Finding Hostels?

Question

How do you find Hostels when backpacking through Europe?
Specifically France.
Additionally, is there anything important I should know about backpacking in France?

Answer 1

*Hostels in France
Hostelling is not very common in France and much of the accommodation offered on Hostels.com is budget hotels and family run pensions.
Paris does offer a selection of independent and YHA hostels, though backpackers more often than not stay in 1* or 2* family run hotels.

There are more than 160 YHA member hostels in France, these are part of FUAJ, which is the French link of the International Youth Hostelling network.
http://www.hostels.com/en/fr.html

http://www.hostelworld.com/countries/francehostels.html
http://www.bootsnall.com/hostels/europe/france/

Answer 2

There's some great inputs from others here.

I can a couple of extra tips, some you may have thought of.

To find hostels use a tool provided on cheaperthanhotels to sort by price, location and star raing ( hostels are usually 1 or 2 ). Dig in behind the offers to see what free offers there are.

Careful with too much focus on price. Time and money are important on vacation - so locate close to where you want to be to save on transport costs. Also use internet cafes to locate last minute specials released at short notice on this site.

Use a Eurail pass for transport.

Go to the ultimately infomative National Tourism website of each country. I've given you France, Spain, Austria and Germany to get you started:

( i hope this gets you a bit further )

Answer 3

In my experience, www.hostelme.com is a great resource to use. They’ve picked out the “best” hostels in each city and direct you right to where you can look at what the hostel has to offer and book your stay. It’s also completely free.

It’s a very easy, quick way to choose the top rated hostel in the city you’re looking to stay.

If you’re looking at hostels in Europe, you can go straight to www.hostelme.com/europe

If you’re looking at hostels in Asia, you can go straight to www.hostelme.com/asia

Answer 4

first and foremost is know how to speak a little bit of French. LOL

Try hostels.com or HI.com/org something like that. or just type international hostels.

It better to backpack in pair.
If you are doing it alone, plan it out, for safe reason.

Start to End and how long you are stay wherever you are in France or in Europe.

It may look borning traveling by bus or train, but really why rush.
It sometime can be very cheap also.
But try buy or find something that got like a travel pass for train and bus. I maybe cost a bit more in the end it worst it.

Keep in touch, have safe trip.

Answer 5

www.hostels.com
www.hostelworld.com

Be aware of the location of the hostels on these websites. If it seems to good to be true it could be far away from where you want to be.

But often times, outside of Paris, you can find pensions or motel-like places that are nicer and just as cheap.

Having a good guidebook with pricing doesn't hurt either. My favorite is Loney Planet: Europe on a Shoestring.

Or if you are really adventurous, you can use these websites to meet natives with a spare couch to crash on:

www.couchsurfers.com
http://www.hospitalityclub.org/

Answer 6

yes ...carry a **** load of condoms.....your world is about to rock sideways.

Answer 7

ya might want to take a condom