When it comes to choosing hostels, Hostelworld is known as the biggest wealth of information in the backpacking industry. Hostelworld is a booking website, based in Dublin that lists approximately 33 thousand hostels worldwide along with photos of each of them, their amenities and real-customer reviews.
The HOSCARS
Every year around this time, Hostelworld announces its winners based on customer reviews over the past 12 months. The HOSCARS stands for Hostelworld Customer Ratings and the winners for 2018 were announced last week. The winners are determined by millions of ratings and reviews left on the Hostelworld site. Only travellers that booked their stays through Hostelworld are eligible to write reviews, so it makes it impossible for people to write fake reviews.
When creating a review on Hostelworld, travellers can write their own thoughts on the hostel they booked, as well as give ratings in the following categories:
• Atmosphere
• Staff
• Location
• Value for money
• Cleanliness
• Security
• Facilities
Who Came Out On Top?
The HOSCARS awards prizes in a number of categories. They list the top hostels in each country, as well as each city. They also have speciality prizes for ‘most popular hostel’, ‘best new hostel’, ‘best small hostel’ and ‘best big hostel’. Their many different prize categories allow for unique hostels to shine, as they present them to the world of backpackers.
There were a number of new faces amongst the top ratings and winners this year – with Colombia really standing out as an up and coming destination with many new, great hostels to choose from in the Latin American country. Surprisingly, Portugal barely featured at all in this year’s HOSCARS and it usually takes in many prizes each year.
The award for ‘best hostel in Europe’ went to the ever-popular Soul Kitchen in Russia, while the ‘best hostel in Spain’ went to SunGate 1 in Madrid. The award for ‘best staff’ was received by Jazz Hostel and Apartments in Slovenia.
With such a variety of categories and winners, the awards assist in helping travellers choose the perfect hostels to fit into their trip, wherever they may be going!
