Hello friends and travelers. Thanks for listening. You are riding along on the Hostel Road Trip podcast.
Our mission is to spread awareness of the true hostile experience in the Americas and share stories from the fascinating hosts who create those unique facilities.
I'm your host Jimmy Black, joined alongside co-founder of International Travelers House, Bobby Dyer.
Each session, we sit down with hostile operators or travel influencers to hear about their real success,
discuss trending hostile topics, and close with tips for travelers who are seeking to have the ultimate experience when visiting each destination.
You can't afford to miss this trip. Now fasten your seatbelts and let's hit the road.
Welcome back to the Hostel Road Trip podcast.
Jimmy Black here. I'm live from Big Bear Lake, California at the ITH Big Bear Lake Hostel,
joined by my co-founder of ITH, Robert Dyer. We call him Bobby. He's down in Salita, Mexico, nearby our Salita Amazing Hostel.
I'm joined by Sarah, very excited to talk about the Santa Cruz Hostel and what's going on up there in beautiful Santa Cruz, California,
located on the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway and the coast and just an amazing backpacker trail within America, our favorite.
A little biased on that, but it is a beautiful space of hostels along that coast.
So, Sarah, I always like to ask off the bat to make sure we cover it. What was your personal exposure to hostels?
How did you get into it? Were you staying at them a lot? Did you work at them a lot? What brought you to where you're at now?
Yeah, I did stay at them. I don't say a lot. I traveled a lot through Europe, like in college, and then in West Africa, and then in the Eastern Caribbean.
So, I guess it was more just like the international travel part and meeting international travelers coming through Nashville at that time.
Nashville was the first hostel that I worked at. Was that the Music City one?
I did manage the Music City one, also the downtown one.
Okay. Same owner.
Okay, so we did two podcasts, or we went to each of those locations, did one podcast.
Years back, before they had the awful incident there with that bombing that messed up, because it was such a beautiful hostel.
We had seen it when it was just getting finished there, and what an amazing job it was.
So, you worked with Ryan?
Yeah, so I guess I did work with Ryan, and he's the reason why I'm also in Santa Cruz. He's in Monterey.
And the Monterey Hostel is open and looking really beautiful.
So, is this a collaboration? Are you two like sister hostels from Nashville?
No, but just friends of me.
Is that cool?
So, you work together, and you meet at a hostel in Nashville. They go through some tough times.
And then you both end up finding yourself running your own hostels on the coast of California.
Right? Yeah.
That's awesome.
Yeah, right when I got done with the Peace Corps, I moved back to Chicago, but then I moved to Nashville, and was looking for a job.
And I seriously just happened to walk by the hostel and was like, huh, maybe I should try this.
And I go in and there was a sign on the desk that said they were hiring a manager. So I was like, all right, let's give this a try.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
And then to Santa Cruz, tell us a little bit about that hostel story and how it got started and where it is today.
Yeah, well, you know, the Santa Cruz Hostel is a nonprofit. It's run by the Santa Cruz Hostel Society.
The Santa Cruz Hostel Society was started in 1972, and their original locations were in high school gyms in the summer.
And then they also rented like a Victorian house downtown, but more mainly just seasonal hosteling.
And now they're located at the Carmelita Cottages, which is a city owned property in the city of Santa Cruz.
And we lease it from the city.
We've been in this location for 32 years.
That's awesome.
Yeah. And all the cottages are from the late 1800s. The property is just beautiful.
Very relaxed space. Happy. Yeah. Yeah, it's a beautiful location.
We went there a few years ago. I've been there. We've both been there. And it is a really cool, really cool property.
Come back. It's cooler now even.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, Bob was mentioning that.
And he said, you know, next week we're doing Santa Cruz. I was like, oh, yeah, we did that one before.
And we were kind of laughing because it's in the Hostile Road Trip podcast, Deep Vault, because we never released it.
So this will be the. Oh, really? Yeah. This will be the first release.
I looked on your thing and didn't see any from Santa Cruz. Yeah.
So but we have the recording somewhere. So now I've got the task of going and bearing it out of an old iMac.
But, you know, we'll release your episode first, but maybe we'll have a flashback episode sometime soon down the line.
So you can see how the growth has been. But we actually did an on-site recording at that time.
This was before the pandemic. Who was that with?
You know, he it was a younger guy. Yeah, I bet he had his own vodka thing going on.
Yes. That Devin. Devin. Yes. I've never met that person.
But yeah, he was a wild man. He had his own vodka company type of thing going on.
So there was a lot of vodka during that recording. Probably led to the fact why it's in the Deep Vault.
But it was a great time and it was before the pandemic.
So we used to actually go on the road on a road trip and then we'd hit up a bunch of hostels and record at the location.
That's also obviously the pandemic stopped that for a while.
And then the zoom became a very efficient way of doing it.
But it was really cool to see that property.
And there's so many hidden gems that people don't know about within the hostile industry.
Yours, one of them in the way that like you would never think that hostels operating out of that layout and that property.
It's so cool. Gorgeous. You were like, no way a hostile could afford to like rent this out.
But you've got that unique situation where the hostile society is a nonprofit that has at least from the city at a very great rate in a long term basis.
And it allows you to offer that awesome product at an affordable rate.
Yeah. So we'll be there for at least another 20 years.
Good for you.
Just send a new lease.
Oh, that must be so cool to have that relief and have that forward looking view and track.
But that's great to hear because it's so important that towns like that down the coast have great hostels because I've always been a firm believer that that increases the people's use and willingness to try out hostels.
And then they start hopping, you know, down the trail or up the coast.
So I'm so happy to hear that Santa Cruz will be locked in for decades to come.
How many how many beds are because it is a unique you have so many little cottages that are so cool.
Main houses thing like how many beds in total.
Yeah, so there's five cottages and 42 beds. So we sleep 48 if you put two in a, you know, full or clean bed. But, but yeah, it's so small. I mean, relatively small.
Well, I think that's the perfect size. I've always been a believer that once you go over 50, you start to lose the intimacy with every guest, you know, and it now they're just a they're in bed eight B. That's not Barry.
You know that you lose that that you don't know every guest by name like, yes, yes. And we've got a range of hostile sizes that we've got within our little collective, you know, that go from 30 beds up to 80 beds.
And the difference is so noticeable if you're picking up a shift in the 80 bed hostile and you've got 55 checkouts and 37 check ins. Oh, my God. As compared to the 30 bed hostile where you know that that guy likes caramel and his pancakes.
You know, you know, Judy needs to catch that bus tomorrow. You know, make sure she, you know, that type and I that's really when you get Bob and I always have the ultimate host.
You know, you really can cater in that old school bed and breakfast type of hospitality where there's that intimate connection with the guests that makes them feel like they're at home on the road.
So I love that size. Now with 48 beds.
You're the manager you do live on site or off site.
On site.
And then do you have, do you do the work exchange on site or do you have volunteers. We do have some work stay we do have a lot of off site volunteers also but they mainly help with gardening.
Nice.
The property set like inside of a garden, and the timekeepers garden so all the plants are from the times of the cottages, they're all labeled.
It's gorgeous really beautiful.
How is your experience been managing in Nashville, versus out in Santa Cruz, was it pretty similar or anything you learn.
Santa Cruz is way more my style.
From the beach I'm guessing you're speaking from the beach.
Nashville I love that's why I lived there for eight years.
It's, it's, I'm older now. Nashville is very drinking focused.
It's off of Broadway which is the main party street, it's 24 seven it was 350 beds it, you know, lots of bachelor bachelorette parties.
This is why it our start at 10 o'clock 10pm they go till 8am you rarely have to say anything to anybody most people just go to bed early and wake up early to more to enjoy nature and Santa Cruz to get out early go and surf in or if you're
going to do a big hike the next day.
So yeah, this is way more my lifestyle. So,
activities at the hostel.
Yeah, this so we in the summer we have more activities so like right now tonight we have like a BYOB happy hour. We do yoga on the beach.
Every week we do a community potluck where we have people from the neighborhood come.
A lot of the board members come and join and then hostile guests and everybody brings a dish.
Very cool. We do beach days every Saturday.
And then on Sundays we do s'mores over the fire.
Yeah, it's all about it's all about bringing the people together but I love to hear that you had the yoga and I feel like the California hostel vibe has very much more a health and wellness vibe to it.
Yes, right. I love.
And as I've gotten older I've appreciated so much more I'm like, oh, thank God, you know this is perfect. I love that you've got a bunch of active things to do tomorrow and you're looking to get a good night's sleep.
We're gonna have a great breakfast, and then you're going to be out for the day and you're having fun and we'll get the place clean. Yeah, it works. It works well.
And it's when you're younger of course you when you're enjoying the party more, and you're in that you know that could be a dangerous vortex but it's a, it's a whole different experience for the hostel and I feel like there's that health and wellness initiative
built into the experience.
Yeah, I love it.
It's it's it's a much more attractive state if you feel better yourself, you know you're feeling good. You know you want to stay longer, you know, if you're, if you get blackout drunk and you're hungover and everyone snoring and the guy throwing up in the bathroom
like I'm getting that was a good time, but I'm getting out of the top.
I'm like, thanks for the stay but I'm going to check out early. Yeah, so I think people miss that a lot of times that are, you know, maybe a few less keg parties and more yoga classes schedules you know and more heights and more surfing and more adventures,
because we've got the weather, you know, and it's just beautiful out all the time, and we need to take advantage of that within that and I've always not to go on a ramp I felt that we could start, maybe through one of these hostile associations that have been
created, getting like a brand like you know some places are organic and they get a sticker like if you had a health and wellness stamp for the officer, you know, so you would, so they would know, like hostile and us could do that's like, there could be a category.
I want to go to a health and wellness graded hostile, and I know that there's going to be yoga classes there's going to be outdoor adventures there's going to be a focus on getting outside and you know eating healthy.
And others would follow.
Yeah, I like that I feel like it would do well to that's like so much of our guests are doing.
Yeah, yeah.
First time hostilers.
That's great.
Yeah, how about a like before you got into the hostile industry what have you learned now being a hostile manager for years and two places like that you would maybe tell yourself before you became a hostile manager like how has your life changed or maybe what have you
learned about yourself through being a hostile.
Well, you know you get more comfortable with on, you get more comfortable with uncomfortable situations, you know, to guess about weird things.
And training your staff to talk to guests about weird things like if people are smelly I tell them right away when they come in like your body odor is offensive to me, and it's going to be offensive to other people in the room and you know you're welcome to do laundry or
take a shower but something has to happen.
Right. That is always a tough conversation but you got to do it.
Yeah, you know just taking yourself less seriously and not showing so much emotion.
Yeah, right there that one minute you just gave some great advice for any listeners out there, new hostile managers or even doing a long time. You have to reiterate those things to yourself.
Because if you take things personally. If you, you know, let things get you know overwhelmed or if you let the gasoline go on the fire you can start having some really crazy days, but I like your approach, be direct, be honest.
It cuts out all the bullshit, you know, and it will save everyone a lot of pain and suffering in the long run.
I want to get shirts that say rule enforcer please don't make me work.
What were there to do, like, be a decent human.
Take care of space.
Right, clean up after yourself be respectful. I like that.
That's very good. How about walking into like a walking into a hostile that's been there for so long like how did you take that, like, obviously you know sometimes a lot of people are making their own hostile for the first time but, you know, to go into a
hostile it's been around for 50 years like, how did you approach that situation and then how do you, you know, motivate yourself to keep on paying it forward for years to come or, you know, what did your mind said to that.
I think that was the perfect time. So it was more like almost like starting over because the pandemic was still in place. Things were all shuffled around from like what they were doing normally they had closed for a year they reopened and only were doing
private cottage rentals.
So I got there in September, this September will be my third year in Santa Cruz. I arrived in September and by December I had changed it back to hostiling and opening up hostile beds.
So really just, I feel like I kind of did start over.
Right. Yeah, that's true. Right. Yeah.
Yeah, just like putting like policies and procedures in place that I'm familiar with like getting things down systematically so that everybody knows what's going on everybody knows how to respond to a question.
So that people aren't getting mixed answers for.
Can I check in early, you know, like just even simple things like that. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
It's so important and that's a something that we focus on so much as we had more locations added that you have to have those systems to procedures and if they're all the same in every location, then you know that breakfast at is 730 to 930.
But slight deviations by a person's personal preferences, you know, like, well, I want to start it earlier so I can wrap up earlier so I can go on my.
You know, like, well now that someone else comes in behind you from another location and gives the wrong time and now everyone's all after. Yeah. So it's so important and I love that attitude you have given it that clarity because that makes the experience so much better for everyone.
And then the guy as well the ripple effect if the staffs all stressed out and everyone's living on site. Guess what.
That's, yes. Yeah. Yeah, contagious in that way our energies so I think that's awesome. I mean I've also just had great staff.
Since I've got here and it just made life a little bit easier.
You know turnover is always a difficult thing you work at a hostel so it's like you want your staff to go travel and follow their adventures but every time you get that. Can I talk to you, you're like,
I just got that today. Yeah.
We know we know in mid August.
Yeah, there you go. But it's a it's an industry of gypsies and you have to embrace it. You know,
I tell them that at the very beginning like don't get stressed out about it. I'm not stressed out about it.
Just tell me your feelings I don't want the letter on the bed in the morning.
The letter John letter is what I don't want so please do tell me. Yeah, you know, I think that's important to embrace and accept that it is a high turnover transient gypsy industry.
And you know that that is what it is but the systems make it easier. Right. Yeah. Right. Now you can plug and play plug and play.
So I think that's great point.
How about her challenge fortunate being in starting in Nashville I mean my boss there. Both of them are just smart and no hostiling and taught me a ton I mean Ron and Tracy are awesome and just are very passionate about hostiling.
And so they just make you want to make it better for the guests like a better guest experiences, the direction you always want to go, you know.
Yep, but also teaching you that the guest isn't always right and that's okay. Yeah, yeah, that's a very good point as well you know standing ground when you know that you're right. Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
How do you find what do you find is the biggest challenge in being a hostile manager.
Oh, I mean, I think I would go back to staffing.
Especially like this house was very seasonal. Um, so just finding that good balance between having too many staff or not enough stuff and living on sites another thing where you're living on site you're always interacting with guests and you know being okay with that
and taking the time to get away when you need it so that you're not shopping somebody's head off for no reason, because they asked you what time checkout is you know you're like,
recharge the batteries for staff, how do you maybe how do you give any tips or advice on how you motivate staff or keep your staff excited to stick around.
We have, um, I mean, still a job but we have a lot of fun. I asked them always what their interests are. They're the ones that run the events, they come down to the beach and hang out with the guests, they do the s'mores.
They get boardwalk passes seasonal boardwalk passes as an employee per so you can go down to the boardwalk anytime you want ride rides.
That's great.
I always, I always, I mean, when people ask for time off I never hesitate. The answer is yes, of course.
Go ahead. Nice. Yeah, keep it fun you got to create an experience, you know it's not like a normal work, you know work job where you, you know you want to keep it fun and because it's a lifestyle and everyone's living there it's a community.
Exactly, it's a lifestyle job. And so just like when it's almost nice the turnover to like in the hostile aspect of it. Yeah, and you have the new blood that comes in that's like, oh I want to go out and take guests paddle boarding or want to go on a hike or not.
Oh gosh, I've been doing this for a year and I'm kind of tired and I really just want to go home.
It's so true and we started to amend our management contracts and expectations for that reason of, hey, let's take this six months at a time and then we, we, we insist that you go travel somewhere after that six months, you know you've got to go on vacation,
you've got to go travel you got to get out, because we were losing too many good people that didn't really want to leave the job or the company. They just met so many people that they wanted to visit and travel go see them right yeah.
And so we were like this is silly we want you to go travel because when you come back you've stayed at 15 hostels you've got all these new ideas, new ideas, new yes. And now, and then you know you tag in for someone else who then gets to go in on their vacation.
I'm already thinking how can I get away this winter? No, I tag it. And then helping each other out with that. I'm up here in Big Bear and the manager that lives on site was, hey, it's a friend's birthday the next week can you cover this day?
And my immediate thought, how do I now trade this for a day with her to make a three day weekend where I can go sailing? You know, so you got to use that and help each other out so that you all can get off site because living on site will eventually burn you down.
And it's so important to have a few hobbies.
I'll tell you about having Ryan right here is we have we both use you know the same property management system. We have mainly the same like policies and procedures, especially just because we both came under the management of Ron from Nashville.
Yeah, I give my staff his number when I'm away. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, and he's happy to you know field phone calls and answer questions about cloud beds or if anybody's having problems with things and that's one step away.
Yeah, well, you know, but so many hostile owners that are singular hostile owners find themselves in that they feel like they're trapped in their castle. I can't leave and then even when I do leave I'm not really leaving because I'm getting called and I'm panicked and I have anxiety.
So I was talking to a friend out in New Hampshire was dealing with that.
And you have created a cool thing where you didn't get a part of a buddy system of a peer, you know, a professional that you trust and have worked with. And now you both can utilize that with each other. Now do you both use cloud beds.
Yeah, we both use cloud beds for you both use go key locks. Oh, nice. So that's perfect. Good for you too. Yeah, that's fantastic. Great system.
I was going to add on to that, and we do this with some properties and we'd be happy to do with you but letting staff stay for free at other hostels so we have a hospital in Santa Barbara so if any of your staff ever want to come down for a night or two, we'd be happy to host them
give them a comp bed. Yeah, it's nice to get away for a night.
You know, so I guess staff member from slow come over.
Oh cool. I like that. That's cool too. That's a good idea. I'm always open to hosting hostile employees will always find a spot for you.
Right. It's a great way to get away.
Go travel.
Yeah, visiting Santa Santa Cruz, what would you say is like the best things you should do if you came out for a couple days from the local tips.
Um, I mean Santa Cruz is just so beautiful. Um, I mean you got to go see the Redwoods.
I would highly suggest trying to get out and on the water in some capacity whether you want to get surf lessons or head out on a paddleboard steamers Lane is right here which is like one of the infamous surf spots.
I think there's just so many things the boardwalk is awesome. The big, the giant difference had its 100 year anniversary.
So if you like, I use that rides there.
Two and a half blocks from our front walk to get to the boardwalk and.
That's all. Super cute.
Now, how about that? We've got a hostile up in Chinatown in San Francisco to the north here. Right? And then we've got 1 to the South and Santa Barbara. Then we have LA. What would you.
What would you say would from a public transport advice be? How would you get to Santa Cruz? What would be the best?
So best is to fly into San Jose.
Okay.
And then you take the 17 express bus which is $7 one way and drops you off a 10 minute walk from the hostel.
If you're coming here flying into San Francisco which most people do because it's often cheaper.
It's not so bad you take a train to San Jose and then a bus to Santa Cruz.
Going south is not great because from Santa Cruz, you have to go back to San Jose to go back down. So even like, if you wanted to go to Monterey, it would take you about 3 hours on public transit.
It's 45 minutes by your car.
Okay. Yeah, yeah. This is why we need. Yeah, we brought a school bus and we have this. We were trying to think we got to create the old PCA.
Yeah, so hopper and I was talking to Ryan about I was on Ryan about this. I was like, now we got you in Monterey. We got Santa Cruz.
You know, that is one of the elements of that area. It's so gorgeous.
But because it's so gorgeous, there's not like a tremendous high flow of easy public transport in and out. So maybe that's something we could all explore and revive.
I feel like it'd be so cool to have that happen up and down the coast, even just during the summer.
Yes, right. Yeah, that would be awesome.
Because we always have guests going that way. And especially since, you know, Big Sur is not open all the way through. So you got to go around.
Yeah, now, well, a quick question on that personally. What is the status on that?
It hasn't been opened all the way through. I don't think since I've lived here and in the sea, which is like halfway through,
is where like the biggest slide is and pretty much every rainy season, it just gets worse instead of getting better.
So they're saying now maybe by this fall.
Okay, we'll see. But it's still beautiful even just to go down to Lusia and back. But sure. Yeah.
You know, besides being in Monterey, there's no other way to get out back down to 101.
Hey, well, you know, maybe that's when we could we could time it out to do this bus idea when they reopen the whole run again. Yes. And be ready for that time.
Get on board. Here we come straight through. All right. Well, just a pleasure speaking with you Sarah. Love your energy.
So happy that we got you on the West Coast now in the California collection of coastal hostels and Ryan as well.
I think we got a very bright future in the coming years to host a lot of backpackers, show them a great time and don't be a stranger.
Come visit us. Use the reciprocity yourself. Come stay at any of those spots. Yeah, same to you and your staff.
Absolutely. Love to have you. Do you have anything in closing to say to any future potential guests or hostile managers aspiring?
Nothing inspiring, but life is awesome. There you go. I'll take that.
All right. Thank you so much. That's funny. Hostels are more fun. Thank you so much.
Hostel Road Trip podcast Santa Cruz Hostel episode will be dropped shortly. Bob Dyer, South Santa Cruz. I'm Jimmy Black. Peace out.
Thank you, Sarah. Yeah, thanks for having me.