Hostels are so taken for granted as great budget accommodations that independent travelers can find just about everywhere on earth, that it’s kind of weird to think about the history of hostelling. So let’s do that for a moment, shall we?
Hostelling is coming up on its 100th anniversary in 2009. You might think the idea of hostels is much older, and that’s probably true – but according to Hostelling International, the first honest-to-goodness hostel opened in Germany in 1909. (Don’t double-check this fact with Wikipedia, because they say something different. And we all know how easy it is to screw with Wikipedia.) At any rate, hostels were once all “youth hostels,” with age limits and curfews and midday lock-out periods. These days there are fewer and fewer hostels with any kind of age limit, and curfews and lock-out times are also becoming more rare.