So what is a Backpacker Motel?

After my travel companions booked the only room left on the Great Ocean Road at a backpacker’s motel, I had to ask them what that meant. I had this vision of one huge room with a bunch of bunk beds and strangers where you had to keep your purse and your body parts secure at all times. It wasn’t quite like that, but bunk beds were involved. Instead what we found was a series of little buildings with rooms that had communal cooking, lounge, and bathroom facilities. Our room had a bunk bed and a single bed, a sink and a nightstand, no other amenities. What I was most nervous about was the getting up in the middle of the night to hunt down the bathroom, which thank goodness I never had to do. Right after we checked in a family and a single older guy also checked in which made us all feel a bit better. We had “borrowed” bedding from our hotel in Melbourne just in case the place was gross and we had to sleep in the car, but we never had to use it (and it all went back to its rightful place by the way).

So it was pretty obvious when we checked in that the family, the older single guy, and the three of us were not the demographic that the motel catered to. The owner gave us a choice of two rooms, and when she showed us the second room which shared a common area with a bunch of early 20’s males who were all laying about on the porch as one of them scaled a fish he had caught for dinner, you could tell they weren’t thrilled about having some old ladies sharing their housing facilities. We chose the other which was more private. The price was right and I have to say all the young kids were really nice and fairly quiet. I think on the second night we were the ones outside talking late into the night while the kids were all asleep or out. The one great thing about staying at a place like that is that you don’t feel guilty at all not being in your room during the trip. In this case it was for sleeping only. As my UK travel companion says, we had a kip and went.