Travelers' House — Hotel in Portland

Travelers' Hostel was a gem of a find for my 7-day stay.

TL:DR ... if you're in Portland, want affordable home-like living ($35-40/night for a bed in the 8-person dorm) with tentative hosts, regular crowd of guests, great location to amenities, and a good nights rest, this is your spot.

Long-form review ...

The hosts. Grant, the owner, was a caring, positive individual who loved meeting travelers and providing any and all value to the guests. Due to the small size of the hostel, he was very attentive to each individual instead of having to accommodate a large guest list. I loved this personal touch. Other folks who worked there, Tony & Hailey, were both lovely as well. Very attentive, happy people. Hailey created a self-guided tour that you can load into Google Maps. I used it a few times to find some great spots, such as McMenamins pubs. It provides some discounts as well!

The other guests. The range of guests wasn't too eccentric, but there was some uniqueness for sure. Florida resident saying it was "too cold here", the sweetest San Francisco gal saying it was a getaway they could see themselves living in, a German traveling down the coast, a Toronto-native making the trek over, to a Frenchman busily cooking in the kitchen were just some of the various characters. I enjoyed their diverse backgrounds, felt safe, and everyone was modest, quiet, and respectful.

The hostel. It was not like any other hostel I've been to, in that I felt like I was at a friends house for a week. It was a homey, proper house for, well, a family of 24. Signage throughout talked of gratitude and being grateful, of being resourceful and keeping showers short, composting, and being accepting of others. Quiet hours were enforced between 10 PM - 8 AM to respect the guests. No shoes past the front door kept the hostel very clean. Laundry was accessible for $6 (which I did), towels for rent at $2, bicycles to rent for $20/24h and the likes. The main bathroom was better than my bathroom at home. They also had two toilets and another shower -- there was never a moment where I could not use the bathroom and only short periods without the shower available. The 8-person dorm was roomy, with solid bunk beds that didn't creak like some of the cheap ones I've had to deal with. One downside was that there were no outlets on the top bunk for folks sleeping up there -- maybe some extension cords could be built in. A minor point. The common areas were fun to relax in, the front porch was perfect for relaxing (I had an enjoyable beer with two gals) and the backyard had seating and a Friday night fire pit to enjoy. The other rooms were two 4-person dorms, a 3-person dorm, and a private room, all ranging from $35-$80/night, which was affordable in comparison to the limited other options. I found the 8-person dorm to be easy to sleep in; they even offered earplugs if desired. I would happily re-book the 8-person room. Last comment, the Wi-Fi was really good!

The location. When my Uber was almost at the Hostel, it was 9:00 PM on a Saturday and I started to wonder if we were going to the right place. It sure looked residential and beautiful. Not a place I would expect a Hostel to be. When I got out at the curb, there were three 20's folks on the front porch, and a Travelers' Hostel sign out front. Ah, all is well. After being helped in and shown around by all the fine folks, I started to learn more about the surrounding area. Mississippi Ave was a hot spot for bars, restaurants, and shopping, all nicely condensed into a 5-10 minute walk. Alberta street, the street the Hostel was on, another, more stretched out hot spot for all the places you would need. As for downtown, a $9/10 minute Uber drive or 20-minute, $2.50 bus and you're there. I spent several days in the city center, since I used a WeWork office to work remotely. I also walked to the city center on my first day without a hitch as well as biked across the bridge into downtown.

Enjoy your stay at...

In the colorful leftist tradition, I will fluff up my initial review like a cotton candy machine combines hot air with pink-dyed white sugar. To exalt my own saccharine verbosity, I will return to a testimony written in the tint of memoir. Thereafter I will tail off with a koan (rhetorical question), intended to caramelize the marbling of sentiment and reason into a vitally aerated naked substratum for which the creative power of travelers may harness, along their right to exercise such lines of excellence, so that the future genus Hominidae may perchance evolve within a scope without providence; anew; fresh with overcoming! These combined methods equal the sum of my honest review as well as my best effort towards an outline for an exhaustive dissertation: "Oxymoronic Hospitality" (to be published at a later date). I digress:

The meat, or rather semi-rigid paper tube, to the backbone of this pinky cotton candy review is my personal distaste for, or disappointing dissociation of, such an artificially sweetened, contrived festivity. That is to say, not all who go to the fair are merry - especially if one goes with an appetite for lunch but finds only fluffed up sugar wisps aerobically wrapped around paper tubes. There is a difference between curiosity and motivation among all people; a child may ride the carousel with simple glee, whereas a wise man may approach the situation differently - as he operates from a higher, more evolved set of pleasures and satisfactions - by getting drunk, puking on the plastic ponies, and stealing as many brass rings as he can fit into his pockets - for merriments' sake. In a milder form, a wise man may just be looking for lunch and good company.

I'm sure that at this juncture the online reader (perhaps departing me now) and respective staff are growing weary of all this metaphor, simile, and roundabout literary devising. Be not weary of this strongly slated accidentalism! For this is my personal justice I am seeking - let me explain: a futile effort was made on my own behalf to inoculate just a simple dash of culture into the sparkly clean and sterilized kitchen of The Travelers House; indeed a grand opus of magnet poetry, which was composed on top of the fridge - and from the top of my soul - was promptly aborted, deleted, in what I perceived in the ether of the moment as either a beat of the wings from the symmetrical & paradoxical wings on the butterfly of Fortune -- or a mere strum of meek human concordance with the Neo-Leviathan of our Age: the benevolent and perfect ruler; Comfort.

How then, in fact, was the experience unsatisfactory? I will deliver my testimony and reveal the mirthless essence of The Travelers House.

One night, I believe it was just before Halloween, there was a group of perhaps eight of us -- lively and engaging individuals from both the US and abroad congregating in the main room, warming up to a typical hostelesque spontaneous evening of introductions and good intended chit-chat. Indeed, a night wonderfully familiar to a hostel of any sort, anywhere in the world. However, this place was not a hostel, but a house of some ominous kind, and this was not just any place in the world, but an intentional exception to it: Portland, Oregon. So then, just as what would seem to be customary to a group of traveling individuals, there began to crackle a small kindling, a central spark to what could have been a smoldering and rich slow-burning fire, swooning us all together through the night. Tragically, this was not to be; the limit of noise had been breached, as was ordained by The Rules, being dispatched to all of us sitting there (yes, sitting - we weren't rowdy) by a slumberous young lady, clad in her nightgown, emerging from the house residents' upper story. "I can actually hear you guys talking upstairs, and it's past quiet hours." All at once, it was unanimously felt, that this was a home, not a hostel. What was the time? Nearly half past ten o'clock....

Everything that follows boils down to this: Traveler’s House is the best hostel I’ve ever stayed in.

Traveler’s House is located in a beautiful converted house in Northeast Portland. The inside is lovingly decorated with personal touches, and is kept meticulously clean and tidy. This lends a welcoming atmosphere that demonstrates how sincerely the staff care about the comfort and enjoyment of their guests.

Everyone who works at Traveler’s House also lives there. It is literally their home. This gives them an investment and sense of pride in the place that is palpable. It gives a distinct charge to the energy of the place.

One caveat is that Traveler’s House isn’t a party hostel. The vibe is more conducive to relaxed and friendly conversation. Quiet hours start at 10. While there is a common room designated for quiet late night conversation, things generally settle down as the night goes on.

Of course, there are plenty of great local bars and brew pubs to head out to if you’re not ready to settle in for the night.

This brings me to the next point that makes the Traveler’s House my favorite hostel in Portland: Northeast Portland is awesome.

Each area of Portland has a slightly different flavor. The Northeast is one of the more low key, less developed areas. Because its slightly less expensive and off the beaten path, it attracts a lot of Portland’s artist community.

When you walk around, you’ll find all kinds of quirky houses with sculptures in their yards, murals on their fences, paintings on their doors, and other little bits of public art that lend a cultural distinctiveness to the area.

Most of the interesting things to see and do are located on Mississippi and Alberta, and Traveler’s House is conveniently located near the intersection of those two streets. It also happens to be right next to the 4 bus line, which is a particularly convenient bus route that loops all the way through downtown into the hip Hawthorne area of Southeast Portland.

Mississippi street is full of food carts and restaurants, record stores, art galleries, and small press bookstores. The kinds of things that make Portland such a special city.

Alberta has a lot of the same, in addition to an abundance of beautiful street art. Alberta also has Salt & Straw, which is surely the finest ice cream in existence.

By the time I left, Traveler’s House felt like home. I can’t recommend it...