Taken by the Wind » Crazy Adventures

Is there such thing as being TOO OLD for a “youth” hostel?

Reannon Muth — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:57:52 +0000

Photo Courtesy of Barnacles Hostel

On my way to Jamaica last week, I had an overnight layover in Miami. Not wanting to spend a lot of money on lodging, I booked a hostel near the airport. After getting off the bus and wandering around lost for an hour (in heels and in the heat), I arrived at the hostel hot and tired and looking forward to ditching my roller-bag and taking a nap.

As soon as I walked into the dorm room, however, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. First, though it was only two in the afternoon, there was already a party underway in the dorm’s common room. Beer bottles lined the coffee table, techno blasted from the stereo system and several people were smoking in the kitchen; using the sink as an ashtray.

After saying hello and dumping my stuff on the bunk bed, I decided that since I wasn’t going to be sleeping any time soon, I might as well take a shower. But as soon as I opened the bathroom door, I realized that wasn’t going to happen either, thanks to the naked girl passed out on the toilet in the dorm’s only bathroom.

“Oh! Sorry!” I said, backing away from the open doorway as soon as I saw her. I expected her to hastily stand up and slam the door shut, but she didn’t even seem to register my presence.

“Are you okay?” She didn’t move. Crap, is she dead? I thought. I headed down to the reception desk to find the hostel’s manager (a shirtless, barefoot 30-something), in a fight with the housekeeper.

“Can I help you?” he asked as soon as he noticed me.

“Um, yeah. I’m checking out…” I placed the dorm key on the desk in front of him.

“Why? Is it because of the girl? Cause you can change rooms if you want…”

“Um…you mean the girl passed out in the bathroom?” He knew about her?

“There’s a girl passed out in the bathroom!?” He looked at the housekeeper accusingly, as if he had had something to do with it.

“Yeah. Look. I’m gonna go…” I said, wondering what girl he’d been referring to, but too weirded out by the situation to want to stick around to find out.

Later, after gathering my stuff and wandering down the highway a ways, I found a motel. Though it cost 70 dollars (about 50 dollars more than the hostel had) I was happy to pay it.

Five years ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about staying in that hostel. I would have no doubt joined the party; heck, I probably would have been the one to start it. But now, at 29, getting wasted with strangers on a Monday afternoon was the last thing I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was take a hot shower (alone!) and crawl into a comfortable king-size motel bed and sleep.

When I read about travelers like 29-year-old blogger Matt (who’s been bouncing around from hostel to hostel nearly non-stop for the past five years) or about 34-year-old blogger Christine (who not only stays in hostels with her husband but her one-year-old baby), I wonder how they do it. I also wonder whether or not they should.

As Christine explained:

“No one wants to party their way around the world and then find a baby is in the room… especially if they’re from the States. I noticed this taboo pretty quickly as we stayed in a hostel in Bogotá…the American kids were definitely not into the cherubic angel cooing at them from across the room (sort of a buzz kill, me thinks).”

A few months ago, while staying in a hostel in Portland, Oregon, I encountered something similiar. I awoke at six in the morning to get a drink of water and as I sleepily stumbled out of the dorm room barefoot and in my snowman pajamas, I was embarassed to find a 40-something Asian man sitting in a chair in the hallway. Though it was barely dawn, he was dressed in a suit and watching Modern Family on his laptop. It looked as though he’d been up for hours.

We nodded at one another and I patted down my messy hair, feeling both self-conscious and resentful that he’d caught me looking so disheveled. It was Saturday, for crying out loud! He should have been sleeping off a hangover like a normal person.

But he wasn’t the only one up early. There were quite a few other older people chatting in the kitchen over coffee. One guy looked to be in his late 60′s.

“I’m so hung-over,” I overheard him tell a girl. He was clearly trying to relate to us; to let us all know that even though he’d probably been given a senior citizen discount when he’d reserved his hostel room, he was still cool. It was painful to watch and I felt embarrassed for him.

Anyway, what do you think? Does the old adage “age ain’t nothin’ but a number” apply here or do ‘old people’ cramp a hostel’s style?

Future Travel Plans: Montana or Arizona?

Reannon Muth — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:56:02 +0000

I found a ticket from Las Vegas to Phoenix, Arizona for just 26 dollars (round-trip!) and another plane ticket from Las Vegas to Bozeman (which I know sounds like the capital of a small eastern African country but it’s actually a city in Montana) for 80 dollars (round-trip).

What I need from you, dear readers, is some advice. Where should I go?

Something to consider is that my guy friend and I will be:

A. Only able to go for a max of three days and

B. Visiting in February

Montana

Photo of Bozeman, Montana by Art History Images

Youth hostel: 26 dollars per night (Sheesh! Expensive, no?)

Plane ticket: 80 dollars (RT)

Things to do: Skiing, Montana Grizzly Encounter, Pioneer Museum, Museum of the Rockies, Hotsprings

Phoenix

"Washington Street, Phoenix, at night" by Gwilmore

Youth hostel: 15 dollars per night

Plane ticket: 26 dollars (round-trip)

Things to do: Pub crawl, Mystery Castle

Mystery Castle by Media Fury

While researching for quirky things to do in Phoenix, I discovered the “Mystery Castle” which is neither a mystery nor a castle but a 1930′s house made out of salvaged junk and auto parts. It has 18 rooms and 13 fire places. Tours are just five dollars.

Well? Whatch ya think?

Future Travel Plans: Jamaica

Reannon Muth — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 05:26:02 +0000

'Jump on In' by WanderingWorld

I found a round-trip plane ticket from Vegas to Fort Lauderdale for just 209 dollars. If you’re looking for a great site to book cheap travel, check out Bing Travel. I first heard about it on NPR and am now officially in love. It’s great because it uses previous previous ticket sales for that specific date in years past to tell you when to buy and when to hold off. I searched under ‘hot deals’ and found the ticket to Florida. From there, I found a nine dollar ticket (yep, nine dollars!) on Spirit Air (taxes included, it comes to about 60 dollars one way).

Anyway, one of my friends from high school is going with me. Though I’ve been all over the Caribbean (I worked on a cruise ship for two years), Jamaica is one of the islands I’ve yet to see. I’m super excited. It’s been a year since I’ve left Americaland, which means that I’m about 300 days overdue.

Has anyone been there? Where should I stay: Montego or Kingston or both?

Halloween in Sin City

Reannon Muth — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 05:02:04 +0000

My friend recently joked that unlike guys, girls have it easy when it comes to choosing a Halloween costume.

“Girls just wear their underwear and bunny ears,” he complained. ”Or their underwear and angel wings or their underwear and devil horns.”

That was certainly evident last weekend when I attended what is widely considered the wildest and most risque Halloween event in the country: The Fantasy and Fetish Ball.

Held in an arena at South Point casino in Las Vegas, the ‘ball’ featured, in addition to stilt walkers and acrobats, a mechanical banana ride, strippers and fire-jugglers whose bra’s spouted real fire. Of course, being that the word ‘fetish’ was in the event’s title, there were also a number of sideshows involving whips, chains and naked people hanging from the ceiling.

And while as my friend had expected, there was no shortage of girls in their underwear, I wasn’t one of them. I decided to buck the trend and go as the little mermaid.

Me as 'Ariel' from Disney's "The Little Mermaid"

What about you?

Where in the world were you for Halloween?

Neon Boneyard: Where Signs Go to Die

Reannon Muth — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 23:01:47 +0000

Tacky neon signs are as much a part of the Vegas landscape as strippers and slot machines and yet, when a casino closes, the signs not sold at auction usually retire to the dump. Well, until recently, that is. Now the signs are being rescued, restored and relocated to a ‘Neon Boneyard’ which has been optimistically named ‘The Neon Museum’.

The museum side of the attraction is still a work in progress and when I visited a couple of months ago, the boneyard consisted of little more than a couple hundred rusted signs piled haphazardly on top of one another in a plot of sand between a parking lot and an apartment building.

But that hasn’t stopped the boneyard from becoming a popular spot for photo shoots and even weddings. A tour is 15 dollars, which includes details of the history behind each sign and how it found its way to the museum. It’s located only slightly North of downtown and is within walking distance from Fremont street.

Wouldn’t you love to have one of these in your backyard?