First Time Hostel Backpacking Experience | Hostel Lavie Gokarna.

Have you ever been on a trip completely unplanned? It was my first time backpacking with my friends to a completely unknown destination. We had not done any research or planned things out. It was all in a Rush, we were planning a trip to Jaipur then later moved to Pondicherry, but all of a sudden Gokarna popped up and all four of us agreed with the place.

Did the above para felt like it’s written in a rush with the words and statements eaten up and barely able to understand what it wants to say? This was our situation when we started our trip to Gokarna.

A week before the trip we booked our train tickets to Gokarna in Karnataka. While looking for hotels in Gokarna, we came across hostels. Gokarna has two famous hostels, Zostel, and Hostel Lavie. Since we were here at the Holi weekend we were not able to book Zostel. But to our luck Hostel Lavie was available.

Hostel at a Glance.

Hostel Lavie at first glance was quite amusing. There were around 7 rooms each with 6 beds. Hostels are specially for people traveling alone. Since these hostels are a great way of interaction with other travelers.

Hostel La Vie had these beautiful wall paintings which were really awesome. Even the rooms had paintings in them.

I never even imagined that the washrooms at the hostels would be clean. But to my surprise, these washrooms were really hygienic and were cleaned daily by the housekeeping.

The Housekeeping even cleans your room every day. I don’t know about other hostels but this was the case of Hostel Lavie.

Apart from all of this the best part of the hostel is its location. The hostel is located at the edge of a hill.

Like not really at the edge, let the pictures do the talking, this is the view from hostel Lavie. If this does not intrigue you to visit this place then nothing will.

We were four guys visiting Gokarna. All four of us shared the same room but were later joined by two other guys. None of us shy-ed from talking to each other since we all were almost of the same age and we had a lot to talk.

We talked about the corporate life that we all were living in and how this trip is a small break from the hectic schedule.

We had a lot of stories to share. The hostel had an awesome front yard which was common to all of us. Most of the time we sit at the bean bags and hang out with the people next door.

The 4 of us had no plans and didn’t really know what to do next. But this was the time our fellow neighbors next door at hostel Lavie came to our rescue. They already had all the plans sorted and we were a little surprised to know the way they planned out things.

The hostel also has a Cafe in it which is a little costly and the cook takes a little more time than normal to cook but is totally worth it.

The check-in time of the hostel is 11 AM but we were allowed to check in early since we reached Gokarna at around 5 AM in the morning.

The managing staff is very helpful. On the very first day, our room AC was not functioning properly and we couldn’t really feel any change in temperature. The management was quick enough to rectify it and the AC was repaired in a day.

My thoughts about staying in a Hostel.

This was my first-time experience of staying in a hostel. I have traveled with my friends on different trips and we always preferred a hotel over anything else.

But this time I don’t really know how we ended up booking Hostel. We all wanted to try out the Hostel Experience but had a little hesitation. But once you are at the hostel you will hardly miss anything from the hotel you stay at.

Plus in hostels, you get an open environment, where you are not restricted to your room. There is a front area which is open to all the backpackers. There are many bean bags in this area so that all the travellers can socialise in this area.

I never thought that I would meet so many people here, from Liberal Arts student to freelance video editors. It was an interesting mix of people and amazing to hear everyone’s story.

It was a completely different experience and we will definitely book a hostel in the future.

What you should do, not do in Hostel!

There are many do’s and don’t in hostels, since you are sharing the dorm with other travellers so you need to be a little careful.

You are responsible for your own belongings. All hostelers are given personal lockers to keep their valuable belonging. The rooms are never locked since it will be shared with others.

Many hostels don’t allow more than 4 people group since the concept of the hostel is to make new friends and interact with new people. And if more than 4 people are likely to join, there would be no interaction with other people.

In Hostels, you don’t get enough privacy as you get in hotel rooms. There is a possibility that you will be sharing rooms with girls, yes there are mixed Dorms as well.

Try to keep the rooms clean since you will be sharing it with other guys and you littering around might make them feel uncomfortable.

We guys were noisy sometimes since we loved playing music on our speakers. So we would first ask other hostellers if they were ok with the music and they never said stopped us from playing.

If you are travelling with family then hostel is not the place for you.

I have always loved travelling, exploring new places and meeting people. Hostels are like a cherry on the top, you get a place to crash at a very cheap rate. You can make plans with the people you meet and explore the place together.

Hostel Lavie has been a great host to us on our trip to Gokarna. If you are in Gokarna I will a hundred percent recommend Hostel Lavie, it is far cheaper than its counterpart Zostel and a good place to stay.

Keep Exploring!