Girls Hostel

Female-only hostels have been around for decades. They started appearing in European cities in the 1990s as backpacking became more common among young women traveling alone. The concept was simple: a dormitory-style accommodation where only women could book beds. Some travelers preferred this. Others didn’t see the point.

The number of these hostels has grown in recent years. Hostelworld listed around 340 female-only properties worldwide in 2019. By 2023, that number had gone up to over 500. Most are in Southeast Asia and Western Europe.

The Setup

A typical girls hostel looks like any other budget accommodation. Bunk beds in shared rooms. A common area with sofas. Lockers for valuables. Shared bathrooms down the hall.

Room sizes vary. Some hostels have 4-bed dorms. Others pack in 12 or 16 beds. The smaller rooms cost more per night.

Maria Santos manages a 28-bed hostel in Lisbon. She opened it in 2017 after working at mixed hostels for six years. “The layout is the same as any hostel,” she told me when I visited last March. “We didn’t change much. Took out the urinals in the bathrooms. Put in more mirrors. That’s about it.”

Her hostel charges €18 to €26 per night depending on room size and season. A bed in the 4-bed room costs €26 in summer. The 10-bed room is €18 year-round.

Santos mentioned one thing she hadn’t expected. “Women leave hair everywhere. In the drains, on the pillows, stuck to the walls in the shower. I spend more on drain cleaner than I did at the mixed place.”

Who Stays

The guest profile is not what most people assume. Santos keeps informal records of who checks in.

“People think it’s all solo travelers in their twenties. It’s not. I get a lot of women over 40. Teachers on summer break. Nurses between jobs. Last month a retired lady from Canada stayed for three weeks. She was 71.”

First-time travelers make up a chunk of the bookings. Parents feel better about their daughter staying somewhere without men around. Some hostels report that 30% to 40% of guests are women on their first solo trip.

Groups of friends also book female-only hostels. A staff member at a hostel in Bangkok said groups of two or three women often choose their property over mixed hostels even though the price is slightly higher. “They say they can walk around in towels,” she said. “Or not wear a bra in the common room. Small things.”

Not everyone is convinced. A 2022 survey by a hostel booking platform found that 62% of female travelers said they had no preference between mixed and female-only hostels. Only 23% said they specifically sought out female-only options. The rest said they would avoid them.

Security

The main selling point is safety. Or the feeling of safety. Whether female-only hostels are actually safer is hard to measure.

Most hostels have the same security features regardless of guest gender. Key card access. Lockers. CCTV in hallways. Night staff.

Santos thinks the difference is psychological. “Nothing bad is going to happen in a mixed hostel either, most of the time. But some women sleep better knowing there’s no man in the next bunk. I can’t explain it. It’s a feeling.”

Some travelers disagree. A woman I spoke to at a hostel in Ho Chi Minh City said she’d had worse experiences at female-only places. “Women steal too,” she said. “And they’re louder. At least in my experience. I had a roommate at a girls hostel in Barcelona who talked on the phone until 2 a.m. every night.”

The hostel industry doesn’t track incident reports by property type. No data exists comparing theft or harassment rates between female-only and mixed hostels.

The Business Side

Running a female-only hostel means turning away half your potential customers. The economics only work in certain conditions.

Demand has to be high enough. Cities with lots of solo female travelers can support these properties. Lisbon, Bangkok, Tokyo, Barcelona. A female-only hostel in a city without much tourism would struggle.

Santos said her occupancy rate averages 74% across the year. Summer months hit 95%. January and February drop to around 50%. “That’s similar to mixed hostels in this neighborhood,” she said. “Maybe a little lower. But my reviews are better. I think that helps.”

Online ratings do tend to run higher for female-only properties. A 2021 analysis of Hostelworld reviews found that female-only hostels averaged 8.6 out of 10 compared to 8.1 for mixed hostels in the same cities. The sample size was small. About 200 properties total.

Staffing costs are roughly the same. Some female-only hostels hire only women. Others don’t. Santos employs two men on her maintenance team. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “They fix things and leave. They’re not sleeping here.”

Variations

The term “girls hostel” covers different types of accommodation.

In India and parts of Southeast Asia, it often refers to long-term housing for working women. These are more like boarding houses. Residents stay for months or years. They have rules about visitors and curfews. Monthly rent in Indian cities runs from ₹5,000 to ₹15,000 depending on location and amenities. Some include meals.

In Western countries, “girls hostel” usually means short-term tourist accommodation. No curfew. Guests stay a few nights and move on.

A few hostels target specific demographics. One in Tokyo caters to women over 30. The marketing emphasizes quiet hours and no party atmosphere. A hostel in Amsterdam focuses on female digital nomads. It has coworking space and charges weekly rates.

The terminology bothers some people. “Girls hostel” sounds infantilizing to travelers who are adults. Several properties have rebranded as “women-only” or “female-only” in recent years. The change doesn’t seem to affect bookings either way.