Wanderer´s Inn Hostel, New York

179 East 94th street, New York, NY 10128

www.wanderersinn.com

Rowdy travelers, dirty rooms shared with 10 complete strangers who look like they haven’t washed their clothes in months. Sounds about right for your average hostel. Not the Wanderers Inn!
I’d always wanted to go to NY and this year my boyfriend offered to take me for my birthday. I imagined staying in a nice hotel in the middle of Manhattan ...
...each in some cases!) You can imagine our complete horror, shortly followed by moans of “I’ll never get to go!” from me. But I was determined to go, so I needed to find a bargain. Knowing a few people who’d been to NY before I asked about accommodation. One friend recommended staying in a hostel. My first thought was “but we’ll have to share with lots of other people”, but she informed me that hostels have private rooms, and were actually quite fun. ... more

179 East 94th street, New York, NY 10128

www.wanderersinn.com

Rowdy travelers, dirty rooms shared with 10 complete strangers who look like they haven’t washed their clothes in months. Sounds about right for your average hostel. Not the Wanderers Inn!
I’d always wanted to go to NY and this year my boyfriend offered to take me for my birthday. I imagined staying in a nice hotel in the middle of Manhattan but the hotels were very expensive ($100 a night each in some cases!) You can imagine our complete horror, shortly followed by moans of “I’ll never get to go!” from me. But I was determined to go, so I needed to find a bargain. Knowing a few people who’d been to NY before I asked about accommodation. One friend recommended staying in a hostel. My first thought was “but we’ll have to share with lots of other people”, but she informed me that hostels have private rooms, and were actually quite fun. So I did my research on hostels in NY (hostelworld.com or hostlez.com) and came across The Wanderers Inn, which was voted one of the top 10 hostels in the world. After staying there I could see why!

Location
There are actually two locations for the Wanderers Inn. We stayed on the East Side location, but there is also a Wanderers Inn on the West Side of Manhattan. The East Side is around 15 minutes from Times Square by subway, and around an hour and a half from JFK. It’s situated between Lexington and Third Avenues on 94th Street. It’s close to the Museum Mile where you’ll find The Metropolitan and the Guggenheim Museums, and Central Park is also only three blocks to the West. The closest subway station is two blocks away on Lexington Ave, and busses pass through regularly. A post office, a 24-hour pharmacy and supermarket, a police station, several banks with ATM machines are nearby. Subway, a Chinese restaurant, sushi bars and loads of other eateries and bars are in the neghbourhood. The hostel boasts lots of leaflets for takeaway places located in the common room if you can’t be bothered to go out!

Décor
The houses are just like they are on Friends! It’s quite an old looking brown stone building. Inside is nothing special. In fact it’s quite dreary, dark browns with the odd painting here and there and high ceilings. Not really my taste.

Rooms
At first glance the rooms are not the nicest in the world, which is what I was expecting. The rooms are placed over three floors. The dorms are on the first floor, and then the private rooms are on the other two. The dorms sleep up to 8 or 10 people, and are either male or female only. The private rooms are either bunk beds or a double bed, and have a TV with lots of channels. There were no double beds available so we had to opt for bunk beds. We were put on the top floor (three flights of stairs!) and the room was very small to say the least. It was about 6-7 ft wide and 12ft long, barely enough room to walk. It had two windows so there was quite a lot of light, and there was lots of draw space, which took up the whole room! The worst thing was the bed was falling apart. They only give you a small pillow and a blanket (being March at the time, it wasn’t THAT warm!) I couldn’t complain though, they had only charged $55 a night, which was $10 under what was agreed. Each floor shares one bathroom (about 10 people to one bathroom) and some dormitories are ensuite. The showers were old and a little dirty, so I only used it once in 4 days! On the up side, towels and linen is provided free of charge, and they were perfectly clean.

Common Room
This is located on the ground floor, and is open from 8am till 10pm. It’s pretty small resulting in not enough seats for everyone, (the only time I noticed it was in the morning). It has a microwave, kettle etc so you can choose to eat in to save pennies. Free tea and coffee are available, lots of magazines travel guides, a TV and an Internet machine and a phonebox so you can call your friends and make them jealous! The building is non-smoking but there’s a small garden to relax and enjoy yourself in. The best thing about the common room and the hostel is that it stages a pizza night, and movie with popcorn night on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, where everything is FREE! It gets packed (who would turn down a free meal?!) so get there early!

Breakfast
The best part of the trip by far! Usually a continental breakfast consists of a couple of slices of bread and coffee. Here it’s free and HUGE! There’s lots of muffins, very large bagels, cereals, juices, fruit, jams, so you’re spoilt for choice. It’s on a first come first served basis from 8.30am in the common room, and believe me, we had to get there at 8am sharp to get a seat and cutlery, because their wasn’t enough for everyone. All they ask is that you wash up after yourself. Forget the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State building, this breakfast epitomizes NY!

Atmosphere
To my surprise it was very quiet. The hostel consisted of travelers aged from 18-30 mainly from Europe, and they were all friendly and polite. But there was the odd couple like us who just fancied a cheap break. The only time it was noisy was in the morning where people are fighting for the bathroom between 8am-8.30am. I only had to wait once, in which case I used the floor below!

Reception
The reception desk is the tiny room on the ground floor next to the common room. It’s open 24 hours a day
Which allows you to check in from 8am to 12am, 7 days a week. Check out time is 12pm. Because our flight wasn’t until the evening, we asked if we could leave our cases in the basement, which was fine with the staff. Irons, ironing boards, hair dryers and AC adapters can all be borrowed from reception. The fax can be used at a small charge and pre-paid phone cards can be purchased. The great thing is the reception can take calls for you, and the guys leave the messages on the notice board next to the common room right away.

Security
All dormitory rooms have lockers for your valuables (bring your own pad lock). You’re given three keys, one for the downstairs entrance and one for the first floor entrance for when the reception door is locked at night, so there’s no curfew. And of course there’s one for your room. I felt extremely safe, but of course it’s always best to keep your valuables on you on locked away.

Friendliness of staff
Employees were always on hand to advise us on where to go where to eat or any other questions we might have. The guys even carried our cases up to our room, (three flights of stairs!) and wouldn’t take a tip!

Booking
The easiest way is to book online. You can book through hostelz.com but they charge you extra. So for the best rate, book through Wanderersinn.com direct. Choose which location you want to stay in and follow the link to the reservation section where you choose your day and accommodation and pay using your credit card. I strongly recommend you book way in advance. It’s already sold out of private rooms until November, so if you want to get your Christmas shopping in book now!

Cost

• Dormitory Style Rooms - $27.00 per night, all taxes included.
• Private Rooms - $70.00 per night, (1 or 2 people same price), all taxes included
  
  That’s less than 25 pounds each a night – what a bargain!

To sum up, the only downside was the smallness of the room and the bed. But we were out all-day and only slept there, so it wasn’t so bad! There were tons of freebies, great breakfast, and a friendly atmosphere. I would definitely Wander on Inn again!

 

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