A Matt on a Mission

If you’re anything like me, you enjoy a good ramble.

If, like me, you own a thesaurus, you might also voice your penchant for peregrination, or your predilection for pererration (a word last used around 1860).

Perhaps you were born with itchy feet. Or perhaps, like me, you have a wanderlust that rears its head and demands to be fed every few months like an ornery beast of yore.

Whether a restless soul or an occasional wanderer, travel does the mind and body a world of good. What happy coincidence then, that a certain type of travel can do the world some good in return.

A little background

The Youth Hostels Association (YHA) is a registered charity that has for over 90 years aimed to offer affordable accommodation to all, with a particular focus on helping “young people of limited means”. They variously offer dorm rooms, private rooms, camping, or their glamping alternatives of Land Pods and Bell Tents. Some even hire the whole place out. Although I have a fondness for the organisation, I should stress that I am not affiliated with the YHA in any official capacity. I am merely a budget travel enthusiast who has found the hostels owned by the YHA to be a welcome stop and a great facilitator for travel. In my discussion of journeys visiting the YHA hostels, I will present an unbiased account. Happily, in writing this, I can think of no poor YHA hostelling experiences, and the hostels, as good as they can be, are secondary to the adventures they make possible in visiting them. You can find out more about the YHA on their website.

As a child, I visited the many hostels of the Lakes and the Peaks with my family, stayed in London and Bath: the mystical South. As an adult, I have volunteered in hostels, introduced family and friends to them, and taken solo trips all around England and Wales. Every year, when March rolls around (as March is often want to do), I receive my membership card in the mail, my ‘passport to adventure’. The real draw for me however, is the map. Every hostel owned and operated by the YHA is on there. Every March I gaze at that map in thoughtful contemplation, perhaps even tapping my chin pensively if the mood takes me, and can’t help but feel inspired. It has long been a quiet, even secret, ambition of mine to visit every YHA youth hostel in England and Wales. The realities of time and finances make this an aspirational venture, but not an impossible one.

A map of all YHA youth hostels (Source: https://www.yha.org.uk/hostels/all-youth-hostels)

A sad truth

Lean years due to the pandemic and the subsequent cost of living crisis have forced the YHA to reduce their roster of hostels. There are currently 132 hostels listed on their website, some of which are available through ‘Exclusive Hire’ only (i.e. booking the entire hostel). This is certainly beyond my means as a solo traveller, and puts many hostels beyond the scope of my checklist ambition. While the waning number of hostels may make my aspiration of visiting every one slightly easier, it saddens me to think of a world without the YHA. If buyers have been able to take over and run independent hostels as was hoped (and set out in the YHA’s June 2023 statement), perhaps there is a future for hostelling in the UK beyond the YHA. Regardless of what the future holds, I would urge any prospective traveller to take up this call to arms and stay in one of the idiosyncratic, sometimes beautiful, sometimes bizarre, always welcoming YHA hostels.

A Matt on a Mission

But enough hard truths and earnest rallying cries. This blog is intended as a charting of my past journey, a roadmap to my future travels, and inspiration for any looking to follow in my modest footsteps. I will give each hostel I visit (or have visited) an informal rating, and no doubt dispense a snippet or two of general advice on hiking around each area along the way. You can find a full list of current YHA hostels in the page 'The Checklist' on the top menu. In fact, as far as I can tell, this is the most comprehensive, current list out there.

And so off I go, have gone, and will go, armed with only my phone camera and a willing spirit. And a good pair of waterproof boots. Plenty of provisions. Possibly a hat.

I told you I enjoy a good ramble.