The last time I went youth hostelling in Whitby, I was a teenager smuggling in vodka, dyeing my hair in the toilets and trying to get off with boys. This time, I am sipping a glass of wine on the sun terrace, taking in the sea views. If I’ve changed over the last 20 years, then so have hostels. They have bars, for one thing. Nice bars!

Well, YHA Boggle Hole has, at least. This youth hostel in Fylingthorpe, six miles south of Whitby, is the latest to benefit from YHA’s investment programme – £22m on refurbishments since 2010, plus £10m on six new properties. This particular renovation was eight months in the making and cost £1.2m.

The results are immediately apparent: there is a new annexe, the Crow’s Nest, with a mix of en suite, family and dorm rooms, plus a new dining room – the Brigg – and the aforementioned Quarterdeck cafe-bar. The main hostel building, an old mill, has also been spruced up. The playful pirate theme stays on the right side of nautical chic, with salvaged driftwood furniture, buoys upcyled into lights, and thick rope banisters. Old divers’ helmets, lobster pots and lifebelts add to the salty seaside feel. There are plenty of comfy corners to curl up with a book or game (Boggle, obviously), and a wood-burning stove that keeps it cosy on colder days.

Our room is in the Crow’s Nest which, as the name suggests, is up a flight of steep steps. My dorm days are over, thank goodness; our family room has a double bed with a single above – a sort of three-man bunkbed. My friend and I were expecting one of the en suites but disappointingly get only a sink, though at least the toilets and showers are right outside. The room is undeniably small and basic, but bright, clean and modern, with dark wood and metal furniture, pale blue walls and bright green bedding.

Another change from hostelling days gone by: we don’t have to make our own beds! We still have to strip them when we leave, though, and drop them down “Davy Jones’s Locker” (a laundry chute with a treasure chest on top).

Children are in their element here. Inside, there are several play areas with dressing-up clothes and old-fashioned toys such as hobby horses (under a “Donkey rides” sign). Outside, there are treasure trails and ball games. Being child-free, we feel a little out of place, though we see more than enough of other people’s – three climb onto our outdoor table at breakfast to look over a fence for a lost ball. As you might expect from a hostel, it is definitely more of a family holiday destination than, say, somewhere for a romantic break.

Perhaps the best thing about the place, for children and adults alike, is Boggle Hole itself, a tiny cove at the bottom of a wooded valley that functions as the hostel’s own private beach. (A boggle is the local name for a hobgoblin.) This old smugglers’ haunt is a lovely spot for fossil-hunting and rock-pooling, as well as the usual sandcastle-building and swimming. At low tide, guests can walk for 10 minutes along the beach to Robin Hood’s Bay, a delightful fishing village. We spend the evening there at Ye Dolphin pub, which does decent fish and chips. The tide’s turned by kicking-out time, so we have to walk the “long” way back over the cliffs – just a few minutes more, and a pleasure on a starlit night.

For an alternative to the pub, the youth hostel sells simple meals – sausage and mash, gammon and eggs – and children eat for free, or there is a kitchen for self-caterers. Breakfast is a straightforward toast or fry-up affair; ours is served by an affable chef-cum-waiter-cum-cleaner, who is delighted to have got one of the 12 new jobs created when the hostel reopened in June.

Leaving is easier than arriving – the hostel is in a remote spot and not well signposted. On the way there, we had to stop for directions several times. Most were not exactly helpful: “You could go that way, but I don’t know if you’ll make it across the ford …” (The key, it turned out, is to drive through the grounds of Fyling Hall school.) On the return journey, we park at Robin Hood’s Bay and walk six miles along the clifftop Cleveland Way to YHA Whitby, my old summer-holiday hostel. It, too, now offers en suite rooms – though I’m sure teenagers still get up to no good in the dorms.

• Accommodation was provided by YHA Boggle Hole (0845 371 9504, yha.org.uk), dorms from £10, rooms from £20, en-suites from £39 (sleeps three).

Ask a local

Paul Johnston, Baytown Beers

• Cycle
Ride from Whitby to Scarborough along a disused railway line, the Cinder Track, with the North York Moors on one side and the sea on the other. Hire bikes from Trailways in Hawsker, and stop for a pint at the Hayburn Wyke Inn.

• Eat
In Robin Hood’s Bay, Smugglers is an atmospheric, candlelit bistro in a 300-year-old building. It specialises in seafood, including Whitby crab, and also serves great meat from Radfords, the award-winning local butchers.

• Walk
There is a lovely beach walk from Boggle Hole to Ravenscar, a clifftop village – Raven Hall hotel has fantastic views. Go back via the old Ravenscar Alum Works, now a National Trust site.

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