VLOG / 4 MONTHS LIVING IN A HOSTEL IN MELBOURNE

I'm slowly making my way through the thousands of clips of footage I have from my travels so have decided to start with my recent venture... 4 months living in a hostel in Melbourne, Australia. When you settle in to living somewhere, you find that you're having too much fun to film anything so all I really have to show for my experience is drunken snapchat videos - apologies! Although I did manage to walk around and get some footage of the hostel on my last day before I boarded my plane back to the UK, so there's that! As always, videos never really show a true representation of what something is like so I'm sure it's hard to imagine how different it was living in a hostel for 4 months. My blog post The Pro's and Con's of Living in a Hostel might give you more of an indication, but as for the video - it was genuinely 10x crazier than it looks!

Enjoy!

xx

WHY I DECIDED TO GO HOME AFTER 9 MONTHS OF TRAVEL

No one in their right mind would choose to go home after weeks, months or even years of travelling unless they absolutely had to. I guess the most common reasons for going home are a) you've run out of money or b) your visa has run out or you have commitments at home like a job to go back to. Yes it's normal to get homesick and it can make you want to go home, but usually backpackers tend to stick it out and the pulls from home ease with time. So why did I decide to go home when I didn't have to?

My Australian working holiday visa was still valid for another 7 months, I had no time constrictions, plenty of money in the bank, plenty of friends and it was easy peasy to find a job. A few of my friends couldn't understand why I wanted to go home when I was in a better situation than most, but the truth is... I was fed up.

I'll start from the beginning. My first 4 months of travelling were amazing. My savings took me to Thailand, Vietnam, Bali, the Australian outback and New Zealand and aside from giving up my time to do a bit of volunteering, my time was completely my own and I had no commitments whatsoever. It was 4 months straight of partying, exploring and meeting new friends. IT. WAS. WILD.

Of course all of this partying comes at a price and in 4 months I'd spent around 70% of my savings. I had enough money to continue travelling but I knew it wouldn't last long and I was nowhere near ready to go home, so I decided to get a working holiday visa for Australia. After 4 months of enjoying myself I was more than ready to slow down and commit to working full time - that was until I ended up living and working at a hostel.

For the first 2 months things were great. I met a guy (who just so happened to be a party animal and a big drinker) and before I knew it a huge group of us were going out every night and I was so content being smitten that work became less and less of a priority. I even called in sick one day cause I'd been invited on a road trip to the Great Ocean Road, and there was another occasion where I had an interview for an amazing office job but decided to turn up smashed because I'd drank too much the night before. As irresponsible as that was, I don't regret any of my decisions because those first 2 months in Melbourne were so much fun - which at the end of the day is the most important thing.

When I finally decided to get my act together and dedicated myself to working as many hours as physically possible, that's when everything started to go downhill. I'll talk more about my job situation in another post, but at one point I was working 3 jobs and basically ended up running myself into the ground. I wasn't getting a lot of sleep, I wasn't partying as much or having as much fun and getting treated like shit at one of my jobs was slowly taking its toll on me. Over time I noticed my mood was changing and it basically got to the point where I couldn't pull myself out of it. I eventually quit one of my jobs so I had more time to enjoy myself and to see if it would improve my mood, but the damage had already been done.

A period of transition was also taking place at the hostel I'd lived and worked at for 4 months, which definitely played a factor in why my mood was so low. The hostel used to go through 'waves' of new guests and new employees every few months as people would inevitably leave to move into flats or move to a new city/country. When I first started working there, they had just taken on an influx of new staff after the last lot had left (including the guy I was seeing) so we all bonded and formed an instant friendship group that lasted a good few months. But when everyone slowly started to leave, the whole mood of the hostel changed and it stopped being as fun and exciting as it once was. Dare I say... it became boring. We knew there would be an influx of newbies soon, but as my mood was already low from everything else that was happening, I knew I needed a fresh start so decided to move to Brisbane.

Turns out, Brisbane didn't make me happy either. If anything, it made me even more miserable. There aren't as many job opportunities in Brisbane because there isn't much of a backpacker scene and it's a smaller city compared to Sydney and Melbourne. So although I found it easy to get a job in hospitality (2 in fact, although the hours were ridiculously low), that wasn't what I wanted at the time. I was dying for an office job that paid well and would give me a stable routine with my evenings and weekends free, but it was honestly impossible. I didn't leave 3 jobs in hospitality with good hours to work another hospitality job with rubbish hours.

Me and my friend Russell (who I moved there with) also found it hard to make friends because Brisbane isn't really a place where backpackers stay long term - it's more of a stop gap between popular destinations like Byron Bay and Fraser Island. I knew this before I moved there, but I guess I thought I'd get a full time job quite quickly so I could move into a flat with either long term backpackers or Aussies. Because that didn't happen, I was forced to live in a hostel with a bunch of guys who were never there and a bar that never seemed to be full. It was certainly different to the party hostel I was used to back in Melbourne where it was easy peasy to make friends. It probably didn't help that I moved to Brisbane with a friend (who already had a full time job secured) because 1) he was always at work so I spent a lot of time on my own and 2) because I knew I had my friend there for back up, it made me more anti-social and less bothered about making friends of my own. So what happened? I spent most of my days feeling extremely lonely but unable to drag myself out of my room to make friends. Seeing snapchats of my friends back in Melbourne having a great time made me feel ever worse and I started to really miss them.

After numerous phone calls home and plenty of tears, I decided that Brisbane wasn't for me and there was no point sticking it out just for the sake of it. But that was when my dilemma unfolded... did I really want to go back to Melbourne? I mean, I wasn't happy there either and a lot had changed at the hostel since I'd been away. It felt like my friends had moved on. Melbourne will always feel like my second home, but part of me knew it would be different second time round and I knew I wouldn't like it. The thought of moving to Sydney or Perth didn't really appeal to me either and eventually I realised what the issue was.

I was kinda over Australia.

It didn't excite me anymore. 

I was bored of working rubbish jobs and didn't see the point in staying somewhere that wasn't necessarily making me happy anymore. My mum and dad kept repeating the same sentence: "If you aren't happy, just come home." At first I wouldn't listen - going home felt like giving up and I'm not someone who gives up when the going gets tough. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I had been away for a bloody long time and it has to come to an end at some point - so maybe the 9 month mark was the right time? After all, I never set out to go to Australia on a Working Holiday Visa like a lot of people I knew did - I went away to travel. To visit different countries and experience different things. I couldn't compare my intentions with others as everyone was out there for different reasons. So yes there were people who couldn't understand why I was leaving when I still had 7 months validity left on my visa, but I knew what I left the UK for and it wasn't to set up a new life down under. In fact, the only reason I came straight home instead of continuing to travel was because of the weather in the countries I wanted to visit. I could have flown to Japan or China or the US if I wanted to, but I had my heart set on going when the weather was lovely and warm so decided to be patient instead of compromising on the experience I wanted.

So it was decided. I would spend Christmas in Byron Bay and New Year in Sydney before flying back to Melbourne for my birthday where I booked my flight home. As I predicted, everything at the hostel in Melbourne had completely changed and if I'm honest, I really didn't enjoy it. Luckily I only spent a night there before moving in to my friend's apartment, which gave me the opportunity to spend my last week exploring parts of the city I hadn't seen before and generally just staying away from the drama. Being back at the hostel, even on just a few occasions, assured me that I was making the right decision by going home and shutting the door on that chapter of my life. I wanted to leave on a high remembering the amazing time I had there with the people that shared the same experience as me, and I knew that if I stayed (with a group of people I didn't know and feeling completely out of the loop) I wouldn't remember it as fondly. Sometimes you just know when to call it a day, which is why a lot of people who arrived the same time as me all left around the same time too.

So that's why I decided to go home after 9 months of travel. Did I make the right decision? I think so. You're never fully going to know if you made the right choice in life, but right now I'm happy being home and slowly but surely my mindset is changing to a whole different way of thinking compared to when I was away. But that's for another blog post haha!

If you made it to the end - congrats!

Sorry it was a long one x

THE PROS AND CONS OF LIVING IN A HOSTEL

When I first arrived in Melbourne, my plan was to work for accommodation at a hostel until I got a full time job so I wouldn't have to spend unnecessary money on rent when my funds were already running low. Having stayed in some pretty gross hostels during my time in New Zealand (I'm looking at you Base!), I think it's safe to say I completely fell in love with United Backpackers the moment I stepped through its big yellow door. Voted the top hostel in Melbourne, it wasn't like a cold, dingy prison cell like other hostels are. It was warm, clean, cosy, colourful and modern but with an urban twist and I could completely see myself living there for as long as it took for me to get a job. Having attempted to work for accommodation at another hostel (I'll save that story for another blog post!), I returned to United and only had to wait around 3 weeks before a position became available on the bar. Four months later and I'm still here with no intention of moving out any time soon!

I'll explain my whole work situation in another post but here's a few reasons why I love living in a hostel... (and of course the downsides too!)

THE PROS

1) YOU HAVE THE BEST SOCIAL LIFE!

When you live in a hostel, you essentially live under the same roof as hundreds of other people. Friendship groups form quickly with other staff members/long termers and before you know it you're a part of a huge group who you spend all day chilling in the kitchen with and all night partying in the bar with. There are always people to grab food or go for a walk with and you can barely go a few minutes without bumping in to someone you know. It's very difficult to feel bored living in a hostel and the 'family' mentality develops almost instantaneously.

2) YOU LIVE RIGHT IN THE HEART OF THE CITY CENTRE

Okay, so not all hostels are located in the city's CBD (in Melbourne for example there are plenty of nice hostels in other cool areas such as Fitzroy and St Kilda). But in general, one of the main benefits of living in a hostel is that you live right in the heart of the city centre! If you were to rent or own your own flat/house, it would cost you an absolute fortune to live in central London or a thriving area of New York. But for a fairly reasonable price, hostels allow you to live in an area where most people would only dream of living!



3) CHEAP DRINKS!

If you're fortunate enough to live in a hostel with a large bar area like I am, you'll spend most of your nights socialising with friends lapping up the cheap drink deals that cleverly entice the budget backpacker. $2 champagne, $2.50 vodka and $5 schooners make it almost impossible to resist an evening bevvy, especially if you take into account staff discount and the numerous bar tabs that can be won throughout the week.

4) FREE FOOD!

With most travellers only staying at hostels for a few days at a time before they head off to their next destination, it's common for people to leave their unwanted food behind that they can't bring with them. Granted, the majority of food left on the free food shelf is almost always butter, aoili or bags of oats... but there are odd days when you can pick up bread, milk or pasta which can save you a lot of money in the long run! A lot of hostels also run free food nights (for example: free tacos on Weds, free Dominoes on Thurs and a free BBQ on Sunday) which saves you having to make dinner a good few nights of the week.

5) IT'S LIKE BEING BACK AT UNI

I'm probably in the minority here, but I quite like sharing a room with 11 other people and having my own little bunk bed that I can personalise like I would with my own room at uni. You get used to not owning a lot of materialistic possessions, so even just personalising your bed with a sarong or your locker with a few hooks and a floral wash bag can really make a difference in making it feel more like home. I legit got excited about buying an extension lead the other day so I could plug my phone and laptop in at the same time... (aint about that 1 socket life) It must sound like madness to most people, but I guess it's no different from being at uni and having to make do with what you have and trying to personalise it as best as you can. I enjoy living in a 12 bed dorm and having people there to talk and laugh with when I want to, but also being able to shut myself away behind my rape drape* when I want some time alone.

*legit what the drape used on bottom bunks for privacy is known as - trust me!

THE CONS

1) THE HOSTEL BECOMES YOUR LIFE

When you work, sleep, eat, watch tv, socialise and have nights out all under the same roof, it's easy to become too comfortable in the one environment and you have the tendency to never leave. Of course this doesn't happen to everyone, but from my experience my long-termer friends and I are so comfortable living at the hostel that we rarely branch out and explore the city we're living in (which has actually been named the world's most livable city for 6 years in a row!) Yes we'll occasionally go out for food or take day trips to the beach, but 9/10 our daily routine consists of getting fast food from local burger/pizza places (that are no more than a 5 minute walk away), coming back to the hostel and eating in the chill room before going next door to the hostel bar and getting drunk off of $5 basics. Don't get me wrong, it's fun living in an environment where everything you would possibly need is on your doorstep... but after a while you realise that you're massively missing out on a lot your city has to offer. Melbourne is one of the coolest and most diverse cities in the world with hundreds of quirky cafe's and rooftop bars that I would be DYING to visit if I was living a normal life. But when you're so consumed with what's happening at the hostel, you forget about all of the amazing places you could be experiencing and continue to have the same old routine day in day out.



2) YOU BECOME ANTI-SOCIAL

As I said before, hostels are amazing for meeting people and having a massive friendship group to socialise with. But I can almost guarantee that as soon as you've established a friendship group that you feel settled and comfortable in, you won't feel the need to make an effort with 'newbies' or 'outsiders' and you find yourself becoming more and more anti-social with people outside of your group. It sounds horrible, and to some extent it is, because you were new once so you know what it's like to not know anyone and how lonely it can be when you first arrive somewhere and want to make friends. It's bizarre because it completely goes against everything you were doing before you settled at the hostel, where you'd hop from island to island in Asia and would start conversations with random strangers every 2 minutes because you just wanted to be friendly and make friends. But we're all human at the end of the day, and after a long time on the road of constantly making an effort with people and having the same old 'Where are you from? How long have you been travelling for?' conversations, you get sick and tired of wasting your energy on people. I mean... if you were out for dinner in the UK with your friendship group that you've known for years, would you go over and start making random conversation with a stranger? Probably not. When you finally have a base, a routine and a stable friendship group, you almost revert back to living a normal life - so chatting with new people in your room or making conversation with strangers at the bar just isn't a priority anymore. It's normal to feel that way, but at the same time you can't help but feel guilty that the hostel environment has made you a less friendlier person - especially with those that live away from the hostel. I have some amazing friends in Melbourne that live in apartments just 10 minutes away, but have I ever made the effort to go and see them? Of course not, because I'm too wrapped up in my hostel family. If I lived in my own apartment away from the madness, I 100% know I would make more of an effort with friends that live in and around the city.



3) GOSSIP GALORE!

Everyone loves a good gossip, lets not beat around the bush here. But when you're living in a hostel (aka the school playground), it can get pretty out of control. Everyone knows everyone, therefore everyone knows everyone's business. If a guy has spent the night in a random girls bed, you can bet your bottom dollar that the manager of the hostel, the guys ex girlfriend and pretty much the entire hostel knows before he's even done the walk of shame home. It's honestly that bad. Don't get me wrong, it's highly entertaining for everyone else but when the shoe's on the other foot and everyone's talking about you and so-and-so falling out, you honestly just wish that everyone would mind their own bloody business!

4) YOU HAVE TO BE ON YOUR BEST BEHAVIOUR

Speaking of it feeling like you're back at school, hostels are known for being strict and enforcing rules. Not forgetting the 30 or so cameras that cover every inch of the building... yep, it's basically like living in Big Brother. Being loud and lairy in the corridor after a big night out? You'll get your first and final warning from the night housekeeper (happened to me). Drinking alcohol in your room? Happens twice and you'll get kicked out for good (happened to 2 of my friends). It's even worse when you work at the hostel as any wrong move will be reported back to the manager who'll send you a disciplinary email. I have friends who've been given a warning for sleeping in a guests room (a big no no for staff), for getting with someone late at night in a public area and for having a full blown argument with another staff member at 2am and potentially waking guests up. These things happen and in a normal environment no one would blink an eyelid, but when you live in a hostel you really have to be mindful of what you're doing and saying (even when you're drunk and have no control).



4) YOU HAVE NO PRIVACY

This leads on from point 3 and the most obvious downfall about living in a hostel is having absolutely no privacy. This wasn't something that bothered me for a while, despite sharing a room with 11 other people and a bathroom with our entire floor. But after a few months, you get fed up of getting dried and changed in a shower cubicle because you don't wanna get naked in front of the guys in your room. If you're feeling ill, you wanna go to the kitchen without make-up and looking like crap in your scruffy pyjamas without bumping in to all of your friends (and possibly guys you like). When you're trying new clothes on, you want to pose in a full length mirror and decide what you want to keep without the whole female species being in the same shared bathroom as you doing their make-up for the Halloween party (yep, slightly off-putting). There are moments in life when you really just want to be on your own, even those times when you need a good old cry, but it's just not possible living in a hostel. And don't even get me started on the lack of sleep...

5) THE LACK OF SLEEP

Sorry, I couldn't help myself... But long story short, 9/10 you will really struggle to sleep if you live in a dorm. Whether it's people working different shift patterns to you and alarms going off at 6am to people storming in drunk at 2am and waking the whole room in hysterical fits of laughter. It just aint happening and trust me... you will turn into a sleep deprived, irritable cow.



6) IT COSTS MORE

Plain and simple... the weekly rate to sleep in a bunk bed in a 12 bed dorm will usually cost more than having a single bed in a room with one other person in an amazing modern apartment with a gym and a pool. The only time it's actually worth it is if you're working for accommodation so you're essentially paying no rent at all.

7) YOU CAN'T LIVE LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING

Imagine this... you keep all of your food in a cool bag in 1 of 4 big fridges, so every time you want to eat you have to dig out your bag from behind a ton of other bags. If you don't label your bag, the housekeepers will come along once a week and either bin your stuff or put everything on the free food shelf. If you accidentally leave your bread and milk out one morning, you'll come home from work to find it was taken from the free food shelf by a stranger hours ago (so you can say bye bye to that cuppa you were looking forward to). Wanna cook a meal? Good luck cooking in a kitchen with 30 other people. Oh and you'll have to wait until that guy over there is done hogging all the pans so you actually have utensils to cook your pasta with. Wanna go to the toilet? Don't forget your room key or you'll be locked out. Getting ready in the bathroom? Don't forget to bring your toothbrush/toothpaste/shampoo/conditioner/shower gel with you EVERY SINGLE TIME. Cause that's not annoying at all... Basically, you just can't live like a normal human being. Although I guess that's the whole point of travelling right? You're not meant to live like you would at home.




So there you have it... an honest account of what it's like to live in a hostel.
Could you do it?
xxx




*** UPDATE ***
You've probably noticed that my 'cons' list is a lot more detailed than the 'pros'. I've since moved out of the hostel as my mood was starting to get quite low, so at this moment in time my emphasis is on the negatives (but I'll save that for another post). Having said that, I still stand by my 'pros' list and can honestly say that living at United was one of the best experiences I've had travelling so far!

I’VE BEEN TRAVELLING FOR EXACTLY 6 MONTHS TODAY!

So for someone who rebranded her blog so she could blog whilst she’s traveling, I think it’s fair to say I’ve been nothing short of a disappointment. There are so many experiences that I wish I’d have written about on my blog so I could look back and remember everything but in all honesty, blogging hasn’t been a priority for me at all.

I’ve been on the road for exactly 6 months today – which even saying that fills me with a weird sense of pride and amazement that I’ve made it to this point already. I always knew that I wanted to travel for around 6 months, but you never know how things are going to work out so I’m honestly so proud that I’ve managed to make it this far and that everything has gone to plan. Not as if I had a plan to begin with… quite the opposite actually. I left for Bangkok on 13^th April 2016 knowing that I would embark on a 10 day tour with the company Real Gap Experience, but everything following that was completely undetermined – allowing me to 100% make things up as I went along. Since then I’ve travelled Vietnam with an American I travelled most of Thailand with, Indonesia with a friend from home, Australia, New Zealand and have somehow ended up back in Australia on a Working Holiday Visa.

That is the beauty of travel. You don’t need a plan. Your route can completely depend on who you meet, the weather, how much money you have… and in the end I believe that everything works out exactly the way it’s meant to. If I hadn’t have moved hostels in Koh Tao to be near some people I knew (even though I didn’t particularly like them), I never would have met my friend Catherine who I ended up travelling the whole of Thailand with. If I hadn’t have met Catherine, I never would have gone to Vietnam where I had the most amazing time partying on Castaway Island. If I hadn’t fallen out with my guy friend from home in Bali, I never would have met my friend Pam on a snorkelling trip who I ended up staying with when I first arrived in Melbourne. If flights to Darwin from Bali weren’t so expensive, I wouldn’t have spent a week volunteering at a dog shelter to kill time waiting for a cheaper flight.

So here I am… 6 months later, living in a hostel with a huge group of friends, working 3 jobs and saving money to continue travelling in 2017. Trust me, the life I’m living right now doesn’t feel real sometimes and I’d love to sit down one day and recap on everything so you guys can read about everything in greater detail. It might take me a while, but writing this post has made me realise how much I miss blogging so I promise you it’s going to happen. I’m so excited to update you all on what it’s like to live in a hostel and how crazy my job situation has been since arriving in Melbs, so keep an eye out for those!

xxx