Journey Hostel Tayrona — Hotel in Magdalena

The journey is the best place to stay if you enjoy being ripped off to the maximum and treated like a money making object. By all means stay here if you like soulless and heartless environments and being sucked dry of your money for the duration.

In all my 6 months of travelling South America I have never had such a dreadful and disappointing experience. My impression of the journey is extremely poor, terrible in fact. The best thing I can say is that it has a lovely pool and beautiful scenery. However, the positives stop there. I list my main concerns below which demonstrate overall that the journey overtly exploits its guests with no concern for their wellbeing.

Neglectful and inconsiderate management

The owner was very rude, selfish and arrogant. During the course of our stay he had a large group of friends round who were loud & rowdy very late into the night. He even began to have a very aggressive argument with someone in the common area of the hostel. In general his demeanour was rude and he was uncaring of our well-being. He would be drunk almost every day at the bar. Terribly unprofessional and downright arrogant of him. He would often swear at staff members, even IN FRONT of guests.

Additionally, the manager ignored our pleas to have some peace; she stood and argued with a man literally 2 metres from the hammocks where we slept at 1:30am. They ignored our requests to move their dispute elsewhere. It was horrendously rude and quite frankly we were gobsmacked.

Quite simply the staff made us feel worthless. It was as if they only cared about digging their hands into your pockets and taking as much of our hard earned money as possible.

Profiteering

This leads me onto my next point of utmost concern; profiteering. Although branded as a backpackers hostel, prices and methods at the hostel were just ludicrous. Firstly, there are no alternatives in the area due to location, as the journey knows. Along with no facilities for guests. Therefore you are forced to eat a set meal every night with no choice. which The journey being stingy, greedy and solely concerned about profits provided incredibly low quality, low quantity and EXTREMELY overpriced meals. Alcohol and drinks were also ridiculously overpriced, with no alternative and a ban on consuming your own drinks. Overall it feels like the journey was simply taking advantage of their guests to the maximum degree possible.

Sleeping arrangements

Whilst providing beds with nets, the hammocks are theoretically a cheaper alternative for budget wary travellers. At the journey they simply want your money and then they leave you to the mercy of the elements! However, we stayed in the hammocks for 4 nights and our experience was horrendous. The stingy journey did not provide us with a mosquito net, a pillow or blankets. And the hammocks were unclean, smelly & uncomfortable. Naturally, my friend and I were eaten alive by mosquitos and incredibly sleep deprived due to the poor conditions. To summarise, this is a further example of a lack of care for guests well-being.

Further general remarks:

Reception far away and closes early; Only reggaeton music is played at the bar, and there are no other common areas to relax and have some peace; Very uncomfortable furniture with NO cushions in the entire hostel. Suffice to say by the time I left the hostel I had a very sore bottom indeed. There is little to no information about the local area and the staff make no attempt to help. Generally coming across as either unknowledgeable or simply uncaring. Shock.

To conclude, my friends and I were made to feel as if we were being sucked dry with absolutely no care for our welfare. I would never encourage anyone...

The best hostel we’ve ever been to.

We have been travelling for 7 weeks so far in South America and this is by far the best hostel we’ve stayed at.

We stayed in the bungalows and private rooms, which are not the cheapest, but the dorms seem much more affordable. The rooms have everything you need, and the private rooms (enclosed with air con) are extremely comfortable and a bit luxurious.

The pool and view are amazing but what makes this hostel so great is the vibe. It’s always busy and social but in no way a party hostel. Afternoons are spent sipping cocktails in the pool and chatting to everyone about their hike in the park or walk to the beach. Everyone is so friendly and chatty, and then all head up for 7pm family dinner. All of the food and drinks are quite reasonable price-wise, which keeps everyone in the hostel, chilling by the pool or in the hammocks, rather than out in search of better priced food.

The place is constantly being cleaned and the pool is maintained really well (we all had to jump out one night a little early for pool to be topped up with appropriate chemicals, so great to know they really take care of it).

The volunteers are all wonderful and maintain the amazing vibe, and the managers are so kind and involved in the hostel. There was a big party at El Rio one night and the volunteers organised taxis for everyone and really pumped up the vibe before we left, however we left around 9:30pm, so those not going still had a quiet hostel quite early.

The tours are incredible! Lola, the tour manager, is absolutely delightful and will do whatever she can to make it a great stay. Our favourite was the cocoa tour, which is an absolute must. She takes you up into the jungle and you have the most peaceful, relaxing afternoon among the trees and rock pools with a wonderful woman named Valerie at her shop.

The staff and volunteers have all the tips and advice for visiting the park, and the lunch-to-go that they prepare for you if you order the night before is so affordable and delicious (particularly compared to the prices in the park!). We went in and out of the park in one day, but had friends who stayed overnight in the park, and stored their big packs at the hostel for the night with no problems (just taking a small backpack with the essentials for the night).

We were only meant to stay for two nights before heading off to Palomino for two nights, but adored it so much that we came back for another three nights after Palomino. We were really sad to go and missed it when we arrived in Cartagena.

I truly cannot recommend this hostel enough!...

This place is truly amazing. We had been trekking in the park and were exhausted when we stumbled upon Journey hostel, a 3 minute taxi ride from the entrance to Tayrona Park -Zaino. We were so lucky to find this place: private and dorm rooms, tasty food, sunset views overlooking the mountains, welcoming and super chill staff, and finally - the dogs! They have two adorable dogs, and more animals roaming around. It’s truly a paradise in the jungle. The vibe is extremely chill, the founder designed all the huts / buildings himself out of natural local material using mostly bamboo. It gives the place an authentic vibe, but also fresh and very impressive. Our room was stunning, we had a private overlooking the mountain with the balcony open so we felt the warm breeze during the night. We had a big mosquito net included to cover the bed so we didn’t get bitten at night. The en suite shower was lovely, they gave us fresh towels, soap, shampoo and conditioner. There was however a little gecko in our shower, but we liked him so we’re happy to have the little guest. We’ve stayed at hostel all around South America, and this one has everything you could dream of, even a happy hour overlooking the sunset in hammocks. The prices for everything was extremely good, cheaper than other hostel we’ve found. The owner did everything he could to make sure we had all our needs met. My friend didn’t have another clean shirt because we had hiked so much and the owner gave us a shirt he had since all the stores were clothes. They had unreal food for dinner and lunch, family style but truly best I had in tayrona — fish tacos, burritos, etc, and breakfast was included early at 7am before we set off for our next hike. The owner has plans to construct amazing new spaces, so I will be back to see what beautiful developments him and his team make. Thank you for a...