Great British Road Trip - Isle of Skye hostel review
As our road trip across Great Britain continues we venture to the Isles of Skye on the west coast of Scotland. Easy to get to thanks to a bridge and filled with truly awesome scenery all around.
Our hostel for 4 days would be the Broadford Backpackers hostel in the tiny town of Broadford. Just a short drive from the bridge crossing and on relatively flat land before the mountain peaks begin. It's an unusual building and one that helped to create quite an unusual hostel.
We checked in and were given a quick tour. The building was once part of the nearby hospital. Presumably a day-patients ward judging by the number of old 'call' buttons on the walls. The long building had a large V roof that dominated the structure and layout. We settled in and grabbed a free hot drink in the cosy lounge with a very tall ceiling.
Hostels these days vary wildly in what they offer and their attitudes towards their guests. The Broadford Backpackers ticks a lot of the boxes right away. Young friendly staff who feel like part of the group. Free wi-fi in common areas, free tea and coffee all day, a great lounge area and a washing machine. The list goes on. They even a have a bath!
I noticed a conversation on twitter recently about art in hostels. Guests and owners of these places are usually a creative bunch and some have clearly been busy at this place. From the moment you step in there are murals on every wall. Everything from Gaelic proverbs to abstract bubbles. There's a mermaid tangled in seaweed in the bathroom and we had a wonderful tree on the wall of our room. It really did help decorate the otherwise bland walls. I especially liked the chalk board opposite one of the toilets where you could leave a message. So to speak.
A hostel with a bath? Now that is unusual!
The main island of Skye has its fair share of quirky museums like the Glendale Toy Museum and the Skye museum of island life but what you really come here for are the landscapes. Cars become insignificant specs set against a backdrop of epic mountainous peaks and cascading waterfalls. We took a couple of day trips out during our stay.
There's a wonderful loop you can do easily in a day. Up the A87 to the north of the island. Stopping at numerous view points especially to see the Quiraing rocks, Duntulm Castle and Kilt Rock with its amazing Mealt waterfall crashing down on the beach below.
Dunvegan Castle is well worth a visit and is also another good day trip to the west of the island. It's one of the most complete and beautifully located castles you'll see in Scotland and has a very rich history with the McLeod clan. One of the more famous clans who's chiefs still live in the castle to this day. The grounds of the castle are equally pretty and if you take a walk around the back you can reach the volcanic rocks with a fantastic view of the castle and the loch it sits next to. The castle is a fairly expensive to enter but there's no better place to find out about a famous clan of Scotland.
Another important aspect of a hostel is its kitchen. With tourists on a tight budget eating in is essential to saving some money. In my experience hostels are usually quite aware of this and provide pretty well. The Broadford Backpackers is no exception. They had ample fridge room and supplied boxes to keep your food on shelves too. I quite enjoyed the ballet dance each dinner time as multiple meals are cooked and dishes washed. 5 or more of us in the kitchen narrowly avoiding each other as we create our culinary masterpieces. The dining room next door has space for about 15 or so and is also filled with some great photos in frames from all over Scotland.
No hostel is perfect of course, our bed made an insane amounts of noise every time you so much as moved your little finger. The walls were paper thin too with some heavy doors and the showers often had the ability to go to volcanic levels of heat just for a split second. In the end none of these things caused any real issues. The showers were powerful and warm and there was 4 of them so we never needed to wait. The bedrooms are all big and bright too with their own art and ample room for bags. The guests were all quiet and respectful during our stay so we actually got some good nights sleep. Even with a large group that left early in the morning. Ear plugs are always a good idea in any hostel. Thankfully we slept well and felt at home here.
We really enjoyed our stay and it was refreshing to be at a hostel that really understood its guests. It had everything you need, lots of freebies and was big enough to accommodate a decent crowd without annoying anybody staying there. It's even got two very cute cats (Hamish and Muck) that occasionally offer themselves for cuddles on the sofa!
Thanks to Eva and Jam at the Broadford Backpackers hostel for the hospitality and running a great hostel! And to our sponsor HostelWorld for sponsoring our Great British Road Trip.
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