Special Hostels, solo travellers

WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT UK TRAIL?

Established in 2000, UK Trail has an ongoing programme of personally reviewing hostels over the whole of England, Scotland and Wales. Our reviews reflect particularly the hostel's atmosphere, sociability, friendliness and facilities for self-catering -- everything that make a hostel MORE THAN just a place to spend a night!

WE ARE SPECIAL FOR SOLO TRAVELLERS

At UK Trail we give particular attention to solo travellers. This is because single travellers are not well catered-for by websites about hotels, pensions and bed-and-breakfasts. Even budget hotels are priced for 2 or more people, and the single traveller has to pay double anyone else. Hostels enable single travellers who are willing to share a room to pay no more than anyone else. Therefore we focus on the costs of dorm beds. And for everyone, but for solo travellers in particular, hostels can be excellent places to meet other travellers. But not all of them are: We are here to help you sort out which are the best!

WHY ARE OUR REVIEWS BETTER?

We personally visit the hostels! We have visited many of the hostels listed here, and indeed stayed in quite a few.
We review the reviews! We scour the websites and bring you a digest of guests' own personal reviews.
We often know the locality and can tell you which hostels are most central, whether they are on a noisy road, etc -- the sort of information that is hard to get from any other website.

ARE HOSTEL RATINGS GOOD?

Yes! Different guests have different views, but we have been very impressed by the ratings provided by Hostelbookers, our affiliate booking engine, which correlate well with our personal impressions. We present a recent set of these ratings to guide you further in your choice.

WHERE CAN I MEET UP WITH OTHER TRAVELLERS?

We think the sociability of a hostel is so important that we have developed our unique Sociability Index . This is a measure of how easy it is to meet people and get chatting. High sociability might mean a cosy common room in the central area of the hostel, a good kitchen and a dining room with one big table. Low sociability goes with a lack of a common room, no kitchen, or a common room with seats arranged around a central TV.

CAN I FIND MORE ABOUT THE HOSTEL?

You might find your way to the hostel's own website to obtain some additional information. But we would like to ask of you just one thing: When you have chosen your hostel, please come back to our site and book from here!You get exactly the same facilities as elsewhere, and best of all, there are no booking charges!