New Boston Hostel

Hostelling International just announced plans to build a new 400 bed hostel at 25 Stuart Street. The 60,000 square foot structure will be just a few blocks from Boston Common. If all goes well, the hostel will be opening in 2012.

HI-Boston is upgrading

The Boston Globe has an article about them moving to a new location. They are abandoning their 208 bed location by Berkeley, which leaves a lot to be desired, for a new location with 375 beds. Hopefully, this one will be rebuilt as a hostel, unlike the old building which feels like bathrooms were shoe-horned into closets.
They also mentioned not renting the building from BU that they set up a summer hostel in Boston. I have never stayed there, but I was surprised to read the average bed is $30. I paid $40 the last time I was there.

Boston Staycation

I blogged last month about the ridiculousness of "staycations", but I now have to admit that I just took one this weekend. My family was in town for a week, so I spent a few days exploring another side of Boston with them. I stayed at their hotel in Dorchester, and we had dinner in the North End. I had forgotten what a zoo the North End can be on Saturday night. We waited an hour and a half outside the "Daily Catch" for some of the best seafood and pasta in Boston. Everyone was pretty cranky by the time we were seated, but the quick service and excellent food was well worth it. I watched the UT/OU game with my mom, and we had a blast watching UT beat OU, again. I guess once again, I have to agree with old adage, "Don't knock it until you've tried it".

The only frustrating part of my staycation was my inability to recharge my iPhone and capture more pictures around town. I was able to snap this picture of the bar at 224 Boston, a nice restaurant in Dorchester.



I had a great salmon and spicy rice, that came with a small fruit salad. I also had a pumpkin-tini, which was on their drink specials list. It had some spices on the top, but I never seemed to be able to taste them since they would float in the middle as I drank from the side of the glass. Maybe, if drank it in one long gulp, the momentum would push it into my mouth. I have a lot to learn about drinking these crazy martinis.

Boston Hostel in The Boston Globe

There was a great article Sept. 12 in The Boston Globe about the Boston HI Hostel. Last year, 32,800 hostellers came through Boston, a 60% increase over 1995 numbers, and the hostel is expanding the number of beds from 205 to 375, an 80% increase. A visitor was even quoted as describing the hostel as "quiet, [...] clean, [and] reliable". The article also mentions one of the biggest driving forces of hostelling in the US is foreign travelers taking advantage of the weak dollar.

With the media promoting "stay-cations", hostels are a great alternative that I don't think many Americans know about, yet. This article filled with useful facts and a glowing endorsement of hostelling is great publicity for local hostels.

Boston boats

Boston Hostel

The Boston hostel located near the Berkeley School of Music was my first home in Boston while I frantically searched for an apartment. I would park downtown a few blocks away and hope all of my posessions would still be there in the morning. My job in Burlington offered me a reverse commute, but I would spend my evenings driving around Medford looking at places to sublease for the summer. The hostel reminds me of the uninspired decorating of a college student, but it did offer a nice breakfast to lift my spirits for the journey out of downtown boston (no small feat for someone w/o GPS). The people I met at the hostel seemed mostly on the way to somewhere else. Either they were headed to the hustle of NYC or a camp in Maine. I see Boston the same way today, a stopover in life.

Summer concerts

The Boston Landmark Orchestra performed a concert dedicated to Red Sox and Apple Pie. I only recognized Sousa and Leonard Bernstein on the program, and Bernstein because of "the maestro" on Seinfeld.

Sent from my iPhone