Red Nest Hostel

A good fit for a budget trip or backpacking. I was there for 1 night, and the city centre is very close, with a supermarket just across the street. The location is great, and the staff were helpful and nice. The rooms have AC and heaters. There’s a big kitchen with plenty of table space, plus a separate tray for each room to store your food. The common areas on the 5th floor are lovely. I gave it 4 stars, though 3.5 would be more accurate.

The friendly, welcoming staff and excellent location were the real highlights. The hostel also runs social activities and outings, but they’re all held at its other hostel, which is inconvenient. I wasn’t keen to walk ten minutes just to join an event. I didn’t expect much, but the two-night stay was still pretty uncomfortable. The place felt run down, dim and less clean than I’d hoped. The beds squeaked a lot. I’m not a light sleeper, luckily, or I don’t think I’d have rested properly. It seems they took a central building and turned it into a hostel, splitting the bathrooms into one toilet and two tiny showers, about 1.1 x 1.1m each. Fortunately, I only had to stay those two nights.

The shared kitchen and comfortable lounge were a nice touch, and the staff were friendly. There's a supermarket across the road, and the hostel sits just off the old town. My main gripe was the bunks, with no curtains at all, so there was hardly any privacy. They also run pub crawls and walking tours with sister hostel Purples Nest hostel, about a 5-7 minute walk away.

The terrace and the location are the two things this place has going for it. It's cheap, and the common room and games area are cool, too. But the toilets were generally dirty, and I found it awkward that a lot of the guests seemed to be grown men living there. Something also seemed off with the air-conditioning.