Where to Stay When You're Traveling Completely Alone

The loneliest hour is check-in

I've traveled solo for the better part of six years, and the hostels that matter most are the ones that solve the awkward first hour, the stretch between dropping your bag and finding someone to eat with. Generator Madrid, right by the Prado in the Barrio de las Letras, has nailed this with a rooftop bar that starts filling up before dinner rather than after.

Wombat's City Hostel in Vienna's Naschmarkt neighbourhood runs a genuinely useful welcome drink scheme every evening at 7pm, and because it's the same time every night, regulars and new arrivals mix without anyone having to organize anything.

Hostels built for solo logistics

1. Check the dorm size first. Four to six bed dorms at St Christopher's Inn in Bruges tend to produce actual friendships faster than 12-bed rooms, simply because you see the same three or four faces each morning.
2. Ask about the kitchen hours. Clink78 in London, inside a former courthouse near King's Cross, keeps its kitchen open until midnight, which matters when you land alone on a late flight and don't want to eat a service station sandwich.
3. Look for a scheduled activity, not just a bar. Selina Antigua in Guatemala runs a nightly family-style dinner for around 60 quetzales that solo travelers specifically praise for removing the guesswork.

Cities where solo travel is easiest

Ljubljana's Hostel Celica, a former military prison turned art hostel near the Metelkova district, has cells converted into individually designed rooms, which sounds gimmicky until you realize it gives every solo traveler a natural conversation starter with bunkmates. Split's Hostel Booze and Beach on Bacvice beach draws a heavily solo crowd of Interrailers each July and August, and the staff know it, running a beach volleyball meetup most afternoons at 5pm.

The trick to meeting people without forcing it is picking a hostel where the common room is actually the center of the building rather than an afterthought near the stairs. At Generator Madrid and Wombat's Vienna, the kitchens and lounges sit right off the main entrance, so you pass through them constantly instead of retreating straight to your dorm. Smaller dorms help too, but so does timing: showing up around the welcome drink hour or communal dinner slot means you walk into a room that's already primed for conversation instead of an empty one. I've found the worst solo nights happen in huge 20-bed dorms with a bar shoved in the basement, disconnected from everywhere people actually gather during the day.

The rest of the list

Generator Madrid, Wombat's Vienna, Clink78, Hostel Celica and Selina Antigua are our five most reliable picks for solo travelers, but the fuller, ten-hostel version of this list, with notes on solo-friendly private room upgrades, lives on the Hostel Finder page where we keep it current.

Solo doesn't mean alone by 8pm

The right hostel turns a solo trip into one where you're rarely actually eating alone unless you want to be. That's the whole trick, and it has almost nothing to do with the price of the bed.