Last 4 days have been a blast. We left Rome and have hit a bunch of Tuscan hill towns after arriving in Florence. We’ve hit Lucca, Siena and Pisa and seen all the sights. Totally an unreal experience so far and we’ve found a gem of a hostel in Florence called the Emerald Fields.  It’s run by a local named Marco who absolutely knows how to run a hostel and create a great atmosphere for his guests. Highly recommend staying here!  It’s a bit of a walk from the train station, but still a great location.

There is only one internet terminal in this whole hostel for about 20 people so my time is short.. will elaborate more on our trip later including surviving a torrential rain storm in Siena today.

After traveling partially through Europe so far, hitting day 7 of my 4 week trip, I realize there are a few easy ways to make money.  Since my time on intenet is running out, I’ll only talk about my idea for a hostel.

Hostel

I could open a Hostel in Europe and make a fortune.  The keys to a good hostel by the usual standards are: (1) clean bathroom (2) as few beds as possible in each dorm and (3) convenient location in a decent part of town.  Majority of higest rated hostels get 2 of the 3 right, and the ‘best’ ones get 3 of 3.  The tragic part is that all these hostels are missing the bigger picture and not progressive enough.  They haven’t fully realized that the 3 before mentioned categories should be considered the most basic things a hostel needs to do to even get a steady stream of satisfied customers.  Think of them as the the ‘physiological’ category of Maslow’s Hostel hierarchy of needs.

If I were to setup a hostel in Europe, here is what I woudl do:

1. clean bathrooms with hot water  – many ostels can’t even get the clean part right.  Being clean isn’t just about cleanign it everyday, but it’s also about how many people share that bathroom. Keep the numbers low — so far, it seems like 10 people or less is the sweet spot. More than that and thre is a mob mentality where people start to ignore basic hygiene and courtesy because they feel no accountability since there are so many people sharing the single facility. Bathrooms don’t need to be ensuites, but instead, just have enough shared bathrooms to keep the ratio 10:1, preferably 8:1.  Hot water is an absolute must.  I know it might not be the cheapest thing to always provide, but ntravelers really value a hot shower so to simply provide consistent hot water would earn you mucho points on Hosteler reviews on places like Hostelworld.com and hostels.com.

2.  8 beds or less per dorm - Definitely have 8 beds or less per dorm to solve not only the shared use bathroom problem I mentioned above, but also to minimize any chance of problems in the room.  I heard this hilarious stat while traveling that says °4 out of every 3 hosteler snores°.  Less people, less chance of a single snorer disurbing more people.  I highly recommend ear plugs!

3.  Free internet access - internet access is king when you are backpacking through europe.  You always want to keep in touch with people back home, check email and even blog like I am.  Internet access is snot slow in most hostels we’re at, but at least these hostels are giving internet access.  The opportunity they are missing out on is up to date computers with value added features like USB connection points to download pictures and CDR drives to burn pictures off your digital camera.   would even sell CDR discs for $4 a piece and I know I would make a fortune. For $10, I would burn the pictures to CD for them off their media.  Lastly, all my computers would have Windows XP installed with Office and all the ‘usual’ suite of apps like Adobe acrobat reader Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messengr, etc.  I would also ensure to set the computers in true kiosk mode to eliminate chance of tampering.  It’s shocking to see computers on Windows 95 with no security patches and logged in as full admin.   I neer in my life felt so scared for the compromise of my Windows Live ID credentials

4. Power charge points — every room would have extra extension cords and power strips to allow people to charge digital camera batteries, cell phones and ipod. I would even carry extra cables at the front desk for $2 a day rental with $10 deposit.  As soon as we enter a hostel, it’s funny to see everyone’s eyes scan the room for power outlets then you realize that there is only 1 and its already being used by the fat, half naked irish guy.

5.Hostelworld.com - I donàt think these hostel owners actually realize how important Hostel booking websites ae to their business.  The way hostelers book their acomodations is they go to their booking site of choice (we used hostelworld.com), enter their dates and city and sort by rating.  After looking at only the highest rated hostels, they look at the customer reviews.  If there are bad reviews about location, safety or bathroom, that hostel is eliminiated in almost every case except if you’re desperate.  Mention a fun atmosphere or free internet gets you onus points.  I would spend a significant amount of time not only getting listed on every major hostel booking website, but also ensure that my satisfied customers were leaving reviews.  Even provide a discount on their fare if they leave a review before they leave the hostel. 

6. A common area — hostelers generally suck at socializing, so its essential to have a good common area to force initial interaction.  After the initial awkwardness is overcome, the comraderie the common area creates will add to the fun factor of a hostel. Don’t underestimate the importance of this.

I have a ton more things to say about a well-run hostel, but I’ll spare you the details of my complete business plan.  Anyone up for investing in a hostel abroad?

Last couple of days have been a blast in Rome. At our new hostel, we coincidentally met 6 other Canadians who are also traveling around Europe in similar fashion. Up until now, colene and I have been awestruck on how unsociable most of the other hostelers have been in Italy.  Our first night in Rome, we asked nearly the entire hostel to come out for a drink at 9pm and everyone except 1 person preferred to stay in, read a book or just eat by themselves!  Coincidentally most of those people have been Americans :)  After being on the road for 7 days, I’m starting to believe what everyone else has been telling me — Canadians are likely the friendliest people on earth

Last night was one of the biggest party nights in Rome — La Notte in Bianco, or “White Night”.  I think the real translation should be “Crazy drunkeness in Rome with no sleep and mobs of people in the street”.  It was simply crazy last night !  The entire city lights up and is an all night party from 8pm to 8am. There is live music throughout the city and everyone just roams around the streets with beer in hand.  We had 10 people from the hostel come out as we bar hopped and walked the streets like vagrants.  At around 4am, Carrie (a fellow Canadian from Edmonton) and I got separated from the rest of our group.  After searching for 25 mins in Piazza Navona, we gave up and headed back to the hostel via the Metro.  The wait for the metro was simply insane.  The mobs of people and lack of ventilation in the hallways leading to the subway passage was making me dizzy.  When the subway car finally pulled up to our stop and the doors opened, I was shocked (but shouldn’t have been) that it was packed to the brim with people.  If I was alone, I would have waited for a second train but Carrie, in full linebacker fashion, pulled me by the hand and stormed in.  It was a classic moment stuffing the 2 of us into an already full subway car.

After 5 hours of partying in the street, 1 Irish pub, 9 beers, 2 glasses of wine and walking nearly 7 miles, it was no surprise that I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.   My training for Oktoberfest is in full force

Rule 1 — never stay in the Freestyle Inn in Rome. I mentioned yesterday that the showers were cold as hell.  Today I’m going to tell you about the dirty bathrooms that made me gag and I think I actually threw up in my mouth.  They were so small, cramped, humid and dirty you would have thought you were in a 3rd world country. I have no idea who they paid to get their rating so high on HostelWorld.com, but they did a good job fleecing us that night’s room adn board!

Luckily we moved to a new hostel, call the Pop Inn Hostel and so far, so good. It’s much larger, cleaner and people seem generally more sociable. We spent today sweating around Rome, checking out various sights including a guided tour of the Vatican.  Since my Roman history isn’t that good, these guided tours are fantastic.  Our tour guides knew an oustanding amount of information and made our experience in Rome worthwhile from an educational experience. 

We’re here for 2 more days then off to Florence for 6 days where we will have several 1 day trips to various Tuscan towns including Sienna, Lucca and maybe one other. 

I’m using a crappy inernet kiosk right now that charges and arm and a leg so I only have 12 mins

What do all 3 of these have in common? They personify Rome!

First let’s discuss sweat. Being a Vancouver native and now living in Seattle, I’m hot when it tips over 80 degrees, even without humidity. We took an insanely early train out of Cinque Terre today (5:25am!) so we could get to Rome at reasonable time. When we left the Termini train station we knew instantly it wasn’t good news. I was already sweating and we were about 15 steps from the train station. not good. We spent the day exploring a few of the major tourist “mus see” sights — the Colosseum, Palantine Hill, Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps. Along the way we must have drank 1 full gallon of water and I must have lost at least 5 pounds out of my pores.

Second, it’s the Coffee. I’m slowly eating and drinking my way through Italy. Gelato here is out of this world, as well as the coffee. I can’t tell you how good the coffee is, no matter where you get it. I had a cappucino this morning at the counter of the Macdonald’s in the Le Spezia train station at 6am. Ummm.. tasty! I think I’ve found my ultimate burial ground. When you bury me, make sure I have an espresso shot in my hand.

Lastly, let’s talk about Hypothermia. We’re staying our first night at this hostel called The Freestyle Hostel that we found last minute on Hostelworld.com. Our second night will be at a place called The Pop Inn since we couldn’t find a single place that we could stay the entire duration. The hostel so far is really nice, though not as nice as the Villa Saint Exupery in Nice. The room and board here includes free dinner and wine, which is never a bad thing since we’re trying to stretch our already thin money. After being out all day, we got back to the hostel at 7pm in time for dinner and a quick shower. The shower here has got to be the coldest shower on the bloody planet. To top it off there is no water pressure, but in retrospect, I’m not sure the pressure matters when you’re literally biting your tongue to stop yourself from screaming. I don’t even think it’s possible to have water this cold — it’s as if they have a mechanism to actually make the water colder.

We met some cool guys from London in the hostel tonight that we’ll probably hang out with tonight and go to a local bar. We’ve been up so long, I’m anxious for a low key night.

Tomorrow we’re hitting the Vatican most likely and maybe check out the statue of David if I feel up to a museum.