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Hostel Sex: A Practical Guide For Backpackers

Print This Post Print This Post    31 Jan 2008 in Relationships by Tim Patterson

Love in the hostel

The Brave New Traveler Guide To Hostel Sex will get you out of the dorms and into sweaty, awkward bliss faster than you can say “light my fire”.

What do you get when you drop a few dozen backpackers into a hostel, soak with beer and mix in a healthy dose of liberation from social norms?

A tidal wave of hormones…and one major problem: where to go to get it on?

Unless you’re a flamboyant exhibitionist, nothing puts a damper on romantic relations like company. Dorms are almost never empty, and even when they are, the likelihood of someone barging in makes anything more than surreptitious groping an impossibility.

If you’re hankering to slide the key into the ignition and get your motor firing on all cylinders, you need to get creative, and get out of the dorms.

Unless you’re a flamboyant exhibitionist, nothing puts a damper on romantic relations like company.

First of all, let’s consider the options in and around the hostel.

Every hostel has hidden nooks and crannies that offer enough space and privacy for at least a hasty knee-trembler. You can be sure the hostel staff know about these spots, but unless you’re hooking up with one of them, asking for directions is bad form.

The trick is to know where to look, and to scout locations in advance if you’re feeling lucky. Here are some possibilities:

The Laundry Room

Most hostels have a laundry room that is abandoned at night. If you’re feeling naughty, the stacks of fresh-smelling sheets and towels make an ideal love-nest.

The more considerate and hygienic option is to make use of the sturdy appliances, with the woman sitting on top of the washer / dryer. (Extra points for spin cycle).

The Roof

Do Not DisturbWhen checking into your next hostel, take a look around and see if there’s any way to access the roof. Overhanging trees are one possibility, as are upstairs windows with broad sills from which you can pull yourself up to the rooftop.

Of course safety is important, and you shouldn’t take unnecessary risks, but you’d be surprised at how many hostel roofs are accessible with a little ingenuity.

And once you’re up there - well, the sky is the limit.

The Bathroom

OK, maybe it’s not the most romantic location, but most hostels have bathrooms that lock. As long as the floor and toilet are reasonably clean, you can shut yourselves inside and bump uglies to your heart’s content.

Even open bathrooms with several stalls offer the possibility of a quickie - just ask Senator Larry Craig.

The best position is for the guy to sit on the toilet while the girl sits in his lap - this way she can lift her legs off the floor if someone comes in, so that from the outside it looks like just one person is in the stall.

The Broom Closet

If the laundry room is locked, the roof is inaccessible and the thought of sex in a bathroom stall makes you queasy, the hostel broom closet is a classic option.

The main problems with the broom closet are that nothing more than a standing position is possible, mop handles have a way of whacking you in the head at inopportune moments and the smell of high-test floor cleaner can make you pass out.

The key is to be quick (if you’re screwing in a broom closet I doubt this will be a problem).

Don’t have sex in the hostel kitchen. No one wants traces of mystery juice in their stir-fry.

The Kitchen

Don’t have sex in the hostel kitchen. Just don’t. People cook food in the kitchen. No one wants traces of mystery juice in their stir-fry.

Plus, hostel kitchens aren’t as private as you might think. Even at 4 am you can bet that someone will be looking for a midnight snack, and nothing ruins an appetite like the sight of bare asses bouncing on the counter.

Seriously, don’t have sex in the kitchen.

The Great Outdoors

Saucy LadybugsIf your hostel has a backyard, look for a shadowy spot behind a tree.

Better yet, if you’re in a semi-rural area, get out of the hostel grounds entirely. A copse of trees can provide all the privacy you need, and a lonesome beach is even more enticing.

Just remember to snag a towel or a bed-sheet from the hostel before running naked down the sand.

Get A Room Already!

Look, I know you’re on a tight budget. But I guarantee that a few years down the road, when you’re married and have a mortgage, you won’t regret having dropped a couple extra bills for a night of passion.

In many countries, like Japan and Taiwan, there is the ‘love-hotel’ option, where you can rent a fantasy-themed room by the hour. Otherwise, just jump in a cab and ask the driver to take you to a guesthouse or motel.

As usual, Mark Twain sums it up best, “10 years from now you will be more disappointed by the people you haven’t done than by the ones you have, so cast off the panties, sail away from the hostel dorm - explore, dream, get laid!”

Where’s the most creative place your “friend” has ever had sex? Shock and titillate us by leaving a comment below!

BNT contributing editor Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia and Traverse Magazine. Check out his Matador profile.

Tim Patterson

BNT contributing editor Tim Patterson travels with a sleeping bag and pup tent strapped to the back of his folding bicycle. His articles and travel guides have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Get Lost Magazine, Tales Of Asia and Traverse Magazine. Check out his personal site Rucksack Wanderer.

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31 Comments »

  1. Comment by Haley January Eckels — January 31, 2008

    Another hilarious article! Extra points for using the phrase “bumping uglies,” which is my favorite of all sex euphemisms. I have no wild stories to tell about my “friend,” but I will share one about strangers. My husband and I were hiking El Camino de Santiago in Spain, and we stayed at a lovely guest house with about a dozen other hikers. At breakfast the next morning, a British hiker asked us with a wink, “So, did you two spot any March hares last night?”

    I had no idea what he was talking about, and I asked him for a description of these rare animals. When he explained that it was slang for getting it on, I was so embarrassed. Whoever it was that he saw, it wasn’t us, though I could not convince him of that. So “spotting March hares” comes in at number two on my list of preferred euphemisms.

  2. Comment by Daniel Harbecke — January 31, 2008

    Dear Penthouse Forum,

    THAT was hysterical. And so very, very necessary! Thanks for some genuine bellylaughs, Tim! I’m trying to purgesome of the mental images, though. Hostel kitchen sex? Delete delete delete…

    Sigh. Nothing like travel to make you feel like a teenager again: “Think, dammit, think! WHERE?!?” All I gotta say is tents pay for themselves.

    That does it. No more deep and weighty topics for me. The letters on my keyboard are wearing off. For now on, I’m writing about toga parties and racing the Federales to the border. My friend would want it that way.

  3. Comment by Grace — January 31, 2008

    OKay, this was my favorite Brave New Traveler post ever. lol.

  4. Comment by John M. Edwards — January 31, 2008

    Hi Tim:

    Now this is the kind of article I like!

    The strangest place my “friend” ever had sex was in a glowworm cave in New Zealand with a dashing young Yank from abroad (yours truly). It’s interesting to note something about the sex lives of glowworms, too. They are born without mouths, so without any way to get nourishment, they have to get it on quickly (or do the “nasty”) before they burn out and fade away.

    In one of Nature’s cruelest jokes, these gorgeous starlike creatures only live but for one day, or less. Sometimes only several hours. Now how likely would it be that any one of us would be afforded the opportunity of seeing them in the first place? Luckily brave spelunkers can break the beast with two backs in these hidden caves with something better than a little mood music and candlelight. A gorgeous microcosmic universe of living faux suns!

    I prefer natural hostelry (or “digs”) like this over chancing it in Tarantino’s chilling movie “Hostel,” wherein sex with beautiful Slovak women might end you up in a warehouse being tortured by tourist psychopaths involved in Murder Inc.–paying up to kill for sport. Any way you stroke it, sex is still “the most dangerous game.”

  5. Comment by Olivia Giovetti — January 31, 2008

    The nice thing about London hostels is that a bunch of people stay there when they’re looking for an apartment or can’t find one for a long-term but short-lease stay. The nicer thing is that once you stay in a London hostel for a period of time, you start to figure out what rooms are free and what their security codes are…

    Also, outside of the hostel, I got to second base in Lenin’s mausoleum. And sadly most of my old…er…stomping grounds in Rome have now closed. RIP The Scene.

  6. Comment by Joseph — January 31, 2008

    I once bumped uglies with an American girl on some grass behind the deisel tanks at the Panama Canal Yacht Club, in Colon, Panama. My knees burnt afterwards and were skabbed for a week.

    Sex on the beach on Santa Cruz in the Galapagos Islands was probably the most amazing place I have ever done it. It was in the nature park so me and my Galapagonian princess had to sneak out there. Sleeping there was terrible because of the sand flies, but we survived.

    I never had a problem springing for the $15 hotel room while in Latin America.

    Great post. You’ve got a good site, too.

  7. Comment by Ross — January 31, 2008

    Hands down, the funniest blog I’ve read in 6 months and by far my favorite ever (among many good ones), on BNT. Tim, you are the man. Please keep it coming. I will also have to second the props Haley gave you for using that sensual, romantic term, “bumping uglies.”

    The only location I would add here, is the shower. Discrete, practical and hot…although I suppose that’s covered under “bathroom.”

    Happy bumping in ARG!

  8. Comment by Becky — February 1, 2008

    Is this retaliation for the ripped, dark-skinned surfer boys?

  9. Comment by Turner — February 1, 2008

    Tim, you’ve put wayyy too much thought into this, but I applaud it.

  10. Comment by Tim Patterson — February 1, 2008

    Thanks for the comments folks - John, I think I’ve been to that glowworm cave. Olivia - second base in a mausoleum is just creepy. Joseph, I’m sure you shocked the tortoises. Becky, I don’t write from experience, but missing you has given me an over-active imagination :)

  11. Comment by Kango Suz — February 1, 2008

    Ok. This is awesome. Best BNT post I’ve read, bar none.

    Olivia- not creepy. I worked at a historic cemetery in Chicago, IL and folks would come all the time to *cough* yes, you know. Many people even have their mausoleums and funeral art made in erotic form. One of our mausoleums there has a marble sculpture of two doing the act @ the moment of orgasm. People are weird.

    I’ve officially put the glowworm caves on my list of ‘most wanted’ places to *cough* bump uglies I believe was the term?

  12. Comment by Olivia Giovetti — February 1, 2008

    It’s Lenin’s grave! You’re not allowed to speak or take photographs. How can you NOT do something radical?

  13. Comment by Eva — February 1, 2008

    Funny the mausoleum/cemetery thing should come up - The big scandal up here in Canada this week was news from France that a large number of French lovers have been using Vimy Ridge, a WW1 battlefield that has, among other things, been called ‘the making of Canada as a nation’, as their go-to spot. Opinion seems to be divided between those who think it’s intensely disrespectful and those who think that the spirits of the thousands of young men who lost their lives there might be enjoying the show…

  14. Comment by Olivia Giovetti — February 1, 2008

    Yeah, don’t you also have graffiti artists spraying Mahler on various walls in Toronto? That–and milk in bags–is what makes Canada truly amazing.

  15. Comment by Eva — February 1, 2008

    Milk in bags? Is that strictly a Canadian thing? It is ingenius, and cuts down on waste, too!

  16. Comment by Angelique — February 2, 2008

    This is one of the funniest, most down-to-earth travel posts I’ve ever read. HILARIOUS! (And for people who want to “get it on” hostel-style, very informative!)

  17. Comment by Roger — February 3, 2008

    That was informative - and some dangerous ideas. You need to really, really need it, to try some of those options. But, I guess I might considering my strangest is, in a news room studio behind the anchor booth partician.There are 24 hr cameras running so it was in a nook between the rolling walls behind the anchor station. Wow that had the heart beating! And in a church bathroom, neither of which I think I could do again even if someone paid me to. Happy hunting for that secret spot.

  18. Pingback by Exploring the Globe » Blog Archive » THE HOSTEL PROBLEM: HOW TO HAVE SEX? — February 4, 2008

    […] In some hostels, it could be almost as tricky as joining the mile high club. But luckily The Brave New Traveler has published a highly useful guide on the subject, Hostel Sex: A Practical Guide For Backpackers. […]

  19. Comment by Olivia Giovetti — February 4, 2008

    “Milk in bags? Is that strictly a Canadian thing? It is ingenius, and cuts down on waste, too!”

    As far as I’ve seen…Although with Timmy Ho’s catching on in the US, hopefully that may make the border jump as well (and Peak Freens…love me some Peak Freens).

  20. Comment by ryan — February 4, 2008

    You can buy milk in bags in Wisconsin, USA too. Not that we do, you just can.

  21. Comment by Chris LaRoche — February 4, 2008

    Hilarious! Very well done, and though I can’t think up any place my many “friends” have gotten it on in that you haven’t already covered (it’s amazing how creative hormones can make you), I will add this: coincidently, today at the school I work at, there was a condom littering the hallway. I didn’t check if it was used, but I did think, no matter how desperate and/or horny, I never had sex in the middle of the hallway during school day. Never. Does that make me a prude?

  22. Comment by JiM — February 6, 2008

    Best non-entertainment article I have read on-line in years. You get how to do interesting. I expect a follow-up article (yes, hostel sex 2.0) with more tips, more length, and more creative ideas.

    The most interesting place my…uhh…friend ever had sexual relations was on a dock. It was a warm summer night at a low budget location in Eastern Washington. There was a huge rock festival nearby and the hotel was completely filled with music and radio people, including numerous huge stars and celebrities. Needless to say, sex was in the air and everyone was drunk. Due to all the people, my friend’s new little rock hottie and he were caught enjoying each other in a back hall but had to finish bumping somewhere (room was filled with friends) so they grabbed a pillow and some blankets, headed outside and got freaky on the old, empty dock. The kind of dock where you walk on a wooden pathway to the small dock completely surrounded by water. It’s magical, I hear, as the fish were jumping and the moon bounced off Moses Lake.

    The downside, is that you can get caught. “They” were caught by a security guard and the band Tenacious D. Jack Black was on the shore shinning a giant Mag Light in their faces shouting, “Is everyone willing?” “…Will the lady please raise her hand if she is willing.” They were cool and let them finish, but it was one of those moments one will never forget.

  23. Comment by Ant — February 7, 2008

    This is the first post I’ve read on BNT, had me laughing (and sometimes reminiscing…!). Great work, Tim, I’ll be back in 9 months!

  24. Comment by Tim Patterson — February 7, 2008

    Wow JiM, now THAT is a great story.

  25. Comment by Sylvia — February 10, 2008

    What imaginative (?) renderings! Loved it all, rather hilarious and quite outspoken. I liked Jim’s story. That was simply outrageous! Have fun you lot.

  26. Comment by Terry — March 11, 2008

    Oh man, this is great.

    Let’s not forget the couch in the common room. The possibility of getting caught only adds fuel to the fire for some. And think about the legacy you’d leave. (Hey, that’s not as bad as spunk in the stir fry.)

  27. Comment by N. Chrystine Olson — March 14, 2008

    Okay…my “friend” had sex in the cab of a combine on a wheat farm in Northern Idaho…it was the cute farmer’s lunch break.

  28. Comment by Jonathan — March 15, 2008

    Great article, if all else fails, you can always wait till real late, sneak in the dorm and be very, very quiet. Hopefully the bed won’t creak to bad, remember not to press to hard on the pillow covering her face and you should be OK. This is of course reserved for the super bold or desperate…You don’t always have to tell them to scream your name…”Say my name…” “Ummmm”

  29. Comment by Tim Patterson — March 28, 2008

    Jonathan, no matter how late, no matter how quiet you think you are, if you have sex in the hostel dorm, someone will be awake, listening. Guaranteed.

  30. Comment by Molly — April 14, 2008

    A friend of mine lost their virginity in a FEMA trailer after Katrina, a great stress reliever for sure.

    That very same friend was was jet skiing with that very same boy on in the Deep Delta where Louisiana meets the ocean and a huge storm came in. In a mad dash to get away from the lightning storm in the middle of the Bayou, they stumbled across the only shelter for miles, a tiny little “fish camp”. They felt kind of funny walking into someone’s little Cajun home away from home. But as they started to take their clothes off, they decided to honor tradition and break in the furniture before Goldilocks came home.

  31. Comment by nylon — April 19, 2008

    I think I’ve been to that glowworm cave.

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