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Route 66 Hostel
Category: Hotels & Travel Hostels Hostels [Edit]
1012 Central Ave SWAlbuquerque, NM 87102
(505) 247-1813
7 reviews for Route 66 Hostel
7 reviews in English
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Review from Jocelyn M.
7/27/2009
"Ugh, the weather is awful! TomTom a motel... Okay, call and find out which is the cheapest."
This became a recurring theme on a roadtrip my fiance and I took around the US, a trip where we were supposed to rough it and camp. Yeah... that didn't happen. We moteled it almost every inch of the way.
Route 66 hostel came up when we quickly realized half the motels Tomtom found had gone out of business (and it seemed all the restaurants went along with them. Albuquerque was a ghost town). Right when we were about to lose faith in the city and just move on, we found this hostel. It's an adorable house with a big front porch and is a backpacker's hostel in every sense of the word:
Fliers for everything everywhere, books you don't want to read in multiple languages, ancient versions of Trivial Pursuit, an eccentric (yet unbelievably sweet) lady running it, and about 7 different blankets adorning your bed. It even came complete with the people typical of hostels: 65 year old German lady who made you hate yourself because she hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon two days before, crazy homeless guy going on about how the government uses Google Maps to watch your house, and European college students exploring America.
It was Easter Sunday so we got a great (free) meal after we had settled in to our very nicely priced private room. In addition to that, the owner and occupants were insanely helpful on how to navigate around the place and use the facilities, much more so than I've found in other hostels. It was an odd place, but I loved it. It made our Easter.
The next day, we were required to do a chore before we left, which to our surprise we actually performed after our free breakfast just because we liked the lady so much. Then we took about 5 handfuls of Easter candies and quickly drove off into the sunrise... -
Review from Allie S K.
Austin, TX
9/25/2010
This place kind of gave me the creeps when my boyfriend and I first arrived. It is in a pretty busy part of town and it doesn't have a hostel feel to it at all. They may be trying to give off the vibe of a hostel but it is coming off all wrong. The staff seemed to be friends just working for a friend which was cool and all but not very professional. Maybe they are running another business inside too.
It seemed to be very cluttered and knick knacks all over the place which gave it a even weirder feel, almost like being at a friends parents house. The rooms were hot and the shower was small for reasons I am not sure. It looked to have been remodeled poorly and they really seemed to depend on the patrons of the hostel to keep it clean. Plus half the time it felt like a half way house filled with rooms and areas that no one was really allowed.
It was a place to lay your head while traveling but it felt kind of strange. -
Review from dan h.
10/20/2010 2 photos
You will probably not have the same experience that I had, but I wanted to share it anyway.
I was getting into town late. After midnight late. I was told that a key would be left for me in an envelope in the mailbox outside the front door. I was fully expecting that this would be the case. Upon getting to the hostel I walked up to the front porch, put my hand in the mailbox only to come out with just my hand. No key. No envelope. No nothing. I looked around the porch for a few seconds to see if maybe there was another place this key might be. I didn't see anything. It was at that point that I noticed the front door was open. I walked in and looked around a bit inside. Still no key.
At that point I noticed the office and a guy in the office who was watching tv. I opened that door a bit and they guy asked if I needed help. I told him the situation and he told me the key was indeed in the mailbox out front. I walked outside again, put my hand in the mailbox and there was still no key. He went outside and realized there was no key also. He was baffled. I was baffled. The town of Albuquerque was baffled. He told me he put the key in the envelope with my name on it and placed it in the mailbox. I asked him if someone else possibly took my room. At that point he want upstairs to see what was up. A few minutes later he came down to tell me that indeed someone had walked up to the mailbox, taken my key (the envelope had my name on it) and went and took my room. He was vacating the room at that time so that I could claim my spot. Weird. I don't understand people, but I was just happy to be getting the room that I paid for because I was tired.
Fast forward a bit. I got my room and almost immediately upon getting inside, I went to sleep.
Room was fine. Bed was fine. It is a hostel people. This isn't 5 star accommodations so don't expect that. -
Review from T T.
San Francisco, CA
9/1/2006
I stayed there for one night only when I was road tripping - the lady working there was extremely nice, and completely "hostel" atmosphere. Very peaceful yet you get to meet any kind of travelers from numerous places... That's what I look for in hostel.
Of course the price was excellent was well. I paid 17 dollars for one night and I had a single room, if I remember the price from two years ago correctly. -
Review from Adam F.
Manhattan, NY
8/25/2010
It's a hostel. The wireless doesn't actually work in most of the private rooms, in spite of what the staff tries to tell you about the problem being with your computer. It probably works in the dorms, though, and you can take your laptop into the common area where it does work. The place seems to get an "Ewww" reaction from the locals, but I think that might just be because they're not used to staying in hostels. You make your own breakfast and the options are much less impressive than they make it sound, since there are no milk or eggs. But it has a nice location. There's another hostel north of town that I didn't investigate and there's the Sandia Mountain Hostel to the east, if you want to shop around.
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Review from Katie B.
San Francisco, CA
9/20/2010
I really Enjoyed my stay. I was a bit skeptical about the hostel before i got there( i read some reviews before hand that almost made me reconsider), My room was really kept up and cleaner than i was led to believe. I met some wonderful people there as well. I highly recommend this place for the solo traveler. It's "homey", and the price makes it worth it.
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Review from Kim D.
Cambridge, MA
3/31/2010
According to the review scale, this falls squarely on the "Meh. I've experienced better" rating, but it's an okay place to stay for people that are not traveling by car, or who prefer/need to stay close to Old Town and the downtown/Nob Hill area.
This hostel has a lot of history, which you can read all about on the website. The problem is that the hostel seems pretty stuck in the past, with very old bedclothes and mattresses. It's a repurposed house with repurposed furniture, which is charming in a worn-in sort of way. On the plus side, the hostel offers the basics for breakfast which you prepare yourself, ranging from eggs to pancake mix, cereal, toast, etc. The kitchen is available to make your own meals, and the bathrooms are private being that this was once a private home. The dorms are spacious and you get a key so that your stuff is not accessible to everyone. They have lots of older books and maps and brochures for you to plan your trip.
That being said, the hostel has seen better days (much like many of the old Route 66 motels and buildings). It was almost deserted on the night I stayed there, and that kind of freaked me out, as it's located in an equally deserted neighborhood. To be honest, though the back lot was lit, I didn't feel completely comfortable parking my car there, with out-of-state plates, packed full of belongings. Luckily, my room looked out onto the lot, so I could check on it and hear if anything was happening. The desk staff upon check-in was not particularly helpful and made me even more nervous about parking out back (they should know, right?). The fact that the hostel stills ask guests to do chores before checking out is a cute throwback to the communal nature of hostels of eras past, but I wish there were actually other people staying there, which is kinda the point of staying at a hostel. Granted, it was winter, but it was also a Saturday night.
The other issue is that the hostel apparently has touch-and-go moments of upkeep and cleanliness. On my stay, the bathrooms were okay, the rooms were okay, the sheets seemed clean, but I read some complaints about bedbugs and dirty bathrooms on other sites. I didn't have any problems, but it's something to consider.
At the end of the day, I preferred the nearby Sandia Mountain Hostel, about 10 minutes outside Albuquerque. If you have a car, I'd stay there, but you will be fine at Route 66 Hostel.
