Youth Hostel Guide and Reservations

Current Participating Hostels

None yet! What ARE they thinking?

As hostel managers join in and participate in this free service offering for travelers on WiseNomad.com, travelers will be able to initiate and carry on a conversation with an actual person at the front desk of any hostel in the world through an instant messager application. You ask them a question, and they can respond a few seconds later. It's like a phone call, but you have to type instead of talk... and it's free communication from anypoint in the world to any other point.

Hostels can staff this thing as little or as much as they want using their current front desk person. If they're away from the desk or gone for the night, it will take a message. If the front desk person is busy, it will tell the traveler to try back in five minutes. It's designed to simulate the experience of actually standing there at the front desk. In addition to the free aspect (Free for hostels to set-up, free for hostels to use, and free for travelers to interact with the hostels), this application from HumanClick enables one front desk person to simultaneously interact with 3 or 4 travelers. You can't do that on the phone.

How will this help both
travelers and hostels alike?

Free & Easy Communication - Never pay to call a hostel and never again struggle to figure out how to dial the hostels international phone number.

Make/Accept Reservations - Hostels have long struggled with figuring out how to handle reservations in a format other than via the phone because hostels and reservation systems just don't work together that well. Hostels never have an exact count of how many beds they will have available the next day because people tend to stay longer or leave early without giving much notice. Numerous reservations systems have poped up to answer this dilemna, but most of them are more trouble than they're worth and usually end up costing both the hostel and the traveler more money for the "convienience". Some of the best solutions are the simplest ones. Humanclick makes reservations as simple as they are with a phone plus saves you the expense.

Pay for Reservations - Need to pay for the reservation when you book it. Use PayPal and keep your credit card number to yourself. You just instant message your email address to the hostel and tell them to bill your PayPal account, or you can send the agreed upon amount to their email address. Simple, safe, free, and it ensures the hostel that they will get their money.

Get Answers from those who Know - Seasoned travelers know that the best resource for getting the scoop on what to do and where to go while on the road is other travelers at hostels. This is precisely why travelers prefer to stay at hostels. You'll learn more about a destination speaking for twenty minutes over a beer to other travelers who've spent some time there than you could ever possibly find in a "travel guide". The travelers who tend to have the most knowledge usually work at the hostels. This application will allow you to tap into that knowledge before you get there from wherever you are at on your journey, even before you leave home.

Know a hostel not using this free service?

Ask them why not and let them know about WiseNomad.com. We'll show them how to set it up here on WiseNomad.com and on their own website.