I never really talked about it in my post about Edinburgh at Christmas time, but Scott and I hated the accommodation in Edinburgh.
It may have been poor research on our part, or even just bad timing around the holidays, but whatever it was, we left with a really bad impression (of the accommodation situation, not of the city).
We stayed in a dorm room at our first hostel for just one night, as the hostel was fully booked for the following few days. The hostel was in an old building, which was badly in need of renovation, and the room itself stunk of mold. There were also a lot of long-term residents living at the hostel (mainly Australians who were living there on their working holiday visas for the UK) and we had three long-termers “living” in our dorm room.
Their beds were heaped with their dirty clothes, food and smelly socks, not to mention the fact that they were taking over in terms of space and noise. The bunk beds Scott and I were assigned to were at the back of the room by an old dilapidated window with a gap, meaning that there was a constant cold breeze escaping through it. Now remember, this was Scotland in winter – that was a damn cold breeze. We managed to convince the other people sharing our room to turn the one small heater on, although we still spent the night wrapped in many layers of clothing to try and stay warm.
When we checked out the following day, we were relieved.
We then moved to another hostel, this time a newer and funkier one. We felt a lot more positive about this place, that was, until we saw our room. To be fair, it had been newly painted (and the smell was lingering), but there was one bed and one small table in the room and that was it. The wifi didn’t work in any of the rooms (a big no-no for us as we work on the internet), which was probably a ploy to have guests congregate in the cafe downstairs and spend money. The cafe was loud and noisy day and night, meaning we couldn’t get any work done and in the evenings hoards of Spanish students (who were again living at the hostel) would crowd the kitchen until it closed. We decided to check out, mainly because of the lack of work we were able to get done there, and on our last night the hostel hosted a “Gender Bender Party” for all the guests. None of the guests participated, only the staff, which further served to show that the hostel was really just a party venue for the international staff working there. Not to mention that it was probably insulting to any actual transgender people who could have been staying there. Just saying.
Our last accommodation consisted of an Airbnb in the popular neighbourhood of Leith. This was about a 20-25 minute walk from the city centre, but we really liked the location as there were plenty of cool cafes and coffee shops nearby and we enjoyed the walk. However, the offerings on Airbnb had been a bit dismal for the high price (but this was the UK) and we ended up sharing a house with a single father – we basically had the room at the front of the house to ourselves, where we tended to hole ourselves up. It wasn’t ideal, but at least we could get some work done and still enjoy the city. It was a bit awkward having to make small talk with the owner every time we used the kitchen (he was probably watching us, cringing, thinking “That doesn’t go back there!!” “How do you expect to cook that?”) and I’ve said before that I don’t like Airbnbs where you have to share someones’ actual house with them. For me it just feels too odd.
Within the space of a week, we stayed in three different accommodations in Edinburgh and didn’t really enjoy any of them. We could have looked at hotels in the city, but at that time of year, they were just too expensive for our budget.
What I would say is that I’m sure there are better accommodation experiences to be had than ours, but you need to really look around, book ahead and choose a time of year that isn’t peak season. Research as much as you can, and if possible, explore neighbourhoods outside of the centre such as the one we stayed in. Compare every kind of accommodation option possible: apartment rentals (for longer stays), Airbnb, hotels, hostels and even Couchsurfing. Edinburgh is a great city but, like much of the UK I suspect, the hostels just really aren’t up to scratch with the rest of the world. If you go in knowing this, then at least you won’t be disappointed.
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