youth hostels, the history, people and ideas behind them
Photo courtesy YHA Archive In their early days youth hostel beds were sometimes appalling. People paid a shilling a night, and slept in a bed that could be cold, hard, noisy, and made of anything that came to hand. But that was because youth hostels offered more than a cheap bed. The hostel at Holmfirth... Continue Reading →
If you see the funny side of youth hostels, Best Foot Forward is for you: acute, astute, astoundingly funny and well put together. Maeve Larkin, the writer, knows youth hostels and because she knows her duties, her sausages and her members, she gets it just right. The cast is wonderful and the story charts the... Continue Reading →
John Martin is YHA's honorary archivist and in this post he writes about an exciting new gift to the YHA archive. Every so often we receive for the Archive a really special account of hostelling in the old days, in the form of a holiday log. David Bayes has just passed to us his account... Continue Reading →
Youth hostels were always international. In the years either side of the second world war young people went to France, to the Netherlands, to Belgium, Ireland, Norway and Germany. They went for leisure. They went for fun. Some went in the hope that their actions could create peace. They went to restore or reopen youth... Continue Reading →
In 1961 a small group of youth hostel members went east, aiming to promote youth hostels, travel, and better relations between east and west. They went along the overland route to India, later known as the hippie trail but they were not hippies. They were more earnest. They had official backing and they were a... Continue Reading →
