Hello everyone and welcome back to the Hostel Road Trip Podcast.
The podcast that literally takes its show on the road.
Listen in as James Black and Bobby Dyer, owners of International Travelers House Hostels,
travel around the country to learn about these great locations and incredible people
that come together to provide a unique and exciting experience for travelers from all over the world.
Welcome back to the Hostel Road Trip Podcast, Season 3 Kickoff here in Charleston, South Carolina.
We are here with the godmother of hostels, dare I say, Miss Vicki Mattis.
Well, thank you so much for having me.
And Robert Dyer is with me again, co-founder of ICH Hostels.
Excited to be here, a little chilly, but having a great time in Charleston.
We are in a real recording studio, which is so much cooler than the normal surroundings that we find ourselves in.
Not that we don't love recording in the hostels, but this is a rare opportunity.
And thank you so much for having us in your radio station studio.
But as we always do, we love to hear about your personal journey,
which is going to be so very interesting as compared to others in the hostel industry.
But how did you first get exposed to hostels?
I was exposed to hostels when I was 18 years old, and my brother invited me to backpack across Europe with him.
Oh, what a cool big brother. Nice.
Yeah, that's right. It's all thanks to Pete, which is my friend, Pano.
And he planned the whole trip, and he told me hostels are incredible.
I had never stayed in a hostel in the US, but we went to, oh man, I have 20 plus hostels.
And we did a six-week backpacking trip together.
And yeah, that's what got me started.
Awesome. So you go do that tour and you come back, but as we just found out right over here, you're not from Charleston.
You're from Ohio.
Well, I was born in Connecticut, and then I lived in Michigan, and then I lived in Ohio,
and then I lived in Florida, and California, and New York, and New Jersey.
Wow, what a gypsy.
So I lived a lot of places.
How did you fall here?
I fell here because I went to the College of Charleston.
But really I fell in love with Charleston, and they happened to have a college that didn't have a football team,
which was kind of crucial for me.
My brother went to Penn State, and I spent a lot of time with him there.
It's not my thing.
It's very overbearing sometimes.
It's by the sea, it was public school, it just had such a great vibe.
Charleston's so walkable, so bikeable, it's so beautiful.
I fell in love with the city, and I've been here pretty much ever since.
Cool, now how much longer after graduation did you open up the Not So Hostile?
Well, it was in my senior year actually.
Really?
Yeah, so my second half of my senior year.
I started in December of 2006, and I graduated in May 2007.
So I was working full-time and started to manage the hostel.
Wow, we graduated college the same year and month.
You look so much better than I am.
That's great.
How did you find the hostel?
I knew someone that knew the current manager, and the way it works here is that if I ever left,
I would have to find somebody.
It's not a job that's posted anywhere, or it's kind of a word of mouth.
So I knew someone, she was leaving, she actually was going to get married to Joe Gill,
who presented last year at the conference, who was from Asheville.
Oh, that was an interesting circle.
Yes, it was a real close.
So she still was in that hostel world, but she left, and they needed someone to take over the hostel.
And that was cool, we got to meet your business partner, Bob,
and you've got this really cool equity sharing type of operation and structure.
Tell us more about that. How does that work?
So as a recent college grad with $30,000 in debt, I didn't have any equity, didn't have very much credit.
But I had this opportunity to run this business, and we do a 25-75 split.
So it's a good deal, depending on which way.
Yeah, as time progresses, coming out of college.
Oh my gosh, no, it's actually been incredible.
If I was a salaried employee, the difference, I mean, I think I made $18,000 the first year,
and then the next year, $21,000.
And then it just continued to grow, and so I could see that my efforts were related to how much I was getting paid.
Which is great.
Which is very different.
It's motivating.
If I just got paid $30,000 a year for the past 12 years, I probably would have switched careers or something.
And it's very different that I'm so motivated, I'm so tied into the business.
But now my 25% has become 20% because I saw how valuable it was,
and so now all of my employees are tied into that system.
So I give them 5% of my ownership.
That's pitching.
Yeah.
That's good for you.
Well, that also would explain as you've retained some awesome staff.
I have.
My staff stays for five years plus.
Unheard of in the industry.
Nicole, before, stayed at the Annex for five years.
Bailey's on her sixth year.
I love Bailey.
She's great.
She is so wonderful.
She's, yes, her sixth year anniversary.
And they're all so happy, you can tell.
That's something that's a challenge.
A lot of times you'll have that employee that stays for that long,
but sometimes they run their course and you're both not happy with the situation.
But they're all glowing.
So you're doing something right.
Thank you.
We provide housing.
We provide incentives.
Like they're, it's kind of more of a European model.
So my business partner is European.
I'm actually European.
My 100% Greek, but my parents are from Greece.
I have my citizenship with Greece and the USA.
Yes, the Greek, yes.
But that model is a little bit different.
So it's like, if you have these comforts,
if you have some secure lodging and you have some help with your health insurance
and you have this space and time to explore other things,
I don't feel that we are, we don't feel that same pressure that I think a lot of our cohorts do
of that living paycheck to paycheck and just the incredible pressure
of having to make everything work with limited funds and resources.
And so much of that comes from having that team.
By keeping them together, you're allowed to rely on them and they're comfortable
and it kind of just goes, keeps going in a full circle.
Yeah.
And then when I realized too that I am not able to run my hostel without my staff.
So it's like I'm getting, I think, too much of the credit for the not so hostel
on the front page of the Business Review.
And I get these awards, the highest green business awards.
And the press wants to talk to me.
We're in the New York Times.
I see it in your place. It's great.
It's my staff.
Yeah.
Who's there like 35 hours a week every week?
Like who's scrubbing the toilets every day?
It's like I did that for a long time and I still do that once a week.
I still like.
That's great.
You still work from the front.
I still work the front desk. Yeah. Once a week.
How about the hostel? Tell us a little more about like the size of it
and kind of how it's grown as now you have an annex house.
Yeah. So the original size, we had 24 dorm beds at the main location and 8 private rooms.
And in 2010, I opened up an annex location, which added an additional six private rooms.
So we can't we have 38 beds and we sleep 50 if everybody is.
I really love the layout of your hostel, the original location.
It's got a couple of buildings that kind of go back into this expanse of a property
that you have a lot of open space, plenty of parking, but the bonfire last night, things like that.
Really cool communal spaces outdoor.
Have you always had so many dorm the same number of dorm beds and privates?
Or have you kind of seen how the market demands more dorms and private kind of fluctuated or?
It's always been the same. Oh, really? Yeah.
Nice. That's the best.
You hit it right from the beginning and you stuck with it.
Well, I just think dorm beds are really important.
And I know that people say that the market is in private rooms and I do see that in the weekend.
But, you know, my people who stay in dorm beds, it's just it's different.
Like there has to be hostel owners have to carve out spaces for backpackers.
Or you lose the identity and the energy of the place.
It's so true. But I think that's so cool that to find out that you have that system with your staff of that.
As you rise, they rise with you. Absolutely.
They earn with you. And I think that's great for other operators out there to hear.
Sometimes your staff can get discouraged as you do better and they perceive and see you doing better,
but not as much as them doing better.
So I can definitely connect that now and seeing how your staff works and works with the passion that they have.
Did you have any inspiration hostels that really got you excited to kind of start it or maybe some that you still follow?
Yeah, absolutely. Actually, the same as yours. The hostel in the forest.
Oh, it's such a wonderful place.
And life changing hostel for me. I've done several of their full moon sweat lodges.
I just all the green initiatives that we have at the hostel really were inspired by my background in permaculture.
I lived down in California for a year and went to the New College of California for a little little stint there
and got certified in permaculture and grew my own food and had this love for organic farming.
But the hostel in the forest, I guess, brought those two worlds together.
They have a gray water system, composting toilets, you know, they make you take all your trash out.
You have this awareness of how much trash you are generating.
So that is true. It makes you aware of your footprint and your impact.
So yeah, and conscious of it and little things like our trash bags.
There's so much more. Well, not so much more expensive.
I guess they're slightly more expensive, but they're biodegradable, which to me is just thinking full circle.
That's what the hostel in the forest really makes me reconsider. It's like, what's the full circle here?
I'm putting something in this bag that's not going to decompose for hundreds of years.
So the smallest thing I can do is to make it in a bio based bag.
Yeah, that's amazing. I was traveling in Brazil recently and, you know, it's just the difference in the size of their trash cans.
Like in other countries, they have like tiny little for us in America would be like the bathroom trash can.
But in America, we need giant trash cans everywhere. It's amazing just how much trash we consume in America.
We produce so much. So much junk.
Right. And so I was part of the Green Business Challenge for the city of Charleston for several years
and always won the top awards along with Boeing and SCENG.
And then there'd be me like the not so hostile.
I love it. I love it.
Because we would track how much, how many gallons of recycling do we take out every week?
We would track it all year long. We track our water bill, our energy bill.
That's awesome.
Yeah. So little things like green cleaners. I don't expect my staff to use anything that I don't use.
We use organic sheets like everywhere possible.
I think it's so important that consideration that's put into it.
Like at the conference we've been talking about, your personality and your soul is in it.
In it. In it. Yeah.
And so even though we don't advertise a lot of that stuff, it's just that it's important to all of us.
And those little choices you vote with your dollar. Yes. You really do.
So when you're buying thousands of trash bags, what kind of trash bags do I want to buy?
When I'm buying so much cleaner, what kind of cleaner do I want to buy?
I feel running a hostel is so much of, like we've been saying, a reflection of yourself.
And for myself and us, we grow all of our own food and we try to live off our land and our garden
at our personal home and then also at the hostel as well and feed the guests as much as we can.
But it's so much easier to, again, provide the guests with your same lifestyle.
Use the same pillows that you give your guests. Use the same sheets that you give your guests.
The same mattresses that you have at your house are the same when your guests are getting.
Because it'd be more challenging if you have to almost live two lives.
You have your own personal life and then you have the hostel life.
It just doesn't, it's not as authentic.
Practice when you preach, right? Yeah.
I think it makes such an impact too when someone tries to take on the image of a green company
for the marketing prowess of our advantage.
Then you see the guy walk outside and throw a butt in the ground and a plastic cup in the trash and walk away.
Obviously, your staff's not going to follow as passionately if the person leading the charge is living it.
Yeah, so I had this very interesting system for a little while with my staff
where if I didn't honor my word, then I would owe them 30 minutes of service.
Oh, look at you. That's amazing.
It's very Catholic of you.
I learned it from a teacher, a local mentor, just that taught me how important it is.
I can't have these policies and rules if I don't live them.
Not follow them, but like if I say I'm going to be there at 12 o'clock and I show up at 12.01, it's like, what do I owe you?
I told this girl I would switch the laundry and I didn't.
So the policy is like, please bring it to my attention.
So then I think I did her laundry, I washed someone else's car.
That experiment was like, OK, how much am I willing to say?
Will you switch the laundry? I'm like, maybe.
Honestly, the answer is maybe.
Or the answer is like, yes, and I will do it.
Or, no, I can't do that.
So just bringing this awareness by doing it myself, it does spread to my staff.
Yeah, organically it does.
Yeah, I mean, it's just like you have to really embody who you like, who you want to be.
And then I created this feedback system, too, just that how am I doing?
I love Jack Canfield's Success Principles.
It's a fantastic, inspiring book.
But it's like, how am I going to grow through feedback?
And my staff has brought lots of things to my attention.
It's like, oh, that's not fair. I can't do that anymore.
And that's so crucial to have and be willing to accept that constructive criticism
so that you can get better.
And so much when you get up at the top or you're running your own business,
you can get that mindset of having, I think, not thick enough skin
or not willing to take that reflective moment to see how you're doing.
So I think that's great. How are we doing?
Bailey will write me a list of everything I did wrong on the shift.
That's great.
You know, especially I noticed, like, leading up to the conference,
when I'm stretched pretty thin, she'd be like, you didn't open the blinds.
You didn't empty the coffee filter.
I'm like, thank you. And I'm sorry.
And I won't do it next time.
And, you know, but that my staff is on that level of comfort with, like,
to bring it up at our staff meeting in front of everyone.
These are all the things you didn't do.
And well-trained.
Very well-trained, yes.
And you being willing and big enough to accept it.
That's great. Yeah.
Now, with your studying, did you study literature or?
I studied psychology.
Psychology. OK.
And creative writing.
So the creative writing. I was going to say, how did the writing?
Because my next question is, and topic I want to talk about,
you literally wrote the book on hostels.
And for all of us, and it's so cool to see at the conference,
when you have all these first-time hostel owners or people that are trying to open up,
just like we were when we were getting into the business at USA Hostels,
and you're like, well, there's got to be a book on this.
How do I become a good hostel manager? And yours was the only book.
We all bought it. We all read it. We all carried it around.
It fell apart and just beating it up and taking notes in it and everything.
So when did that come about? How did that project evolve?
Yeah. Well, I love doing research.
And so when I started this job without any experience, I just researched on the Internet.
And if someone else had written that book, I would have just bought it and read it.
Yeah, but no one had.
And years went by. And I thought, well, I've been doing this for six years now.
I'm just going to put all this together.
And it took a long time for all that to come together.
But then I went to India for a month and I went and did all this different meditation,
went to different caves. I was there for a month.
And I realized as I watched, like I struggled writing this manuscript for the past two years,
and it was not coming along.
So I realized I really wanted to get it done. I needed structure. I needed to outline.
And instead of fighting against my natural inclinations, I just worked with them.
If I sat down to write when the muse inspired me, I would write 10 pages in two years.
It would take a long time. I can keep myself busy with tons of other things.
So I set up this structure and it took me two months.
I went to the public library every day at noon from 12 to 2.
And if I was a minute late, I stayed an extra 30 minutes.
And if I missed a day, I had to go in on Saturday.
I also realized, yeah, like working with my mind and the discipline of my mind,
and if I really wanted this project to happen, that's how it had to have been.
I clocked in just like I was working for someone else, but it was for myself.
You know, this integrity with myself and this goal.
And I didn't know if anyone was ever going to read it.
That's the other thing when you put so much time and effort into this thing where it's like,
does anyone care about this? You know?
And at the time, I had no feedback to say that anyone did.
And this is 10 years ago?
12 years. Wait.
When was the book published?
Oh, sorry, 2012. Yeah.
It was 2012.
Seven years ago.
Now, when you took the book idea to publishers, did you get just wild books?
Or was it easy to get the book published? Or how did that go?
So I worked with my business partner who had started Book Search.
Oh, what a perfect business partner.
So it was immediately published.
Okay, yeah.
And put on all platforms.
I didn't connect those dots there. Okay, that makes sense.
It's just a self-publishing platform, honestly. It wasn't anything special.
Anyone could have done that.
Oh, wow.
But yeah, it has grown from there.
And rumors of a second version coming out?
Second version is coming out, yes.
A release date?
This year.
Oh, my goodness.
This year.
I want to sign copies. Oh, my God.
I've learned so much in the past five years, I guess.
It's so much changed in the industry.
So much has changed, and with the conference, too.
I think I like a little bit more the personal touch, you know, the personal stories of the people that have come through.
I had that one chapter in the back of just like a night in that life.
But now that I've had a kid, life is different, and working in that constraint is different, too.
Well, we thank you for the first volume, and we're looking forward to the second edition.
We're going to take a quick break for our sponsorship, and then we'll get back and we'll talk real quick with Vicki about the Hostel Conference,
American Hostel Conference, the revival of it, and the momentum we have going forward.
Stay tuned.
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And now we bring you back to your regularly scheduled program.
Welcome back to the Hostel Road Trip podcast.
We are still here in Charleston, South Carolina with Vicki.
And we were just talking a bit about the American Hostel Conference, which we are at right now.
It's so exciting, as we were talking about earlier today, to have a collective gathering of some of the brightest minds in the industry,
as well as some of the newer players in the industry, all mixed together under one roof.
And everyone was giving you a bunch of kudos and pats on the back.
I'll give you another one now for reviving this idea that there is a need for the American Hostel industry to have a conference each year.
But how did you go about, similar to how we asked about how the book came about,
how did you come about to say, I'm going to do this for last year, for the first one?
Yeah. I spoke at the World Hostel Conference in 2010 in Brooklyn and 2011 in Vancouver.
And that was really inspirational. And I reached out to them, Hey, are you guys going to do any more conferences?
They were like, what happened? You know, because I really love that community and that connection.
And it was really exciting.
Why did they cancel it?
I don't know. I don't know.
But so then I waited a few years. And then it's kind of the same thing with the book.
It's like, well, if no one's going to do it, I guess I'm just going to do it then.
There you go again. You just grab the bull by the horns.
Yeah. I never planned a conference before. I mean, I just, I booked a venue and then I sent an email out.
That's literally, I just sent emails out.
Just feelers, yeah.
Yeah. And then like 45 people came last year.
It was so great though.
Up to like almost 60.
Yeah. And what I thought was really cool last year,
we had the benefit of going to the first one in, the second one this year.
But last year we kind of went on a conference tour.
We came here. We went to the Hostel World Conference in Dublin.
We went to the Hostel Skills Conference in Germany.
And all within the span of two weeks.
So it was really cool to see the different formats and layouts.
And we enjoyed yours the most because we thought it had the greatest balance of relative information,
good conversation, good panel speakers, but also an intimate setting where you could all get to know each other.
It didn't have a corporate feel at all.
Some of the, you know, the Hostel World Conference, you see a lot of guys in three piece suits, you know,
as we were talking about today, talking about they have hundreds of millions of dollars and they're going to buy out the whole industry.
And you're just like, oh my God, what is this?
So it was really refreshing.
And as we were talking about it this year and everyone's asking us, why aren't you going to Dublin?
Why aren't you going to Germany?
We enjoyed this one the most.
Yeah. And we were like, we're going to stick to the American one because we're an American Hostel.
And we think it's important that this conference grows.
So once again, thank you for creating it and keeping it going.
What were some of the challenges you faced in starting it?
Well, besides that, it's a lot of work.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
Just a one woman show. Yeah, there is no corporate funding.
Yeah.
I'm really grateful to CloudBeds. They signed up as a sponsor both years.
And I guess I just I don't know.
I've always had this sense if I really put it out there that people will come and that it will be supported.
Just like I think there has to be that leap of faith.
It's kind of cliche, but it's like a little bit of like, I don't know if this is going to work and that's OK.
If you don't risk it, no biscuit.
That's right. Right.
You know, you got to think like that sometimes and just go for it.
Well, you know, and for listeners out there, you know, keep your eye on next year's conference for the third annual,
because what I've always said and I said earlier today when we were doing some of the speaking panels,
it's so cool to see aspiring hostile owners that have read your book, found you that way, now come to the conference.
They still haven't opened up their hostile. They don't even know where the building is.
But they're coming to collaborate and get ideas and brainstorm.
And then to see them this year at the second annual one, having opened their hostels successfully, really is a beautiful thing.
Yeah, it's definitely one of the best forums in America where you can meet hostile people, hostile owners and share ideas.
And then Charleston as a city, I think is perfect for it.
You know, it's really cool, cozy little city, very intimate.
And then having your hostile as a place to stay at, the networking just always goes on, you know,
even after the conference is over, we have the nice bonfires at night.
Everyone can relax and kind of let their hair down and get to know each other on a real level.
And then to see and hear how all of those relationships continue to go on after the conference.
You know, we stay in contact with each other. We visit each other's hostels.
And that's all because of you, because we all came here to meet here.
So that's really a cool thing that you create, you know, and it just goes and the energy goes.
So I think that, you know, you're really on to something here with the conference and really exciting to see how you continue to evolve it
and continue to help the industry grow because it really is needed.
Now, other question and a hot topic at this conference as well.
We talked about it last year at the conference, an association.
Everyone wants an American association, but we have this difficulty of everyone is also a hostile owner.
So we're all busy. You know, you know, you've got your radio station, you've got your book, you've got all kinds of things going on.
And it's difficult to run these things and put in the time and build the structure.
And I think it's interesting how we kind of as a industry find ourselves in this like gray area of who should do it,
how are we going to do it, how are we going to set it up, who's going to be responsible for it.
And what are your thoughts on that as of now? Yeah.
So last year we talked about Nata, which is why I was excited. Yeah.
National Association. I wanted to be the Southwest chapter president of hostels in America.
And we had a call and it's just yeah, it's just difficult to add work to people's plates.
You know, and I run this nonprofit here, the radio station. So I know how difficult it is to run a nonprofit.
And so I just I just I'm not sure it just hasn't happened yet.
It's kind of it's like a seedling. It's still under the ground. Yeah.
But my vision for it really is that there's an environmental aspect to it. Oh, yeah.
Because there there is you know, there's Hosteling International. Yep.
And there's there are associations and there might be more. I just and they're all inclusive, which is great on some level.
But that's not really my vision. My vision is like, what is this hostile doing to make to make the world a better place?
Like all hostels contribute in some way from the social aspect and cultural connections and breaking down barriers.
But what is this hostile doing for the land that it sits on?
You know, that is in business like I'm really interested in triple bottom line. Yeah. Yeah.
It's like so that is kind of my vision of this hostile.
You know, if you see the Nata symbols like this hostile has done significant consideration for the land that it sits on and not just it's not just cool.
It's not just like creating a place for people. It's like one step further. Yeah.
And it's not having as much of a negative impact on the environment. Yeah, I love it.
I went to school at University of San Diego and they used to preach conscious capitalism. Yeah.
And that was a really cool thing that stuck with me in the way of like, make sure you're doing what's right, not what's profitable. Yeah.
Oh, you know, in that if that can come before the profitable and you can work that into your culture, then I think you can have a profound impact on your operation.
Regardless of how this association element evolves, as I keep on saying, whenever someone asks me if I'm going to join their association or if I would join their association, I always ask, are you on it?
Because if you're not, I'm concerned. And I think that you need to be, if not the key player, at least on the in some type of advisory board capacity, because as I was calling some of you earlier today, hostile OGs, you know, the original gangsters of the industry.
I think it's so important that you and a Darren over being the people that have really been doing this for a while and have established the industry well before the struggles that we all go through, which would have been significantly harder if you all weren't there.
We didn't have the books to read or hostile management.com to go to. I think it's important that that base is included, at least an advisory board because would be missing out on so much intellectual property, if you will, that you guys have.
You guys have had an experience, so I hope that we can get an association in place, but I think it is an absolute necessity that you're involved.
So let's continue to work on that one. Now, to talk a little bit about the hostile.
How did it get its name. Actually Claire Cunningham the original. Yeah, what does it mean? Not so hostile. I think it, it touches upon the stigma of hostels.
I think it's going to be like this is not what you think it's going to be. Okay, it's going to be a lot better. No, it's going to be clean. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be comfortable.
You're actually going to sit down with people from five different countries around the breakfast table and have coffee with them. And it's going to just be you can feel the vibes. Yeah.
When you walk on the property, it's got a great thing.
It's got a great way to it, the flow of it and the energy of the buildings. And I think you've done a great job. And we were talking about earlier today. Of course, everyone would love to build to sue and have the one massive commercial kitchen.
But you know, you've got your situation where you've got a couple of small kitchens. Yeah, I've got five. You've made it work so well that it flows well together.
And I think that's a, you know, a pat on the back for you and how you can create that within the space you have now when it was taken over by you from the prior operator. Did you make any drastic changes? Oh, yeah.
So there were some significant operational changes. Tell us about that. Well, there were no systems.
They took the keys and they threw them under the office door. That's how they checked out. And yeah, there was just no no systems. It was incredible. Nature systems. Yeah. So I got lots of systems.
I also threw everything away that was in the hostel, just like all the furniture, all the catches, everything in the lobby, repainted everything, redid all the floors, redid the ceilings. Just those are some big major ones. It was kind of a I'll do this if I can if I can totally renovate it.
I'm not going to take over, man. I'm not going to run a hostel with like dingy broken yellow tiles on the floor. Just like they're never going to look clean. I need to renovate this whole thing. So not total renovation. Not like what Heather did at Black Elephant. Not like that.
It was just it was one year I did the floors, one year I painted everything. But when I first got there, I threw everything away. That's for sure.
You just got to get a little better each day. Paint one more day or something. Yeah. And yeah, I liked how you talked about with your business partner in one of the presentations that you have your facility fund or capital fund and each year you prioritize.
And you work on each year and I think people can get overwhelmed and in over their heads if they try to do everything at once. Yeah. And you really do have to take a look at it like what can I realistically do? What's most important? Let's do that.
Now, you're operated and took over the not so but then eventually you opened up an annex down the street, which is mostly private rooms, right? It's all private rooms. And how far away is it from the original location? Five blocks. Okay.
So within the wheelhouse here and that increased your occupancy. But we were also talking about the sweet spot earlier today. Yeah. And you were just mentioning the Dunn. Dunn bar's number. Dunn bar's number.
And I think that's a great analysis there because we were talking about that. And for listeners out there, if you're doing well and you feel like your hostels got this awesome energy and it runs super great and everything's clicking, there is a number that you will cross that you'll lose that.
It tells more about this Dunn bar. Well, specifically this Dunn bar's number. It's it's a suggested limit to the number of people with who you can have a stable social relationship with. So some companies and corporations won't hire, for example, more than 150 people.
Let's just say this is our capacity or it's estimated it's between 100 and 200. Okay. So they just kind of generalize it around 150. But it's that the Robyn Dunbar found this correlation between the primate brain size and the average social group size.
And so that you can comfortably maintain 150 stable relationships. And so I think what you were talking about the sweet spot, I love having 50 people at night. You know, it's a lot.
It's also enough to be like, how was the beach trip yesterday? Hey, did you find your laundry? Like to have those relationships and then the next day do it all over again. Yeah. Where I've been in some really big hostels and it's as soon as it gets into feeling like a hotel, then it feels less natural to be like, hey, what did you do yesterday?
Because the environment I was talking so much about design is so important. I can't remember who said it, but like we design buildings or and then the buildings design. Yeah, it's like we're so close both ways. Yeah, we're so highly influenced by design and good design.
So beautiful. You know when you see it and you know when you feel it. But the layout of the hostels just that we we kept the original house structure from the 1800s. And so there's a lot of private spaces. So it honors both like which is kind of what's happening now. You can you can have your little kitchen and then you can go to the big kitchen and interact or you can go to your private room or you can hang out in the lobby on the porch. Yeah, like you said, it happens naturally. Like even if you're the manager, the owner and you're the host, you can't do it.
I feel like the guests just act differently if there's more people around you know versus if they're 50 people are just more comfortable. But if you have 125 or 150 bed hostile, the guests just for some reason naturally just are a little more standoffish and more private, not as makes people more introverted. It's amazing. And even as a backpacker on the other side, but now when I look for hostels, I prefer the smaller ones. Yeah, I want to go to a 50 better less hostile. Yeah, I think that's a good point.
I prefer the smaller ones. Yeah, I want to go to a 50 better less hostile because I know the experience is going to be like a hostile and I'm going to feel the owner's character in the hostile. I'm probably going to meet the owner. I'm going to be able to have a conversation with them. And then from the operating standpoint, we have our little Italy location we were talking about earlier today. It started at 18 beds and it was the most Bohemian little you knew everyone's name and you knew where they were going and you felt like you could smother everyone with customer service. And then it got to 50 and you still feel the same and then it crossed 100 and I was like, this isn't the same.
And now it gets closer to 150 and none of the original systems work. You know, all the original operations you got to throw out. You also need you need night instead of having one washer. You need three washes.
Yeah, you're just a multiple. It's so scaled up. You really got a whole redesign your whole facility. And I feel like as an operator, when I'm in that location, I change. I become more introverted. I become more overwhelmed. I don't know the people as well as I used to.
I feel like not part of the operation, but I feel at that moment is like the only time I feel like I'm an owner that's distant and detached. And I feel like those guests look at me like that too.
Whereas in the smaller operations that we have, you walk in and you get hugs. You know everyone's name and you check them in. So there it's a really defining difference.
And I think that when you see these big hostels with three, four hundred beds and they're all fired up, it's not hostile. You know, I mean, it's almost like a cattle barn and you're just like pushing people through.
I think it's because you see maybe you see people like, oh, I just saw that person. Yeah, I saw that person again. I saw that person 10 times today. Now I feel like now I could be like, hey, what are you doing?
And I think that's what's really going to make what makes hostels special and what's really going to keep us so unique as the years go on and we progress compared to like the newer hotels that are building more social areas.
You know, those hotels, they need to have 150 rooms to cover this hundred million dollar project that they created. You know, where the hostels, I think the great hostels are going to stay around that 50 beds so you can provide that intimate experience.
Meet the host, meet the owner. And we were meeting guys at the Hostel World Conference last year, the three piece suit guys, you know, and they were like, oh, we've looked up your operation.
Like, why would you ever open up a bed, a hostel with less than 200 beds? That makes no sense. We're looking at them like what you're opening is not a hostile.
You know, you're just looking at it from such a margin perspective, pushing people through and they're not thinking about the experience.
And I find it so interesting how they'll say, why would you open up a hostel less than 200 beds? And how do you have that special sauce? I'm like, your two questions just answer each other.
You know, like, and you can't figure that out. And that's something we talked about today in the conference of the podcast project we're doing here is to preserve and highlight all these genuine authentic hostels that you can feel the character of the owner in the walls and the blood, sweat and tears.
And that's what we're really going to try to do going forward is to continue to highlight those operations. And we find it interesting that a lot of those larger operations in season one and season two didn't want to participate.
They were like, that's probably better off because this isn't for them. Yeah. So we're going to take one more quick break here.
And when we get back, we're going to talk with Vicki about the perfect day in Charleston and what the experience at her hostel is from the backpacker perspective. Stay tuned.
Thanks again for listening to the hostile road trip podcast with us. We want to take a second to talk about one of our sponsors that keeps the road trip alive. That is the International Travelers House hostels located in San Diego at three locations, Big Bear Lake and Newport, Rhode Island.
International Travelers House provides a unique experience at each one of their locations with great staff, great food and tons of connections to the local community so that you can have a great time vacationing, traveling through or staying for a while.
If you want more information on ITH, check out ithhostels.com to check out videos, pictures, blogs and direct booking to our locations. Thank you again for listening. We hope you enjoy the conclusion of this episode.
Welcome back to Hostel Road Trip podcast. We are closing out first episode of season three, Southeastern US. We are here in Charleston, South Carolina with the godmother of hostels, Ms. Vicki.
And we are closing out with talking a bit about your awesome hostel as we could sit here and talk with you about you forever. But let's talk a little bit about the facility.
So you broke it down how we have the main house, we have the annex. But tell us a bit about Charleston. What is a backpacker experience like here?
Yeah, it's a beautiful city to explore. I find that if you build your hostel, people come to explore it. Yeah. And so like other surrounding cities that don't have hostels, I find that backpackers will just pass it by even if it is an incredible city.
Yeah. But we're lucky that we have a place for backpackers and that you can walk everywhere. It's a walking city. I love that. It is. And it's so beautiful.
And what is perfect about Charleston is that they have really preserved the historic charm and character of it. So if I wanted to paint my house white, which is currently white, I'd have to go down and apply for a permit to paint it the same color it is.
It's like it's very considered. And you see that in in this city. And it's very different from other cities where zoning is a little bit more flexible or you can just do whatever you want. There aren't like in Houston, there is no zoning. So it's so interesting.
Preserves it so well. Yeah, people just knock down these old houses that are commonly great for hostels with high ceilings and big rooms.
And we operate out of a lot of historical homes in San Diego. And the Historical Society loves us because when we go and say like, hey, we want to not touch this. We want to preserve this building. We want to use it in its format.
Yeah. When they usually have developers that are like at very best. Can I pick it up and move it somewhere so I can build some monstrosity here? Yeah. So I think that's spot on with how you have a great walking city that's kept its like original form to it.
But I noticed as we were driving over here, this is a coastal city. What is it like in the summertime with like the beach and the coastline? What goes on there? Yeah. So we're nine miles from the beach from Folly Beach.
And it is hot in the summer, but I love it. Yeah, it's hot and humid, but it's incredible weather. I mean, the beaches are sandy and beautiful. And yeah, it's just an incredible city. Is it a big sailing town?
Yeah, a lot of sailing reminds me of Newport, Rhode Island. That's where I'm from. So that colonial feel and the coastal town like a city by the sea.
I also find like what we're talking about earlier about Dunbar's number and growth. It's a peninsula city. So just like San Francisco, just like Manhattan, it's not going to get any bigger.
And so they have really worked hard to preserve what is here. And so that now, I mean, recently that they could build buildings a little bit higher than a church steeple. But until like a year ago, you couldn't.
So when you walk down King Street, it's approachable. It's small. It's comfortable. It's it's just heralds to a different time when money wasn't the most important. Very true. Maybe less materialistic.
Or it's just it was considered differently, like the ornate architecture and time they took. Yeah. And it was just it was it was very well considered and preserved.
It's an interesting comparison because we're talking about a lot today in the podcast, in the conference, the large cookie cutter size hostel where it's more like a motel six.
And they're just putting in boxes and rooms and they're all the same. Right. No matter what city you're in, they're all the same.
I think that's really cool in the construction here in the city. They've preserved it. And you can see the effort in the detail craftsmanship that used to go in when a guy would build a house.
He was so proud of. This is John Bolton's house. I built this house with my son's. It's just perfect.
Well, for example, if you go to the annex, the porch is severely slanted or at the main location, the middle house on the top floor, it's slanted.
So we'll get reviews like this house is falling down. No, we can't fix that if we wanted to. The city is like that is a historical part of this structure and you can't change it.
So I don't know if you guys have been upstairs, but the porch is like this. I thought I just drank too much.
No, it's an intense slant. And it's just like something is kept, I guess, when that charm, it just goes back to a different period, different way of thinking, different way of living,
because now it's harder to get that unique experience. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And for potential operators out there, always look to historical homes in your city as a great option to explore for opening up a hostel,
because a lot of people don't know what to do with these spaces. Yeah. A lot of people can't change the spaces, but you can revive these spaces. Right.
And so for people coming in Charleston, the touristy thing, I guess we like go down to the market, but we tell people to go the opposite direction.
Like go to Hampton Park, you know, go see where they used to be a racetrack where they used to have the World's Fair.
I mean, what can you do in a park? Just just sit and enjoy the park. Take a moment. Take a moment. Go to the park cafe, which is right next to it's like where if you lived here, where would you go to eat?
Yeah. If you lived here, where would you go hang out? It's like I'm not going down to the market, you know, or the angel oak tree, which you all should definitely go see.
It's one of the oldest trees in the southeast. It's just been beautifully preserved. It's free to go to the the root structure is bigger than this room.
I mean, it is those southern oaks. Is that what it's like? Isn't it a different oak tree? A southern oak? Is that true? Generally, I mean, oak trees generally. Yeah, there's different kind of oak.
I always don't remember a southern oak was like the strongest wood. Yeah, yeah, big. It's big and beautiful. I think it's twelve hundred years old. It's like incredible.
So just to go there and be in its presence and that how hard the city has worked to preserve it, to prevent development from coming around it. Yeah.
Yeah. And just to walk around and see what it's like to walk around with the brick that has been there for hundreds of years.
And you're right off of King Street, which is the main strip, right? And it's a young college town. You know, you've got a lot of vibrant things going on.
So I think that's also something we've learned in our past two visits here for the conferences is just once you get here, you know, throw on the shoes and you can walk around anywhere.
And it's a fun city to walk around. It's enjoyable to look at the architecture and all those things. I got one last question about the architecture.
What's up with the porches with the door that then open behind it? So it used to be that you were taxed based on your like number of windows you had facing the street.
Oh, and then also it had to do because there wasn't any air conditioning. I guess the wind came in differently from this side.
So you could have this huge house, but on the front of the street, you'd have four windows. I got you. Yeah.
Instead of your house being long way this way. Yeah. Yeah. The construction. And then you could also catch the sea breeze.
OK, that's awesome. Yeah. Well, backpackers out there.
This is a hot spot to come check out and still is this South Carolina's only hostile still to this day? Yeah.
Well, you are representing it well, solely by yourself.
But make sure to put the not so hostile on your agenda to come check out whether you're a backpacker or a hostile operator.
It's definitely a can't miss. And stay tuned for upcoming news on the third American Hostile Conference next year.
It's getting better every year. And we just want to thank you once again, Vicki, for putting on this conference, writing your book and inspiring all of us here at this table and behind us at this conference to take that leap of faith and to do it.
You've got so much good karma coming your way for that. Thank you. All right. Thank you guys. Thanks for doing what you do to us.
Thanks for having us. Yeah. All right. Well, I'm Jimmy Black. I'm with Bobby Dyer. It's great episode. And Vicki Mattis and we are closing out episode one. We hit the road on Thursday.
We'll be going to North Carolina and Tennessee and recording episodes there. And you'll find those on SoundCloud and iTunes. Thanks so much.