Where a vagabond finds home
BENGALURU: One romanticises travelling quite often, with flashback images of exploring cultures and experimenting with food, but a crucial part of the travel escapades are also the places you stay.
But how often do you get to huddle up in bunkbeds with musicians, creative artists, entrepreneurs and travellers and end up earning lifelong friends over brunch and coffee conversations. Well, not so often, with travellers often choosing the comforts of hotel-room privacy.
However, now with a new breed of community hostels, travelling trends too have changed, with most young travellers choosing great conversations and engagements over closed up hotel rooms.
Bengaluru too has recently seen a growing share of tourists, professionals and students making community hostels an important part of its diverse and dynamic culture. Some of the most popular community hostels in the city are Abode hostels, Construkt, Electric Cat's Bread and Breakfast, Social Rehab and The Meditating Monkeys.
Artistic and Crafty
Abode hostel is where like minded people have built an ecosystem of their own. As you walk through the place, you are caught by the smell of fresh paint and the atworks on the walls contributed by boarders like Harshi Agarwal. The rooms have a sense of individuality, with personalised name tags over the doors. The hostel offers long term housing solutions too with fully furnished one BHKs which are available in both individual and double sharing modes.
The adventurous Backpacker
One of the most warm places backpackers who are on a shoestring budget is Electric Cat’s Bed and Breakfast. With soothing music playing in the background, Stanley Lobo talks to City Express about how he started the hostel as an experiment about a year and half ago as a cafe with six beds, but was soon surprised by the turn out. He then decided to add more beds and the place now hosts 26 beds. People who come in at times end up staying for longer than usual hotel stays. One of his customer Garvit has been staying here for seven months. The place is a melting pot of people from different age groups and nationalities and he says that to him the place is like "traveling without having to travel". His foreign guests include those from UK, Australia,USA,Canada and Germany. The rent is `9,000-`13,000 per month which includes things like breakfast,Wifi and housekeeping in addition to fully equipped kitchen with staffs.
The Startup Crowd
The first thing that will attract you towards the Construkt is the vibrant and colourful nature of the building. Shashikiran and Karan started Construkt in May, 2016. Abhishek, who is the founder of a startup company in Delhi has been staying in Construkt for about ten days now and says the room channels a different kind of energy than traditional hotels.
The space can host as many as 22 people and is usually filled with those working for or building a startup. The price for a month's stay is `10,000-`12,000 and the inhabitants can have full access to the kitchen to cook for themselves and pick either individual rooms or six to eight bedded dorms. The place also hosts several International researchers and job seekers, especially from Spain,Sweden and Canada. One of the walls at the hostels notifies boarders on the latest startup events in the city and the inhabitants hold meetings quite often to discuss ideas and critique each other's work.
On the Move
For those who are constantly on the move and are just looking for a place to crash, Social Rehab will suit your needs. The small, homely and colourful place hosts boys and girls separately in air conditioned rooms, with a trendy hall for people to socialise. The place is ideal
for tourists who are looking for a place for a night or two with dining facilities.