Hi! I'm planning a trip this summer to Germany and surrounding areas. We are planning on staying in Berlin, Prague, Munich, Rothenburg, Heidelberg, and Amsterdam. I am looking for suggestions on hostels that people have stayed in in these cities! Good location close to trains and attractions is important for us. I'm looking online, but if anyone has any particularly great places they've stayed at, it would be nice to look into those. Thanks for any help you can give me on this!
I stayed at Mitte's Backpacker's Hostel in Berlin 2 years ago and liked it. www.backpacker.de It's very close to a U-Bahn stop and Berlin's public transportion is really good.
For a list of hostels and tons of reviews, www.hostel-world.com is a great resource. A lot of these hostels have some female-only rooms.
If you're not into the hardcore partying that Amsterdam can be famous for, the Shelter Hostel worked well for me. It's a bit basic, and as a 'Christian youth hostel' they host Bible studies, play Christian music during breakfast, and the like. But as someone who dislikes proseletyzing, I felt perfectly fine.
Paul, that looks like an awesome hostel,, gosh , wish I was young again!
Sir Toby's in Prague is nice. Hosteworld is agreat site to refer.
We stayed at the Jugendherberge hostel in Heidelberg. It is outside the downtown (right next to the zoo- we could see the elephant from our room), but the bus runs frequently from the train station there. It was a quick bus-ride to downtown, also. We LOVED the breakfast there. It was clean and the common areas were especially nice.
For Berlin, I would really look into renting an apt. instead of staying in a hostel. There are 1000's to pick from. 2 people can stay in an apt. for less then a hostel, plus you get your own bathroom and kitchen, which saves money and honestly is a bit nicer. We paid 48 € per night which was for 2 people.
Public transportation makes everything easy and quick to get to within a short period of time in most of the cities you have chosen, so go ahead and look for places that are not right on top of main attractions. They will be cheaper.
In summer 2005 I stayed at the Hotel 4 Youth (http://www.hotel4youth.de/DesktopDefault.aspx?lang=en-GB) in Berlin. It's on Schoenhauser Allee in Prenzlauer Berg, so if you want to be in the "hip" area it's good for that. They have smaller rooms rather than dorms, and it's clean, quiet (rooms are set back from the street - I stayed there over a weekend and never heard anything) and they have showers in every room. Like I said, I was there in 2005, so in the past four years it may have changed, and it's a bit of a ride from the Hauptbahnhof, but if you're traveling in a small group and want to have a private room for a bit instead of sharing an 8 bed dorm it's a good place. (so far as I know they don't have any age limits despite the name)