s a bit hard and quite far from the “international” bus or train stop, even though it’s near one of the local station. We have been walking around for a good 20 minutes before we found the place. Not that it’s hard to find – if we were to arrive in the middle of the day or at least in a later morning, we would find it just fine. Plus point is that even though the hostel is not in the city center, they are in the outskirt near Cathedral Island, which is one of the tourist attraction as well, and it’s a lot less noisy. So, if you don’t mind secluded from the pulsing activities of city center, it’s good point. The city is small enough to walk all around, after all.
The place is laced with tons of humor! (Above photo are the proof, hehe) We were greeted with the receptionist with perfect English, who can understand what we are saying just perfectly. There are a lot of information posted on the wall, brochures, maps, their own customized maps (which I love!) and schedule of their activities and the town activities. The hostel is still alive even in the early hour, and we are offered to store our bags and chill in the living room if we want, or go to – their recommendation – Lamplighter hunting, which is just outside the hostel, in the Cathedral Island.
The maps, their own design, gives a meaningful local perspective and recommendation of the town. The comments there are so funny and relatable, it’s easy to understand. One of the restaurant are marked “Where we go if it’s nearing the end of the month” and things like that. I honestly prefer theirs over the official town map. They also provide information of the freewalkingtour.
The staff there gives off the feeling of okay with listening our travel stories and loves the town. The living room are so comfy and relaxed, full of entertainment stuff, from games to television. There are some people I see that are not moving from the living room from the time we arrive to the time we come back from a tour around the city. And I love the bathroom, for the sign (I am a fan of Ryan Gosling haha).
When we finally checked in, they give us a key for a 4-people room eventhough we only book for 3 individual beds, because well, they have no other guest that will want to room with 3 noisy girls perhaps. But we love it! Some hostel said they can’t guarantee that individual bed booker will be hosted in the same room. We have no problem with the room, it’s wide enough and there are lockers in the room, but we didn’t use it at all since we are the only one inside the room. There are no inside bathroom or toilet, all of it are outside ( as far as I know, there are no inside bathroom room in this hostel). It’s warm, but no heater I think – definitely one of the coldest room in our trip.
They also have kitchen and… while we don’t have the time to go chilling in the living room, I really want to. I really haven’t spend enough time in this Hostel when the next day we need to move out quite early in the morning as well, bringing our free breakfast with us (they packed it for us because we can’t attend the communal breakfast hour!). It really is the friendliness of Poland times tenfold!
When we are checking out, we realized that this Hostel is against using HostelWorld and the like to book their rooms (but they are listed) because HostelWorld will cut some of the fees for their own, leaving the small hostel business a little less. Maybe it’s not much, but big enough if all the guest book from hostelworld. They can be booked directly here.
That’s all I can tell you about this awesome hostel, because I definitely not staying long enough. I will stay there again if I ever step in Wroclaw again!
referencetravel 
Hostel, is that like a dorm room for university?
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How hostel “operate” is similar with student dorm I think, and a lot of their rooms are called dorm room, but hostel is a separate business not under any education institution affiliation.
It’s like a low cost hotel that cut the unnecessary part of hotel (like swimming pool and message parlor and grand lobby etc.) for people who are satisfied with the bare necessities as long as they have a roof over their head. But intriguingly, it is usually more convenient for travelers to stay on hostel, because of things like public umbrella, public food, electric socket in each bed, etc. etc.
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Ooh, I like that. Thanks for sharing the info. Not sure when I can travel there but I will know when I do 😊
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Reblogged this on Food & Packer and commented:
Here is my most recommended hostel on Wroclaw, or even Europe
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