youth hostels, the history, people and ideas behind them
The youth hostel at Malham is a lasting testament to one man and the history of his wider family’s long association with youth hostels. John Dower, a local architect, designed the hostel in 1937. He also designed the youth hostels at Eskdale in Cumbria and at Bellingham in Northumberland. He achieved a wider reputation when... Continue Reading →
For anyone interested in social history hostels are great. You can visit hostels that played a part in a big social movement, discover another part of the hostel story or get a feel for what people valued most almost a century ago. With a bit of imagination you can carry yourself back to a time... Continue Reading →
Two cyclists and a bluebird from the YHA (England and Wales) handbook of 1942. Isabel Bacheler Smith designed them for the American youth hostel’s magazine The Knapsack. She founded the youth hostels association of the USA with her husband Monroe. In the summer of 1933 Isabel and Monroe Smith toured Germany with a group of Boy... Continue Reading →
I've long been interested in the influence Quakers had on youth hostels. Quakers gave youth hostels an ethos of simplicity and companionship that endured for years and, more tangibly, they ran regions and brought many properties to the infant YHA. In his memoirs Charles Allen, first regional secretary in Devon and Cornwall, wrote that it... Continue Reading →
In 1932 people around Europe banded together and started an era of travel for all young people. Here's the brief story of those events. You can read the full story of how youth hostels developed in Richard Schirrmann, the man who invented youth hostels, available from Amazon, paperback or kindle. In the early 1930s different... Continue Reading →
SIMPLY HOSTELS 