Lava Hostel

The kitchen has lots of cookware, though it gets crowded around dinner. The place was clean and amazing for the price, with a grocery store nearby and a fridge where you can store labeled food. There’s free wifi, a piano, plenty of tables and chairs, and a few couches. The friendly staff were a plus. Room doors use keypads, so you don’t need a key, and checkout is easy.

A food-share shelf with leftovers from previous travelers and the shared kitchen made this a pleasant indoor break during our otherwise camping-focused trip. There’s also a handy washing machine. The host was very nice, and the hostel is affordable and set in a beautiful city.

My main disappointment is that I’m still waiting for the promised refund and for news about the investigation. If that had been handled as promised, I would have rated the place well, since I’d have felt they were taking steps to stop this happening again. The trouble started when I went to my room in the evening and found someone in my bed. The room was full, and apparently everyone had been assigned a bed there. One resident was still awake and let me sleep in a free bed in his room. I was anxious all night because my things were in the other room. Around 2:30 AM, a man came in, woke everyone, turned on the light, and loudly and aggressively told a girl who was sleeping in her underwear to leave the bed he said was his. It was degrading for her, and nobody spoke up because he seemed threatening and unfriendly. I slept terribly. In the morning I explained what happened to the concierge. He asked me to email the story so I could get a refund. Someone replied, apologized for the inconvenience, said they wanted to investigate the events, and promised to refund my one-night stay.

Free laundry is a rare find in Reykjavik, so that was a real plus, and I’d stay here again. The campsite was nice and the facilities clean. It felt a little odd that the washrooms for campers, right beside a park, were often used as public toilets. The shower wasn’t draining on the day we were there, so we couldn’t use it. I only realized as we were leaving that showers were available in the hostel building.