Accommodation consternation

In case you’ve been living under a rock these days, or are just so indifferent to international affaires that you don’t give a shite about anything that takes place outside the borders of the USA, the dollar sucks. That is to say, its value against that of most foreign currencies--the British pound, and (particularly relevant for my purposes) the Euro--is low and continues to drop. Last time I checked, the exchange rate was something like 1 EUR = 1.33 USD. Twas not always, it bears remembering, the case: the dollar used to be stronger than most foreign currencies, so that whenever you traveled abroad, evaluating prices meant adjusting downward to account for the lesser value of the guilder or the escude or the peseta. It was like a built-in discount for US travelers. Ah, memories.

Now being American is like coming from a third-world country where the currency is an inflation-devalued joke, and the dollar is such shite that there’s an effective surcharge on traveling to EU countries. And as someone who is going to travel for over a month in Europe during a period in which I’ll have no income, this is not just an abstract concern but a major problem, which brings me to the titular point: where to stay?

On the one hand, there is the standard Eurohotel. There are no secrets here: these places are, well, hotels, ranging from kinda shady/scummy to spotless and spilling over with adornments and luxuries. Anyplace I had to pay to stay would certainly be toward the former end of the spectrum, but at the least I’d know what I’d be getting: some privacy, a not-completely-unsanitary room, peace of mind about the safety of my belongings (not entirely justified), the promise of a passable breakfast the next morning, etc. Appealing, but not entirely affordable.

On the other hand, there are hostels. The advantage is that they’re cheap. The disadvantage is that they’re a total crapshoot in terms of quality. In the off-season, in a deserted part of the world, hostels rule. I’ve stayed at hostels in the Victorian highlands of Australia and in the Dutch Wadden Islands that were wonderfully peaceful and calm, primarily because no one but me (or at least, very few people) was there. On the other end of the spectrum, I made the dire mistake of staying at a “hostel” (read: attic in a dirty hippie’s house) in Vermont where I had to share a room with a Finnish guy who was traveling around the world and never. stopped. talking. Not when I was crouched over a notebook, writing. Not after I said “I can’t talk to you now because I’m trying to work.” Not when it was midnight and he came back to the room we were staying in and I was already asleep. Also grim was the night I spent at a hostel in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve 1997/98, when I was kept awake by the din of a truly world-class snorer in my room and the crying hysterics of a romantically disappointed girl and her consoling friend in the hallway outside the door.

Yes, truly to stay in a hostel is to shoot the crap. But, as the man says, you get what you pay for. The broad readership may also have noticed that what many seem to find the most appealing part of staying in a hostel--meeting folks from around the globe--really holds little appeal for me. I’m pretty much of an antisocial traveler, I guess. Most people might have been intrigued by a Finnish guy telling stories about his trip around the globe, but the idea of buying the guy a beer and listening to his tales never really occurred to me. He just kind of pissed me off. Hence my happiest experiences at hostels have been at deserted ones (in fact, I’ve twice stayed at hostels that actually were deserted, as in there was no one on the premises at all, by just opening an unlocked door and sleeping in the least dusty bunk).

But I digress. The point is, in all the places I’m planning to stay, I’m torn between looking for cheap-o hostel-style accommodations with its risks and possible rewards and utter cheapness, and spending the moolah on something nicer that won’t be as potentially worrisome. On the other hand, in my role as wandering observer, it seems to me that it would be kind of a cheat to hole myself up in a private room the whole time and cut out all the potential crazy crap that one sees in these crazy places--however annoying the resounding snorers and chatty Finns can be--so I imagine the result will be a combo of the two. Watch this space to find out how it develops.