Journey of the Hosteller

What use is a blog with no content to fill it? As I near the end of my list of visited hostels, I am confronted with just such a question. Although I can cheerfully postpone my reckoning through today’s featurette on YHA Ingleton and Mankinholes, I must also look to the future (now it’s only just begun). What does it hold? With any luck, even more fruitful YHA visits. But since I can’t count on getaways to new hostels to continue apace, content may become in ever-decreasing supply. So what use, this blog? O, reason not the need!, as capricious crackpot and unlikeliest recipient of a ‘World’s Best Dad’ mug Lear might say. Let’s make hay while the sun shines. The treachery of memory forces me to brevity when it comes to YHA Ingleton, located in the Yorkshire Dales. In the halcyon days of my youth, my family visited the hostel during an especially rainy week. My principal memories from our walks there were the unusually powerful waterfalls along the Ingleton Waterfalls Trail . Visiting ag...

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Well, perhaps. If I were to compare my blog posts to the filmography of Nicolas Cage, as my wandering mind dictates that I must, today's entry would have no more natural a fit than Gone in 60 Seconds . Just as the world breathed a collective sigh of relief to have avoided the millennium bug, and greeted with grateful tears that Nicolas Cage vehicle(!), so too must you welcome this flight of fancy disguised as a blog post about YHA Penzance and YHA Youlgreave after the tumult of more detailed entries. Let us start 2025 with a whimsical energy, guaranteed to never wear. “But why?” I hear you ask. “Why these two in particular?” But your question is answered only by an enigmatic smile, that to the viewer schooled in the human condition (or to those who have read the title) suggests that the solution is simple: I simply forgot that I had visited these two hostels. Their inclusion was recently kindly recommended to me by a mo...

Bruno Catalano's 'Khadine', with the Thames and SIS building in the background. “Two hostels?” I hear you say. “‘Tis not enough to fill a hotpot, nor to feed a growing lad! Shame  and fie on thee! But two hostels indeed.” To which I say yes, my friend of archaic vernacular, but there is a theme here. The hostels I have chosen for this hotpot are of the urban variety and, like all city eating, your portions are less, though your prices be matched. I am not, by nature, an urban animal, but I enjoy a trip into town as much as the next country mouse (precisely the opposite of the moral of that story, but I digress). The city, or the town, has many charms that the countryside can’t match, not least in terms of cultural enrichment. The Houses of Parliament. London, the richest plum of all for this, is replete with museums and galleries, exhibitions and landmarks. A cursory google will reveal more information and advice on tourist attractions than I could ever hope to impart. I wi...

Red Tarn, as viewed from Helvellyn An intriguing title, I know. I have employed a tricksome gambit to garner your attention. Marvel! At my devilish cunning as I continue to keep you guessing. Gaze! Upon my Hitchcockian powers of suspense. Tire! Of this unnecessary postponing of a reveal that can only prove disappointing. Well then, to the meat of it. There are a number of hostels I visited long enough ago that I can't confidently attest to the currentness of my account. I have limited photos (if any) of my time there. I also have limited memories, which are the photos of the mind, in a way. I have decided to group these together in-between more detailed descriptions of my ventures. I have dubbed posts with grouped hostels 'hotpots', because, in my tortured analogy, this mix of information is metaphorically more potatoes than meat. Unwisely continuing my food metaphors, I hope you have your roasted vegetables, light sauce and grilled fish ready, because this is a real Sauvig...