Hotels are nice, sure, but they tend to come with one major flaw: the price. Especially now that the coast of living has gone up impressively, we don’t all have the luxury to spend hundreds of euros on our accommodation – we would like to, we assure you, but it’s important to stay realistic. So what if you don’t have the budget to stay in a hotel during your holiday? What options are you left with? Well, one of the cheapest alternatives, especially if you’re not travelling with a group so you can split the cost of a holiday rental, are youth hostels.
And before we begin, let us get one thing straight: youth hostels are no longer the dodgy-looking institutions they used to be. Sure, if you really want to, you can still find some grubby options out there, but generally speaking youth hostels are now clean, sociable, trendy looking places. Sometimes they’re even so trendy that we’d much like to copy-paste their interior design into our own home. But that’s a whole different question, so let’s get down to the business of the day: the 10 best youth hostels in France.
With the overwhelming amount of options out there, it’s not always that easy to decide on which youth hostel you’ll actually be going for. In order to make your life a little easier, the French travel organizer Allo Voyages has gotten into the habit of making an overview of the best youth hostels of France and they did so this year as well. Quite the undertaking, as France now counts around 400 what they call ‘auberges collectives’. Luckily for them, they came up with some criteria, meaning that the best hostels of the country should at least be open all year round, should have some kind of secured lockers and should offer a minimum of services. And they should be reachable not just by car, as many youngsters don’t have a car to their disposal.
After disqualifying all hostels not complying with that list of requirements, the remaining ones were reviewed based on their location, price, quality, décor, ambiance and a number of other criteria. The result is a very varied offer of accommodation options in France, ranging from Paris all the way to the countryside and back. Perfect if you’ve got a trip planned sometime soon!
