Hello. I'm looking to spend a month in Scandinavia this summer with my 5-year-old. I know it's an expensive place to travel, but we are still trying to do it on a budget. Has anyone had good experiences in specific hostels with a child?
Posted by
Bellingham, WA
1818 posts
You might try first determining whether there are any hostels where you could stay with a child that age. Certainly, hostels with family rooms or twin rooms are likely to permit it, but not all have them, and I found that these rooms were often as expensive as a budget hotel or AirBnB. I don't believe a child of that age is likely to be permitted in the dorms at a hostel.
Posted by
21 posts
We have stayed at many YHA hostels around the world with our children starting when the youngest was age 5. The only requirement we found is that we had to be the only ones in the room. We would reserve a 4 bed mixed sex room because there were 4 of us. Sometimes we had a private bathroom, but not always. We never had any problems and our kids loved it.
Posted by
USA/SF Bay Area
274 posts
I also think your best option will be a budget hotel. Book as early as possible to get better rates. The idea of hostels with kids usually works for larger families that can book a private dorm room and fill at least 4 beds, which may end up being similar in price as small budget hotel room.
I recently learned on this forum about the City Box Hotel chain in Scandinavia which is a self-service hotel and more reasonable in prices.
I traveled with my child a lot when at that age. In the US, a single room would usually have a double or queen bed we would share. In Europe, they were mostly twin size so keep that in mind. Use a search engine like expedia.com to read hotel/room descriptions and check prices. Then go to the official hotel website to compare prices.