Chelsea Inn - 17th Street, New York City

Advantages: good location, friendly staff
Disadvantages: limited facilities, small, no disabled access

...The Chelsea Star Hotel is situated on the corner of 30th street and eighth avenue in Manhattan. It is quite a small hostel with dorms as well as single and double rooms which are all custom designed. The bathrooms are nice and the place is always clean but there is nowhere to sit and relax - something you long for when you are staying in a dorm. There are phones, an internet machine and a coffee machine and good tourist information. I found the staff extremely helpful and friendly and I received a warm welcome. The hostel itself is in an ideal location: mid-Manhattan and within easy reach of the subway, Times Square, Madison Square Gardens and Penn station. Over all it was a good place to stay, if not a little expensive for the limited facilities. The room prices are not bad for Manhattan but not as cheap as the International Student... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Everything about it.
Disadvantages: Getting more expensive.

...A multitude of pubs and bars mixed with historic tourist attractions and the odd cobbled street make York a fascinating place to visit (or live). There is so much to do, to see, to eat and to drink. Highlights include the breaded mushrooms at Victor J's cafe-bar on Finkle Street, a pint of Terrier at Colliergate's Last Drop Inn and the sweet and sour fish at Goodramgate's Siam House. Many new and expensive bars have made York the Notting Hill of the north, but there are enough traditional pubs that you feel like you are in the ancient city as portrayed in tourist brochures. An excellent mix of the old and the new. Try it, I did and I ended up living here.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Great atmosphere,good food, great fun
Disadvantages: Some can get crowded

...and a nicely decorated eatery upstairs. The historian Carlyle's house across the street is now a museum. Down the river at Hammersmith is the Doves which has been a licensed hostelry for more than 400 years and is today the haunt of river men as well as literary and artistic people. It's an unspoilt 17th century building, beamy and dark with an open fire. The outside terrace with a vine hundreds of years old gives a good view of the Thames. Not far away at Strand-on-the Green, Chiswick, you will come across the City Barge. Queen Elizabeth I granted this low-beamed inn a charter back in 1484 and the old portion is much as she saw it, so the historians tell us. The pub sign even has a picture of her barge on it. The London Apprentice at Isleworth is an attractive Elizabethan inn situated on a bend in the river much frequented by swans. King Henry... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful