BUG’s hostel reviews now feature photo slideshows

May 6th, 2010 by Tim Uden

BUG has added another feature to its hostel reviews.

Most hostel booking sites don’t give you any contact details because they want you to book with them and not directly with the hostel. BUG has always listed the address, telephone number and website address for each hostel and more recently we have continued to expand on this by showing you other contact methods like Skype, Facebook and Twitter. We’ve been doing this since 1997, when there were no other hostel booking sites, and we’re not going to drop our standards just because there are a bunch of new sites on the scene that refuse to give you the information you need.

In a quest to give you more information about each hostel; we have just added another new feature to BUG’s hostel reviews, which has already been implemented for selected hostels in Los Angeles, Melbourne, Phillip Island, San Diego and San Francisco. BUG now has slideshows with real photos taken by BUG’s own team of hostel inspectors (not some glossed up promotional shots supplied by the hostel).

A picture tells a thousand words so we figure that by showing you photos of the hostel, you get a better idea of what to expect when you stay there. So now you can see pictures of the hostel as well as read our review, reviews from other travellers, see independently assessed star ratings and watch videos produced by BUG. That’s more information to help you choose a great place to stay.

Our policy is to keep all the information independent without any bias from the hostel. That means that we have never published a hostel description written by a hostel. Virtually every other hostel site has a blurb written by the hostel, and this even includes other so-called independent guides like Lonely Planet, but BUG remains totally independent with a professional review written by a travel writer who has visited the hostel plus genuine reviews from real travellers. What you get from us is a real opinion telling you what the hostel is really like and not what the hostel would like you to think.

At the moment we have only added a few slideshows, but many more will be coming as BUG visits and reviews more hostels. Some of the first hostel reviews to feature slideshows include: Habitat HQ in Melbourne (Australia), Melbourne Central YHA in Melbourne (Australia), Gramercy Place in Los Angeles (USA), the Island Accommodation in Phillip Island (Australia), Banana Bungalow in San Diego (USA), Lucky Ds in San Diego (USA), Adelaide Hostel in San Francisco (USA), Elements Hostel in San Francisco (USA) and Pacific Tradewinds Hostel in San Francisco (USA).

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