Coolangatta Yha Hostel

A lovely place to stay on the Gold Coast, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone travelling here. The staff were super friendly and helpful. Shout-out to Heather for being an absolute legend!

The hostel is really close to the airport, which is handy if you’re job-hunting or escaping a slightly too-energetic Aussie girlfriend. The kitchen is spacious and super clean, and the fridge is so big it could have its own postcode. The staff are amazing and genuinely make the place feel magical. Highly recommend it!

The staff were lovely, and it was quieter than I expected. That’s about all the good I can think of. Nobody was friendly, though maybe everyone was as miserable here as we were. Stay away. This is a depressing, unattractive hostel. The common areas are tatty and ugly, and the pool area is ugly too, with peeling paint and sad-looking plants. There’s no air conditioning, and the louvres don’t close, so it must be unbearably hot in summer and, I assume, freezing in winter. Everything looks old and dirty. I never saw a clean-looking bathroom, and the kitchen was full of flies. The rooms feel like jail cells, with nothing comfortable or appealing. The only power points are inside cupboards, so bring an extension lead. The bunks have no curtains, our room had no mirror, and a light shade was missing. Both fans were caked in dust and looked about 50 years old. The door wouldn’t shut properly unless pushed closed, which felt like bad security. The hostel isn’t in Coolangatta, which is three kilometres away. There are no shops nearby, and the only place I could find for a meal seemed to be the airport next door, with its junk food. At least there are bus stops and a beach close by, so you can escape this concrete-block nightmare.

We booked two nights in a mixed dorm as part of a longer trip, after staying at hostels along the east coast. Check-in was fine, staff service was good, and the hostel itself presents well. The rooms are basic but functional for the price, the bathrooms are pretty nice, and the communal areas, including the pool and kitchen, were good. We hadn’t really understood how far outside Coolangatta it was, or that it sits between a main highway and the airport car park. That may suit some people, but it’s worth knowing. The buses to town weren’t as easy as other descriptions suggested. The room was the real problem. Despite the name, none of the other occupants seemed like what I’d call “youth”; they appeared to be long-term residents of questionable character. There was tension and friction between them, and both my girlfriend and I felt very uncomfortable, wondering whether we should stay the night. Around 2 p.m., one roommate began acting as if he was under the influence of something beyond alcohol, and we no longer felt safe. We were concerned about what might follow. We didn’t feel safe sleeping there, so we checked out and paid for alternate accommodation ourselves. The hostel was good and the staff were helpful, but another room might have meant a different experience. It seemed the “Youth Hostel” had opened up to long-term occupants looking for cheap accommodation, and in this case, people taking drugs, day drinking, and walking around muttering to themselves. I wouldn’t have felt safe in that room and wouldn’t recommend anyone else stay there. A safe environment should be expected at a YHA property, not treated as a possibility. Stricter screening is needed to keep others from ending up in this situation. It was disappointing and a poor reflection on a reputable brand.