Gangnam Seven Hostel

The room is pleasant, but it’s cramped, and between the bathroom and room lights and the outdoor noise, it’s hard to relax. Keep any food you bring somewhere secure. I travel with a lot of vegetarian food because of my diet, and someone took my whole bag of food from the refrigerator. Theft seems possible here. The staff seemed careless and didn’t take responsibility, even though there were cameras to monitor thefts. I’d probably avoid this hotel.

Really clean and comfortable, with amazing people. This is the best hostel I’ve stayed at so far.

I picked Gangnam Seven Hostel for its proximity to the Seoul Express Bus Station and nearby attractions, and because I hoped to meet people. It was my second hostel in South Korea. The first one, in Myeongdong, was lovely. In all my years of traveling around the world, I’ve regretted choosing a place only twice, and this was one of them. My honest advice is to skip it. There’s no elevator or heater, and the Wi-Fi was unreliable. The double room, room 311, had a persistent, terrible sewage smell in the private bathroom. The towels had red stains and lots of black hair on them. The bed was extremely hard, the walls and doors were in poor condition, and I had to touch the doorknobs with a glove or plastic bag. The place wasn’t soundproof either. The staff interaction made things worse. They came across as unfriendly and condescending when I asked where the kettle was. A blonde female foreign staff member first acted as if she didn’t know what a kettle was, then told me to use the hot water dispenser. I’d already tried it several ways, but it only gave cold water. The water from my bathroom sink was warm, not hot. When I explained this, she questioned whether I’d really tried the dispenser and kept suggesting I was doing it wrong. I asked her to show or tell me where the kettle was. She eventually said it was on the fourth floor, without giving an exact location, and told me again to try the dispenser as I left. Upstairs, after looking around for a kettle, I found one. I couldn’t see a sink, so a foreign male staff member with a brown beard asked if I needed help. He said there was no sink on that floor, but that the dispenser on the third floor gave hot water. I told him it hadn’t worked and that I’d get water from my room to heat. He kept insisting I follow him for a demonstration. I said I didn’t want to sit through one for something I knew wasn’t working. As I headed downstairs, he spoke with the blonde staff member, got my attention, and showed me the dispenser near my room, where I already knew it was. He tried to demonstrate it, but no hot water, or even any water, came out. I’d already said I wasn’t incompetent and didn’t need a demonstration. I heated the kettle myself, got the hot water I needed, and later noticed a towel at the bottom of the dispenser, which looked like it was leaking.