Rick Johnson was 16 the first time he stayed in a youth hostel in the summer of 1966. Having saved up money from his job stacking shelves in a supermarket in Cheshire, he bought an Ordnance Survey map and headed for the Lake District.
It was the first time Johnson had gone away without his parents. “I’d decided that family beach holidays were boring. I planned it all out and had everything booked up. There was definitely a strict rule around no alcohol in the hostels – I think it was one of reasons we were allowed to do it, because our parents knew there were restrictions and there was a warden in charge.”
Inspired by Arthur Ransome’s adventure novel Swallows and Amazons, Johnson and a friend spent two weeks staying in different Youth Hostels Association (YHA) dormitories each night while they traversed the fells. “The book is about children with a sailing boat in Lake Windermere – I knew we didn’t have a yacht, but I thought I’d go and have a look round,” he says, remembering that they succeeded in hiring a boat.
The news that the YHA is selling off 20 of its 150 hostels in England and Wales, citing the pandemic and current financial pressures, comes as a disappointment to lifelong hostellers like Johnson who have enjoyed the freedom, affordability and sense of community they offer. The YHA was established in 1930, with the objective “to help all, especially young people of limited means, to a greater knowledge, love and care of the countryside”.
This was certainly the case for Johnson, now 73, who says the trip planted in him a passion for the natural world. He moved to Lancaster two decades ago partly to be near the Lakes. Before developing osteoporosis in recent years, which has meant he is no longer able to hike, he enjoyed many adventures involving hostel stays over the years. “I fell in love with the Lakes and maps – loves which have endured.”
Hostels have allowed Ella, 38, to experience different landscapes across the country through cycle touring. “One of reasons I got into it was because I could figure out routes with youth hostels – you weren’t having to carry camping stuff or pay £60 a night for a room, you could get one for £12,” the business analyst from Manchester says.
A stay at a hostel in Port Eynon, south Wales, in 2013 during a cycling holiday with a friend was particularly special. “When we got to it, it was a gorgeous white building and it was quite late and dusky – we had no food and there was no one else, just one person working there. They sold us a bottle of wine and some food and we sat in the common room drinking wine and looking out over the sea.”
She describes the hostel, which is an old lifeboat station, as “one of the magical places you only seem to find when YHA-hopping”, adding that “you could hear the waves from the tiny bedrooms”.
Ella says hostels have allowed her to visit remote places she wouldn’t have gone to otherwise. “They’re a way to plot a route so when they sell off ones in odd places, you lose the coverage on the map.
“There’s something about the fact it’s cheap and communal – you meet different people in a way you wouldn’t in a B&B or a budget hotel. I remember meeting a whole theatre group in Arnside [in Cumbria] who were practising their lines in the kitchen. Youth hostels are special things.”
Crucially, they can also offer refuge from the elements when adventures go awry. Evelyn Stanley was 16 and on a Duke of Edinburgh expedition in the Brecon Beacons (now known as Bannau Brycheiniog) in 2007 when she and her friends realised they had misread their map. “We’d ended up around 10km away from the campsite we were supposed to meet our teachers at, the sun was setting, and we couldn’t get any signal to call for help,” Stanley, a tech worker from London, says.
The teenagers were arguing on the side of a hill in the rain when they spotted a YHA hostel in the distance. “We hiked over, explained that we didn’t have any money and needed to use the phone, but instead they put us up in their barn dorm free of charge. I was amazed by how generous they were. I didn’t know there were these places for young people. ”
The teenagers stayed up late debating whether they would fail their expedition after getting lost, but it all worked out in the end and the school later paid the YHA back.
“It was a very meaningful day and every time I see a hostel now I think it’s great that young people can have a helping hand. Even if I was in trouble now, I would go in and have a sense that they would support me – I see them as a bit of a beacon.”
