WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.280 But yeah, he started with a bus he had bought. 00:00:04.379 --> 00:00:07.919 He did a road trip to Panama. So Boston to Panama. 00:00:08.279 --> 00:00:12.980 Wow. Pretty wild. Lots of fun stuff. Met all 00:00:12.980 --> 00:00:15.720 these people. And there was a sort of unofficial 00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:21.420 network of, call them hippie buses, that ran 00:00:21.420 --> 00:00:25.699 around the world. Some of them were London to 00:00:25.699 --> 00:00:28.670 Cape Town. There was, you know, there were all 00:00:28.670 --> 00:00:31.570 sorts of all over the planet doing the same thing, 00:00:31.609 --> 00:00:34.469 taking a bus that's sort of out of service by 00:00:34.469 --> 00:00:37.590 regular bus companies, but still usable. I mean, 00:00:37.609 --> 00:00:41.130 a lot of these things, they're made to go four 00:00:41.130 --> 00:00:42.869 or five million miles. You know, they're not 00:00:42.869 --> 00:00:46.439 made like a car. Hello, friends and travelers. 00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:48.719 Thanks for listening. You are riding along on 00:00:48.719 --> 00:00:51.240 the Hostile Road Trip Podcast. Our mission is 00:00:51.240 --> 00:00:53.719 to spread awareness of the true hostile experience 00:00:53.719 --> 00:00:56.679 in the Americas and share stories from the fascinating 00:00:56.679 --> 00:00:59.640 hosts who create those unique facilities. I'm 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:02.079 your host, Jimmy Black, joined alongside co -founder 00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:04.079 of International Travelers House, Bobby Dyer. 00:01:04.299 --> 00:01:07.200 Each session, we sit down with hostile operators 00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:10.359 or travel influencers to hear about their road 00:01:10.359 --> 00:01:14.019 success, discuss trending hostile topics. and 00:01:14.019 --> 00:01:16.319 close with tips for travelers who are seeking 00:01:16.319 --> 00:01:18.459 to have the ultimate experience when visiting 00:01:18.459 --> 00:01:21.480 each destination. You can't afford to miss this 00:01:21.480 --> 00:01:23.760 trip. Now fasten your seatbelts and let's hit 00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:30.659 the road. All right, welcome back to the Hostile 00:01:30.659 --> 00:01:34.060 Road Trip Podcast. Today I'm filling in for our 00:01:34.060 --> 00:01:36.480 host, Jimmy Black. He's not with us today, but 00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:39.829 he's here in spirit. And I'm honored to be joined 00:01:39.829 --> 00:01:42.870 with Rex Baldwin from Green Tortoise Hostel. 00:01:42.870 --> 00:01:45.549 Welcome, Rex. Hey there. Thanks for having me. 00:01:46.030 --> 00:01:49.549 Yeah, thanks for joining us today. So, you know, 00:01:49.569 --> 00:01:51.030 I've known you a little bit, but I know you've 00:01:51.030 --> 00:01:53.969 got a lot of great experience in the hostel industry 00:01:53.969 --> 00:01:56.829 and have done many amazing ventures and seen 00:01:56.829 --> 00:01:59.510 a lot. So we'd love to be very excited for the 00:01:59.510 --> 00:02:02.909 episode and can't wait to dive into it. We'd 00:02:02.909 --> 00:02:05.609 love to kick it off with your beginnings in the 00:02:05.609 --> 00:02:08.949 hostel industry. What was your first exposure 00:02:08.949 --> 00:02:14.930 to hostels? Well, let's see. In the mid -70s, 00:02:14.930 --> 00:02:17.849 I joined the Green Tortoise Adventure Travel. 00:02:18.030 --> 00:02:21.069 So that's a bus, sort of a camper tour company. 00:02:21.590 --> 00:02:25.169 And we always would be dropping people off at 00:02:25.169 --> 00:02:31.229 hostels. And our schedule, anyway, it was amazing 00:02:31.229 --> 00:02:35.620 times. Very similar in some ways to a hostel, 00:02:35.759 --> 00:02:40.599 but sort of more intense. It's the sharing economy. 00:02:41.039 --> 00:02:45.319 People getting together, sharing maybe a smaller 00:02:45.319 --> 00:02:50.719 space, but getting more fun and better value 00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:56.199 for their travel money. We had a bunch of different 00:02:56.199 --> 00:02:58.560 things. We would do these cross -country tours, 00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:01.860 camping tours that would go, you know, Bryce 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:05.240 and Zion and places like that. And then out to 00:03:05.240 --> 00:03:10.580 Yosemite. We did a lot of different camping tours. 00:03:10.759 --> 00:03:13.240 And then we started a line run from L .A. to 00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:18.280 Seattle. And we would go. One of the funny things 00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:20.800 that sort of started us thinking about hostels, 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:25.639 we would get to Seattle. And the hostel would 00:03:25.639 --> 00:03:30.199 always be full. And sometimes we would call them 00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:33.379 the day before and try and reserve a space. And 00:03:33.379 --> 00:03:37.439 they would, you know, they would do it, but they 00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:40.780 weren't exactly psyched about it because the 00:03:40.780 --> 00:03:43.020 way the Green Tortoise interior on the bus was 00:03:43.020 --> 00:03:46.280 set up, people would become friends. And by the 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:48.620 time they got to Seattle, they'd be like, oh, 00:03:48.759 --> 00:03:50.520 I'm not going to stay at the hostel. I'm going 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:55.580 to go hang at Susan's couch or whatever, Bill's 00:03:55.580 --> 00:04:01.599 other spare bedroom. But we knew there was a 00:04:01.599 --> 00:04:04.800 lot of people who needed that service. So we 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:08.099 decided to open a hostel in Seattle to accommodate 00:04:08.099 --> 00:04:13.199 our traveler guests for a place to stay in Seattle. 00:04:15.229 --> 00:04:19.290 We basically discovered it was a more viable 00:04:19.290 --> 00:04:25.449 business than the bus company. You have to kiss 00:04:25.449 --> 00:04:30.230 ass in about 15 different states. And everybody's 00:04:30.230 --> 00:04:32.889 telling you how everything is going to be. And 00:04:32.889 --> 00:04:36.209 you work like a demon. You do all these great 00:04:36.209 --> 00:04:39.610 trips. People love it. And then 10 years later, 00:04:39.769 --> 00:04:43.230 you got to buy another bus. And do it all, you 00:04:43.230 --> 00:04:45.829 know, rebuild the interior and modify, you know, 00:04:45.850 --> 00:04:48.529 get better. Every year we always improve things. 00:04:48.910 --> 00:04:54.209 But when you start a hostel, maybe you're leasing, 00:04:54.209 --> 00:04:57.829 but a lot of times you buy the building. You 00:04:57.829 --> 00:05:00.290 do a bunch of great things. Business is going 00:05:00.290 --> 00:05:03.029 well. You're helping people. People are jazzed 00:05:03.029 --> 00:05:06.509 about staying with you. And 10 years later, the 00:05:06.509 --> 00:05:09.920 thing you paid. $100 ,000 for is now worth $200 00:05:09.920 --> 00:05:13.680 ,000 or whatever. The scale is obviously different 00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:18.899 in different cities. So we started a hostel in 00:05:18.899 --> 00:05:23.000 San Francisco. Did you have the bus before the 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:25.439 hostel in San Francisco? That's right. The bus 00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:29.240 was based out of San Francisco. Started in 73, 00:05:29.720 --> 00:05:34.019 I believe. It was my partner, my longtime business 00:05:34.019 --> 00:05:38.160 partner, Gardner Kent. Super interesting guy. 00:05:38.300 --> 00:05:40.879 I talked to him this morning. He was just like, 00:05:40.920 --> 00:05:43.740 anyway, as true with all these interesting folks, 00:05:43.920 --> 00:05:47.680 super busy, still couldn't make it on them. But 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:50.639 he said, well, tell him hi for me. I think he's 00:05:50.639 --> 00:05:54.339 met both of you guys at different hostel conferences. 00:05:55.240 --> 00:06:00.920 But yeah, he started with a bus. He did a road 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:06.759 trip to Panama. So Boston to Panama. Wow. Pretty 00:06:06.759 --> 00:06:09.279 wild. Lots of fun stuff. Met all these people. 00:06:09.379 --> 00:06:12.459 And there was a sort of unofficial network of 00:06:12.459 --> 00:06:19.319 hippie buses that ran around the world. Some 00:06:19.319 --> 00:06:23.220 of them were London to Cape Town. There were 00:06:23.220 --> 00:06:27.160 all sorts of all over the planet doing the same 00:06:27.160 --> 00:06:30.019 thing, taking a bus that's sort of out of service 00:06:30.019 --> 00:06:33.300 by regular bus companies, but still usable. I 00:06:33.300 --> 00:06:35.399 mean, a lot of these things, they're made to 00:06:35.399 --> 00:06:38.529 go. for five million miles. You know, they're 00:06:38.529 --> 00:06:42.529 not made like a car. Every aspect of the bus 00:06:42.529 --> 00:06:46.709 is replaceable and in some cases upgrade. You 00:06:46.709 --> 00:06:49.410 can upgrade the braking systems and the fuel 00:06:49.410 --> 00:06:53.610 systems and other different things. Anyway, so 00:06:53.610 --> 00:06:56.810 we had a lot of fun. He started out taking that 00:06:56.810 --> 00:06:59.509 bus he'd done on the road trip to Panama and 00:06:59.509 --> 00:07:02.930 took it to Boston to show off his kids to his 00:07:02.930 --> 00:07:06.649 parents. But he went down to a ride center in 00:07:06.649 --> 00:07:09.389 Berkeley and he got all these people who wanted 00:07:09.389 --> 00:07:12.449 to pay him 60 bucks or whatever it was to go 00:07:12.449 --> 00:07:16.670 across the country. And well, you got to remember 00:07:16.670 --> 00:07:19.709 the price of fuel was about 11 cents a gallon. 00:07:19.829 --> 00:07:24.610 Wow. Different times. So it was like he was thinking 00:07:24.610 --> 00:07:26.649 about life, trying to figure out, you know, but 00:07:26.649 --> 00:07:29.209 suddenly here he is. He arrives in New York and 00:07:29.209 --> 00:07:32.470 Boston and all these happy people. And he made 00:07:32.470 --> 00:07:36.490 money. All the good things in life. You met a 00:07:36.490 --> 00:07:41.509 woman. All the things that make a shared economy 00:07:41.509 --> 00:07:45.410 better. So that's how the bus company started. 00:07:46.009 --> 00:07:50.149 And they'd expanded. I started working for him 00:07:50.149 --> 00:07:56.589 with him in 77. And yeah, he had trips to Baja 00:07:56.589 --> 00:07:59.750 and back and forth across the country slowly, 00:07:59.850 --> 00:08:02.209 but surely he kept adding a couple of days to 00:08:02.209 --> 00:08:05.959 the trip. And we do, you know, camping options. 00:08:06.420 --> 00:08:10.319 Just beautiful, amazing places. You know, we 00:08:10.319 --> 00:08:14.699 met this woman, Nellie Cooney. She lived on the 00:08:14.699 --> 00:08:18.139 Ogallala Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. And 00:08:18.139 --> 00:08:21.360 she let us camp in her backyard. And she would 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:25.100 put on sort of a Native American food dinner 00:08:25.100 --> 00:08:27.839 for us, for everybody. And then we'd go play 00:08:27.839 --> 00:08:31.250 in the Back 90, which was... Anyways, the Badlands, 00:08:31.350 --> 00:08:32.590 I don't know if you've been there. It's just 00:08:32.590 --> 00:08:36.590 amazing, sort of bizarre, interesting scenery. 00:08:36.789 --> 00:08:40.129 And we did all sorts of camping trips. Yosemite, 00:08:40.350 --> 00:08:43.830 Grand Canyon, you know, some of the regular stuff, 00:08:43.929 --> 00:08:47.110 but also the places that really stick in your 00:08:47.110 --> 00:08:52.509 brain when you're there. Kodachrome Basin. Bunch 00:08:52.509 --> 00:08:54.429 of different places in the Four Corners area. 00:08:54.669 --> 00:08:58.470 That part of the United States is amazing and 00:08:58.470 --> 00:09:01.730 it's hard to get to. If you land, you're a traveler, 00:09:01.909 --> 00:09:04.710 you're in New York City, you think, oh, okay, 00:09:04.850 --> 00:09:09.350 what can I do? I can fly to San Francisco, which 00:09:09.350 --> 00:09:12.649 is what a lot of people do. It's still beautiful, 00:09:12.750 --> 00:09:15.889 but there's a lot of gorgeous places in this 00:09:15.889 --> 00:09:20.669 country. So, yeah, but we would land in Boston. 00:09:21.179 --> 00:09:23.720 I mean, we would land our line run in Seattle. 00:09:24.100 --> 00:09:29.940 This was, I think we started in either 80 or 00:09:29.940 --> 00:09:35.639 81. And we'd have all these people that just 00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:38.399 got off a great trip. And we would stop and cook 00:09:38.399 --> 00:09:40.899 a meal at a hot springs halfway up in this place 00:09:40.899 --> 00:09:43.919 in Oregon. And they go swimming in this really 00:09:43.919 --> 00:09:46.820 nice swimming hole. And we had this giant sauna 00:09:46.820 --> 00:09:50.299 that we built that had a roll -in heat source. 00:09:51.149 --> 00:09:53.470 The propane, the thing that got the rocks nice 00:09:53.470 --> 00:09:56.690 and hot was outside where the room where you 00:09:56.690 --> 00:09:59.990 were. And then we roll this big track, like a 00:09:59.990 --> 00:10:03.929 mining cart full of, you know, super hot rocks 00:10:03.929 --> 00:10:09.450 into a 25 person sauna and get super hot. And 00:10:09.450 --> 00:10:11.490 then they, you know, run out and jump in the 00:10:11.490 --> 00:10:14.110 Creek and, and then get back on the bus and drive 00:10:14.110 --> 00:10:16.690 to Seattle, that kind of thing going both ways. 00:10:16.750 --> 00:10:20.419 We would do. Northbound would be a breakfast, 00:10:20.700 --> 00:10:24.480 you know, sort of a make your own pancakes and 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:27.700 omelets. And southbound would be a salmon dinner 00:10:27.700 --> 00:10:30.840 that we'd, you know, go buy silvers from the 00:10:30.840 --> 00:10:34.820 fishermen in Seattle. And it was a lot of fun. 00:10:35.419 --> 00:10:38.899 Amazing. Yeah. Gosh, the experiences, I couldn't 00:10:38.899 --> 00:10:41.600 imagine. Those are incredible. All these cool 00:10:41.600 --> 00:10:45.549 people. Really, you just. It's very interesting 00:10:45.549 --> 00:10:49.830 how we sort of get this, I think the media spreads 00:10:49.830 --> 00:10:53.669 this myth that people are not cool or not interesting 00:10:53.669 --> 00:10:56.529 or maybe they're all selfish or whatever. We 00:10:56.529 --> 00:11:02.149 get this fear factor that people like our president 00:11:02.149 --> 00:11:07.309 like to impose on the world. But the reality 00:11:07.309 --> 00:11:10.929 is the vast majority of people, you put them... 00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:13.820 close to other people. You stick them with good 00:11:13.820 --> 00:11:17.399 food, interesting experiences, fun stuff outside, 00:11:17.559 --> 00:11:21.340 physically comfortable, and they're happy as 00:11:21.340 --> 00:11:25.940 hell. Yeah, the magic happens. Yeah, and so we've 00:11:25.940 --> 00:11:30.519 sort of segued that into the hostels. The one 00:11:30.519 --> 00:11:35.019 that we've moved twice in Seattle, I didn't start 00:11:35.019 --> 00:11:37.379 with the perfect building. I didn't really understand 00:11:37.379 --> 00:11:41.460 what the people, what the customers wanted. My 00:11:41.460 --> 00:11:44.580 partner, Gardner, he's, I would say, a little 00:11:44.580 --> 00:11:48.019 bit more aware of humans. And he just walks into 00:11:48.019 --> 00:11:50.179 a room and goes, oh, this would be a little bit 00:11:50.179 --> 00:11:52.299 nicer if that was different and this was different. 00:11:52.759 --> 00:11:57.659 So he bought an old, well, it was a legal hotel 00:11:57.659 --> 00:12:02.059 in San Francisco on Broadway in the North Beach 00:12:02.059 --> 00:12:05.899 District. So, you know, lots of cool history 00:12:05.899 --> 00:12:08.360 down there. Beautiful property. Yeah, I've been 00:12:08.360 --> 00:12:10.919 to that one. It wasn't beautiful when he bought 00:12:10.919 --> 00:12:13.740 it. Okay. Just in case you're wondering. As most 00:12:13.740 --> 00:12:15.679 hostels are, you know, you got to put in the 00:12:15.679 --> 00:12:19.000 love. The old guy, the cool guy that owned the 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:21.759 building before ran a restaurant in the ground 00:12:21.759 --> 00:12:25.360 floor. And then, so that giant ballroom, that 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:29.639 ballroom was filled with like plywood and chicken 00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:34.379 wire shacks that... All the waiters and the waitresses 00:12:34.379 --> 00:12:36.720 and the cooks and the sous chefs and all those 00:12:36.720 --> 00:12:40.720 people, everybody had a dressing room. It's hard 00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:43.240 to believe that big room. Yeah, it's massive. 00:12:43.620 --> 00:12:46.100 The windows were boarded over, those beautiful 00:12:46.100 --> 00:12:48.320 stained glass windows that he refurbished and 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:51.879 stuff. So all that fun stuff you can see in the 00:12:51.879 --> 00:12:55.340 hostel now really wasn't there. And there was 00:12:55.340 --> 00:12:59.940 funny stuff. So each room up in the hotel in 00:12:59.940 --> 00:13:03.600 the upper part was different. offices and actually 00:13:03.600 --> 00:13:05.580 about half of them were just empty not being 00:13:05.580 --> 00:13:10.179 used there was one that had a was very weird 00:13:10.179 --> 00:13:13.659 uh you know nice old italian man he had this 00:13:13.659 --> 00:13:18.019 room with a mirrors on the ceiling and a big 00:13:18.019 --> 00:13:21.440 pink heart -shaped bed i guess he would like 00:13:21.440 --> 00:13:24.360 try and uh talk waitresses into going up there 00:13:24.360 --> 00:13:28.080 with him who knows people are funny huh yeah 00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:32.009 yeah anyway but we so we opened um Both of those 00:13:32.009 --> 00:13:35.330 hostels happened in 93. I opened in Seattle a 00:13:35.330 --> 00:13:38.710 little bit before Gardner opened in San Francisco. 00:13:38.789 --> 00:13:42.269 He did a more thorough remodel. So the bus was 00:13:42.269 --> 00:13:44.809 running for, what, 15 years before you guys said, 00:13:44.870 --> 00:13:47.610 let's get a base camp kind of in San Francisco 00:13:47.610 --> 00:13:50.990 and Seattle or approximately? 20, 20 years. 20 00:13:50.990 --> 00:13:52.830 years. Wow. You guys were on the road and you 00:13:52.830 --> 00:13:54.710 were kind of co -captain, just cruising along. 00:13:54.830 --> 00:13:56.850 It was a whole giant, you know, we had a giant 00:13:56.850 --> 00:14:00.320 mailing list of people, mostly. you know bay 00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:03.600 area travelers who were familiar and loved our 00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:09.000 trips and yeah wow so now amazing fast forward 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:12.620 30 years more later you know after you work on 00:14:12.620 --> 00:14:17.399 something for 50 years it's it's it's it's very 00:14:17.399 --> 00:14:21.379 interesting you have to i i find like every couple 00:14:21.379 --> 00:14:25.980 of i'd say twice a year i go down i sleep in 00:14:25.980 --> 00:14:30.309 one of my bunk beds you know i i mingle you know 00:14:30.309 --> 00:14:33.649 you go out and have a beer um we have lots of 00:14:33.649 --> 00:14:37.750 nowadays i find millennials you have to bribe 00:14:37.750 --> 00:14:41.210 them to get together so right different we do 00:14:41.210 --> 00:14:44.850 that with free ice cream and free tours and uh 00:14:44.850 --> 00:14:50.070 open mic night and stuff like that to um uh get 00:14:50.070 --> 00:14:53.750 people yeah come down to the common area meet 00:14:53.750 --> 00:14:58.409 other people talk you know you have to lube whatever 00:14:58.409 --> 00:15:02.509 you call that, conversational lubricants. Right. 00:15:02.669 --> 00:15:06.029 And get people. And then, of course, that's what 00:15:06.029 --> 00:15:08.750 they really wanted. But they won't do it on their 00:15:08.750 --> 00:15:13.669 own. Yeah. And I think that's a key to a good 00:15:13.669 --> 00:15:17.309 hostel. If they understand the importance of 00:15:17.309 --> 00:15:19.789 the common area and how to use that common area. 00:15:20.470 --> 00:15:23.870 Because, of course, low -end hotels, what do 00:15:23.870 --> 00:15:27.549 they have? They'll have like a... 12 by 20 room 00:15:27.549 --> 00:15:34.750 with a desk at one end and a computer. You want 00:15:34.750 --> 00:15:38.470 to get out of there as fast as you can. But a 00:15:38.470 --> 00:15:42.570 good hostel will have a lot of things going on. 00:15:42.710 --> 00:15:47.269 Activities in the morning. Hopefully we were 00:15:47.269 --> 00:15:49.740 lucky enough. I don't know how many years ago, 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:53.019 but well, Gardner hooked up with a woman who 00:15:53.019 --> 00:15:55.200 would run these free walking tours around San 00:15:55.200 --> 00:15:59.179 Francisco. And then she got so many people from 00:15:59.179 --> 00:16:02.360 the outside world joining the hostels that it 00:16:02.360 --> 00:16:05.159 became this giant thing. She could actually get 00:16:05.159 --> 00:16:10.659 the bar owners to pay her to bring, you know, 00:16:10.700 --> 00:16:15.340 50 happy young travelers to their bar. I mean, 00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:18.559 any bar on a Wednesday night that's dead. you 00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:21.500 know in a you know rainy night in san francisco 00:16:21.500 --> 00:16:24.539 or a rainy night in seattle i mean you dream 00:16:24.539 --> 00:16:27.460 of that right if you're the bar owner and uh 00:16:27.460 --> 00:16:30.879 it didn't it was anyway we've done that we got 00:16:30.879 --> 00:16:34.279 uh we hooked up with this uh a company that free 00:16:34.279 --> 00:16:37.899 seattle free walking tours they do walking tours 00:16:37.899 --> 00:16:40.960 around the city one architecturally oriented 00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:43.440 another one that's oriented towards fountains 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:46.059 seattle happens to have a whole bunch of weird 00:16:46.059 --> 00:16:51.100 cool fountains you know um animals people uh 00:16:51.100 --> 00:16:53.879 fountains that are coordinated with with uh music 00:16:53.879 --> 00:17:00.799 and uh so yeah you gotta know your town and know 00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:06.119 what uh what not just what people know is out 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:09.460 there to see you know if you're in st louis you 00:17:09.460 --> 00:17:12.599 know it's not just the arch you know that there's 00:17:12.599 --> 00:17:16.539 really cool Shakespeare plays almost every night 00:17:16.539 --> 00:17:19.740 in the park and, you know, and it's free or almost 00:17:19.740 --> 00:17:21.960 free. And sometimes it's three bucks or five 00:17:21.960 --> 00:17:25.579 bucks. If you learn those things in your town 00:17:25.579 --> 00:17:29.440 and then, you know, communicate that ahead of 00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:32.500 time, people will book for three nights instead 00:17:32.500 --> 00:17:35.680 of, you know, Seattle for some people is a two 00:17:35.680 --> 00:17:38.759 night town. Yeah, that's a great, yeah, great 00:17:38.759 --> 00:17:41.160 advice. We have, I'm at our hostel in Santa Barbara 00:17:41.160 --> 00:17:44.180 right now. and we have a hostile van and I just 00:17:44.180 --> 00:17:46.420 took everybody up to the hot Springs in Montecito 00:17:46.420 --> 00:17:49.299 yesterday for free, you know, and the people 00:17:49.299 --> 00:17:51.279 were blown away. I had, you know, eight people 00:17:51.279 --> 00:17:53.660 go with me and it was just that, just what you're 00:17:53.660 --> 00:17:56.000 saying, that classic, you know, backpackers connecting, 00:17:56.279 --> 00:17:58.259 getting to know each other and people booked 00:17:58.259 --> 00:18:00.299 like four of them booked an extra night, you 00:18:00.299 --> 00:18:02.099 know, to stick around for that adventure. So 00:18:02.099 --> 00:18:05.000 it broke that ice. Everybody they talked to in 00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:08.460 the common area gets a contact high. And so then 00:18:08.460 --> 00:18:11.099 it's like, it doesn't just affect those. eight 00:18:11.099 --> 00:18:14.200 people you took on a free tour to see jimmy hendrix 00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:17.500 grave or you know free tour to see we all that 00:18:17.500 --> 00:18:21.019 stuff comes back so valuable and now how about 00:18:21.019 --> 00:18:23.660 uh so tell us let's get into the seattle like 00:18:23.660 --> 00:18:26.099 uh you're you know i guess when you found the 00:18:26.099 --> 00:18:27.819 building walk us through a little bit about the 00:18:27.819 --> 00:18:30.759 those times of uh you ended up in seattle and 00:18:30.759 --> 00:18:32.960 yeah tell us about the building you found and 00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:34.740 kind of what that experience was like getting 00:18:34.740 --> 00:18:38.279 uh getting it going well let's see if you think 00:18:38.279 --> 00:18:43.609 about what was going on in seattle um in 92 and 00:18:43.609 --> 00:18:47.089 that's when i started looking um nirvana was 00:18:47.089 --> 00:18:50.490 the was the big thing there was no amazon there 00:18:50.490 --> 00:18:53.990 was uh microsoft but it wasn't big like it is 00:18:53.990 --> 00:18:57.950 now and really it was a boeing town and real 00:18:57.950 --> 00:19:02.250 estate was real different and i was I was focused 00:19:02.250 --> 00:19:05.210 on finding a building that we could own, which 00:19:05.210 --> 00:19:09.950 took a long time. It wasn't, you know, they don't 00:19:09.950 --> 00:19:12.630 have a bunch of old hostels just sitting around 00:19:12.630 --> 00:19:17.490 in America. You pretty much have to find a building 00:19:17.490 --> 00:19:20.109 that nobody else wants, usually an apartment 00:19:20.109 --> 00:19:22.470 building that doesn't have bathrooms for all 00:19:22.470 --> 00:19:27.140 the units or some aspect of it that's... you 00:19:27.140 --> 00:19:29.799 know, makes it less expensive, less valuable 00:19:29.799 --> 00:19:33.779 to the straight world. And then you got to be 00:19:33.779 --> 00:19:35.920 ready to put in a lot of good energy because 00:19:35.920 --> 00:19:42.319 Hostors are young. They're strong. They're just 00:19:42.319 --> 00:19:44.200 learning their bodies. They break everything. 00:19:44.900 --> 00:19:47.460 That's for sure. They take all the spoons. I 00:19:47.460 --> 00:19:49.720 always laugh, you know, there's like the good 00:19:49.720 --> 00:19:52.259 housekeeping seal of approval, right? And then 00:19:52.259 --> 00:19:54.660 there's military grade and then there's hostile 00:19:54.660 --> 00:19:57.279 proof. Oh my God, that's so true. It has to be 00:19:57.279 --> 00:20:00.299 stainless steel. It has to be really well thought 00:20:00.299 --> 00:20:03.720 out to not hurt people and to also, you know, 00:20:03.740 --> 00:20:07.160 just basically take constant abuse and, you know, 00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:09.779 just laugh it off. That's what you want, all 00:20:09.779 --> 00:20:13.400 your equipment. And that includes beds and bathrooms 00:20:13.400 --> 00:20:19.180 and all that stuff. We early on, Seattle is one 00:20:19.180 --> 00:20:21.920 of those things, one of the things you worry 00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:26.299 about in bathrooms is mold. And what I discovered 00:20:26.299 --> 00:20:28.940 in my, not the first building, but the second 00:20:28.940 --> 00:20:34.130 building is radiant heated floors. And if you 00:20:34.130 --> 00:20:36.829 put in tile floors in your bathrooms and then 00:20:36.829 --> 00:20:40.529 you put in hot water underneath it. So the bathroom 00:20:40.529 --> 00:20:43.509 floor, for one thing, every time somebody goes 00:20:43.509 --> 00:20:46.269 in there, it's not like, you know, my feet are 00:20:46.269 --> 00:20:49.210 on cold, freezing tile. No, my feet are on nice, 00:20:49.250 --> 00:20:51.950 warm tile. But the other thing it does is it 00:20:51.950 --> 00:20:54.910 dries the room out between showers. And so you 00:20:54.910 --> 00:20:58.490 get, you know, a lot less mold problems, a lot 00:20:58.490 --> 00:21:03.930 less. And just generally speaking. Getting clean 00:21:03.930 --> 00:21:06.670 is one of the things that makes people happy. 00:21:06.910 --> 00:21:11.109 So it's always tempting to do these gang bathrooms, 00:21:11.309 --> 00:21:13.829 you know, where in a lot of hostels you'll see 00:21:13.829 --> 00:21:16.529 because, I mean, the zoning and the use and the 00:21:16.529 --> 00:21:19.670 way that building departments are set up, it's 00:21:19.670 --> 00:21:22.930 easier to build one big bathroom with four showers 00:21:22.930 --> 00:21:26.130 and three toilets and two sinks or something, 00:21:26.170 --> 00:21:28.269 you know, whatever. The numbers have to go with 00:21:28.269 --> 00:21:30.150 whatever you need for your floor area ratio. 00:21:32.250 --> 00:21:34.730 Really what people want is a small amount of 00:21:34.730 --> 00:21:40.329 privacy, a bunch of nice, warm, clean tile bathrooms. 00:21:41.009 --> 00:21:45.470 And, you know, I've also learned about circ systems 00:21:45.470 --> 00:21:49.769 within the domestic hot water. You put a pump 00:21:49.769 --> 00:21:51.970 on the hot water thing, so there's hot water 00:21:51.970 --> 00:21:55.069 that's always about two feet away from every 00:21:55.069 --> 00:21:57.730 sink and every shower. So they're not running, 00:21:57.849 --> 00:22:01.410 you know. $1 .50 worth of water down the drain 00:22:01.410 --> 00:22:04.589 just to get a warm shower. That's amazing. That's 00:22:04.589 --> 00:22:08.990 so smart. Yeah. And people appreciate all that 00:22:08.990 --> 00:22:12.509 stuff. I mean, it's funny. When we started, I 00:22:12.509 --> 00:22:14.569 think when we opened up the first year, we were 00:22:14.569 --> 00:22:20.650 charging $8 a night. And then we sort of fairly 00:22:20.650 --> 00:22:25.980 quickly went to $10. But over the years, Things 00:22:25.980 --> 00:22:29.920 are great. I think we're charging $37 a night 00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:33.359 now. Obviously, we use dynamic pricing tools 00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:37.460 like a lot of people. If you're the last 10 people 00:22:37.460 --> 00:22:41.819 booking in our hostel, you pay more. There's 00:22:41.819 --> 00:22:44.859 a lot of things that you learn. Did you stay 00:22:44.859 --> 00:22:47.920 in a lot of hostels? I guess you did. You were 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:49.900 on the bus for 20 years getting a lot of tips 00:22:49.900 --> 00:22:54.109 and tricks and ideas for your own hostel. You 00:22:54.109 --> 00:22:57.829 know what's funny about that? I wasn't, I should 00:22:57.829 --> 00:23:02.190 say, I wasn't really a hostile guy. I'm a camper. 00:23:02.950 --> 00:23:06.009 And on the buses, for the most part, except at 00:23:06.009 --> 00:23:08.450 the beginning and the ends of the trips, we would 00:23:08.450 --> 00:23:11.009 be out in these beautiful national parks, state 00:23:11.009 --> 00:23:15.170 parks, camping places. And when I started the 00:23:15.170 --> 00:23:18.099 business, I sort of... You put your own values 00:23:18.099 --> 00:23:21.359 in. You say, oh, I'd like to have a nice, quiet 00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:24.299 place and, you know, a little bit out of the 00:23:24.299 --> 00:23:27.400 way to sleep, you know, and then I'll go into 00:23:27.400 --> 00:23:30.019 town and have fun. No, that's not what hostelers 00:23:30.019 --> 00:23:32.539 want. Hostelers want to open the front door, 00:23:32.700 --> 00:23:36.279 go out, and they want to see four options, two 00:23:36.279 --> 00:23:39.400 good restaurants and two good bars, and maybe 00:23:39.400 --> 00:23:41.400 even a venue where they can go catch some live 00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:46.740 music. My place I started in wasn't ideal. I 00:23:46.740 --> 00:23:50.440 mean, people liked it. The price was great. I, 00:23:50.579 --> 00:23:54.059 you know, put a lot of comfort and focus on things 00:23:54.059 --> 00:23:57.119 they could do. But within about a year and a 00:23:57.119 --> 00:24:01.140 half, I moved downtown. And it was way different. 00:24:01.799 --> 00:24:06.559 You know, people were so much happier. And, well, 00:24:06.920 --> 00:24:10.700 I don't know what you, the problem is a lot of. 00:24:11.150 --> 00:24:13.670 So running a hostel is a very labor intensive 00:24:13.670 --> 00:24:18.529 business. And so I think from a perspective of 00:24:18.529 --> 00:24:21.789 a regular business person, it's too much work. 00:24:22.569 --> 00:24:24.630 You know, they sort of take a look at it and 00:24:24.630 --> 00:24:27.890 go, oh, you mean I got to deal with 18 employees 00:24:27.890 --> 00:24:31.369 and I'm going to do all this and I'm only going 00:24:31.369 --> 00:24:36.250 to make that. Anyway, so what you you have to 00:24:36.250 --> 00:24:39.670 just sort of keep moving. In my case. I did what 00:24:39.670 --> 00:24:43.069 I could afford to get the doors open. It worked 00:24:43.069 --> 00:24:46.210 for a while. That building, thankfully, in Seattle 00:24:46.210 --> 00:24:50.569 got to be worth a lot more. And we sold it quite 00:24:50.569 --> 00:24:53.910 a few years ago, but still we quadrupled our 00:24:53.910 --> 00:24:57.250 money on it. Nice. And that helped do future 00:24:57.250 --> 00:24:59.170 improvements on the next couple of buildings. 00:24:59.730 --> 00:25:04.809 And we're a tenant now, but we're also in the 00:25:04.809 --> 00:25:08.470 best building in Seattle, really. Amazing. Tourist 00:25:08.470 --> 00:25:11.569 Ground Zero. The street is closed off in front 00:25:11.569 --> 00:25:14.569 of our hostel, and they have all these fun, have 00:25:14.569 --> 00:25:17.369 you seen these wiggly chairs that kids can sit 00:25:17.369 --> 00:25:20.809 in and roam around? Anyway, it's on our website 00:25:20.809 --> 00:25:24.269 if you look at, but there's people playing music 00:25:24.269 --> 00:25:26.910 out front, and you just, you walk out the door, 00:25:26.930 --> 00:25:29.670 you feel like, okay, I'm right in this cool, 00:25:29.750 --> 00:25:32.519 interesting city. And then right across the street 00:25:32.519 --> 00:25:35.240 is the Pike Place Market, which is Seattle's 00:25:35.240 --> 00:25:38.460 version of Fisherman's Wharf or whatever they 00:25:38.460 --> 00:25:41.920 call the cool old fish markets in New York. Yeah. 00:25:41.980 --> 00:25:43.640 Yeah. No, we've got experience with that, too. 00:25:43.700 --> 00:25:45.519 And it's like sometimes you want to make a hostel 00:25:45.519 --> 00:25:49.599 and it's way more difficult to open it in a maybe 00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:52.279 more remote location or out of the way location 00:25:52.279 --> 00:25:54.259 and try to convince people to come stay at you 00:25:54.259 --> 00:25:56.000 versus if you just go right in the heart of the 00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:58.440 action. and just where the demand already is 00:25:58.440 --> 00:26:00.380 and just create a better experience than what 00:26:00.380 --> 00:26:03.200 everybody else is doing. Um, oftentimes that 00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:06.660 works a lot easier and works a lot better. Um, 00:26:06.779 --> 00:26:10.940 have you seen the, uh, like the traveler change 00:26:10.940 --> 00:26:15.420 a lot, um, over the years? Like, have you seen 00:26:15.420 --> 00:26:17.380 swings? Right. I mean, I feel right now we're 00:26:17.380 --> 00:26:20.559 in California and Mexico are hostels, but, uh, 00:26:20.759 --> 00:26:22.900 you know, since COVID we haven't really seen 00:26:22.900 --> 00:26:25.930 the international traveler. return like it was 00:26:25.930 --> 00:26:30.609 pre -covid have you seen like swings over the 00:26:30.609 --> 00:26:36.170 say past 50 years of uh you know high backpacker 00:26:36.170 --> 00:26:38.029 demand and then kind of backpacker demand kind 00:26:38.029 --> 00:26:40.089 of cooled off or has it always been kind of consistent 00:26:40.089 --> 00:26:41.970 what what is that what has that been like or 00:26:41.970 --> 00:26:44.410 what have you noticed well i noticed and i don't 00:26:44.410 --> 00:26:48.769 know exactly why but we have we have seen the 00:26:48.769 --> 00:26:51.670 foreign travelers come back and i think some 00:26:51.670 --> 00:26:56.119 of that is just Nothing I did right. Seattle 00:26:56.119 --> 00:27:02.460 is a popular town for Asians. So we have a, we 00:27:02.460 --> 00:27:04.980 have a whole, you know, in the winter we get 00:27:04.980 --> 00:27:08.000 Aussies and Kiwis, obviously, but we also get 00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:13.500 lots of any, any Asian person that young, they 00:27:13.500 --> 00:27:16.579 can afford to travel usually on their dad's credit 00:27:16.579 --> 00:27:19.180 card or something, you know, who knows, but there's 00:27:19.180 --> 00:27:22.019 a lot of them in Seattle and we get them. And 00:27:22.019 --> 00:27:24.410 then in the summer, You know, you get your English, 00:27:24.509 --> 00:27:28.309 German, French, you know, a smattering of Italians. 00:27:30.349 --> 00:27:34.890 It's not as popular of a destination as like 00:27:34.890 --> 00:27:38.289 Santa Barbara or San Francisco or Los Angeles, 00:27:38.490 --> 00:27:43.990 but it's still got, Seattle has a funny sort 00:27:43.990 --> 00:27:48.529 of, call it a work cachet. So we get a lot of 00:27:48.529 --> 00:27:56.430 young kid from, Indiana or Ohio who wants to 00:27:56.430 --> 00:28:00.450 be a programmer, wants to get into the tech world. 00:28:00.869 --> 00:28:03.529 And they just come. Sometimes they go to school. 00:28:03.630 --> 00:28:07.029 But we get a lot of those and they stay two, 00:28:07.109 --> 00:28:10.529 three weeks. We turn out to have long -term guests 00:28:10.529 --> 00:28:14.230 because they always get to know the building 00:28:14.230 --> 00:28:18.230 and they sort of people, they'll try and... get 00:28:18.230 --> 00:28:22.309 over a little bit. Time to move on. We just say, 00:28:22.369 --> 00:28:25.210 hey, it's great. And one of our things we do 00:28:25.210 --> 00:28:27.230 is say, okay, take three weeks off. If you want 00:28:27.230 --> 00:28:29.309 to come back in three weeks, you can have another 00:28:29.309 --> 00:28:34.730 week, but not. not endless stays. Don't show 00:28:34.730 --> 00:28:37.009 up with all your suitcases, 10 suitcases and 00:28:37.009 --> 00:28:39.210 your coffee table. Exactly. Pile up a bunch of 00:28:39.210 --> 00:28:41.809 stuff. Then the next thing they do is start putting 00:28:41.809 --> 00:28:44.430 their junk on someone else's bed when that person 00:28:44.430 --> 00:28:47.049 checks out. And then somebody goes in, Oh, now 00:28:47.049 --> 00:28:49.430 that room's full. I want another room. It's like, 00:28:49.470 --> 00:28:52.130 you got to go up there and say, how about your 00:28:52.130 --> 00:28:54.069 property? How many rooms do you have there in 00:28:54.069 --> 00:28:59.140 Seattle? It's 30 rooms. So, and we could, Definitely 00:28:59.140 --> 00:29:03.079 use about another 20 rooms. That's a good thing. 00:29:03.299 --> 00:29:05.920 Is it all dorms or mix of privates or what is 00:29:05.920 --> 00:29:08.200 the layout like? All dorms, but I made about, 00:29:08.380 --> 00:29:11.900 let's see, we have eight rooms that we put, we 00:29:11.900 --> 00:29:17.640 call them family dorms. So they'll have a queen 00:29:17.640 --> 00:29:19.839 bed on the bottom and a queen bed on the top. 00:29:20.079 --> 00:29:22.779 In some of our rooms, there'll be four queens 00:29:22.779 --> 00:29:27.559 and two twins. And in the winter, we rent that 00:29:27.559 --> 00:29:29.759 as a private. And it's just two people in there. 00:29:30.220 --> 00:29:33.380 And, you know, they have a sink, but they don't 00:29:33.380 --> 00:29:35.539 have a TV. They don't have a couch. You know, 00:29:35.579 --> 00:29:37.519 they don't have some of the things they wish 00:29:37.519 --> 00:29:41.119 they had. So it's not all that popular, but it's 00:29:41.119 --> 00:29:44.119 still useful. And, you know, accommodates the 00:29:44.119 --> 00:29:46.779 swing of low season and high season. In high 00:29:46.779 --> 00:29:50.059 season, a couple can stay in one of those double 00:29:50.059 --> 00:29:55.059 beds cheaper than they rent two twin beds. Interesting. 00:29:55.140 --> 00:29:58.569 Yeah, that's a privacy curtain. You know, so 00:29:58.569 --> 00:30:02.609 they can do what couples like to do. Yeah, no, 00:30:02.650 --> 00:30:05.029 that's interesting with having that dynamic. 00:30:05.170 --> 00:30:07.450 We've switched around between dorm rooms and 00:30:07.450 --> 00:30:10.349 private rooms, but never thought of that, making 00:30:10.349 --> 00:30:13.529 that kind of double queen and having the extra 00:30:13.529 --> 00:30:16.029 twin beds to maybe host more groups in the summer. 00:30:16.069 --> 00:30:18.890 But then the same room just fits perfectly for 00:30:18.890 --> 00:30:21.890 a, you know, a standard, you know, two friends 00:30:21.890 --> 00:30:25.619 or two couples. in the wintertime. So it's creative 00:30:25.619 --> 00:30:29.539 to get dynamic with your layout to try to figure 00:30:29.539 --> 00:30:31.900 out how to fill the beds. It's tricky, though, 00:30:31.980 --> 00:30:36.599 because the world has now built a bunch of nice 00:30:36.599 --> 00:30:40.440 bunk beds, wall -hung bunk beds with good lockers. 00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:44.799 Everybody's got to have those certain needs taken 00:30:44.799 --> 00:30:48.160 care of. They want their stuff to be safe. They 00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:50.650 want to go out. Not have to think about it at 00:30:50.650 --> 00:30:53.089 all. Just go out and have fun, party, come back. 00:30:53.250 --> 00:30:58.569 All your junk's still there. So, but one of the 00:30:58.569 --> 00:31:02.269 things the world hasn't figured out, and I looked 00:31:02.269 --> 00:31:05.390 into, you know, there's these pods, which are 00:31:05.390 --> 00:31:07.890 somewhat like that, but they don't really, they're 00:31:07.890 --> 00:31:10.250 not, they don't use the space efficiently enough. 00:31:10.730 --> 00:31:14.390 They're basically just a private room that's 00:31:14.390 --> 00:31:17.819 a little bit smaller. And so that's interesting. 00:31:17.920 --> 00:31:20.079 And I don't know. So we've had to you end up 00:31:20.079 --> 00:31:23.960 having to build what you want. And that's, again, 00:31:24.099 --> 00:31:27.259 very tricky. So we every year we have to we add 00:31:27.259 --> 00:31:29.619 a little bit more stainless steel to these beds 00:31:29.619 --> 00:31:34.220 and lockers systems and, you know, paint them, 00:31:34.240 --> 00:31:36.480 of course, and get them nice looking for another 00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:43.150 high season. But, yeah, it's a it's a. It's a 00:31:43.150 --> 00:31:47.289 good thing. If we had more space, if real estate 00:31:47.289 --> 00:31:50.549 in Seattle wasn't so expensive, you'd have a 00:31:50.549 --> 00:31:52.970 storage room and you'd just break down the room, 00:31:53.230 --> 00:31:57.750 turn it into a true private, throw an armoire 00:31:57.750 --> 00:32:00.910 in there and a TV and give them what they want. 00:32:02.329 --> 00:32:10.650 Anyway. Have you found obviously there's highs. 00:32:11.789 --> 00:32:14.490 cyclical years of good years bad years you know 00:32:14.490 --> 00:32:16.970 it's all going up and down but i guess is there 00:32:16.970 --> 00:32:21.410 things that you find help uh you know really 00:32:21.410 --> 00:32:24.490 help sell beds more things you kind of focus 00:32:24.490 --> 00:32:27.089 on like i don't know maintaining relationships 00:32:27.089 --> 00:32:29.829 with groups over in europe to try to get more 00:32:29.829 --> 00:32:33.789 group bookings or being really engaged in like 00:32:33.789 --> 00:32:36.190 the chamber of commerce or visitor bureau or 00:32:36.190 --> 00:32:38.470 i guess those kind of things when when beds when 00:32:38.470 --> 00:32:41.819 occupancy is kind of low and uh where does your 00:32:41.819 --> 00:32:43.759 head go and where do you try to what have you 00:32:43.759 --> 00:32:45.619 noticed over the years that like oh man this 00:32:45.619 --> 00:32:47.759 really helps having these relationships or this 00:32:47.759 --> 00:32:51.200 networking or something along those lines this 00:32:51.200 --> 00:32:56.579 may sound funny um i think my personally my biggest 00:32:56.579 --> 00:33:03.940 takeaway was to relax um you know um I used to 00:33:03.940 --> 00:33:07.599 just freak out, you know, December would come 00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:11.019 or November. Basically, Halloween is our turning 00:33:11.019 --> 00:33:14.279 point in Seattle. And after Halloween, the occupancy 00:33:14.279 --> 00:33:17.259 just goes to hell. And I would just be, I'd run 00:33:17.259 --> 00:33:19.339 these weird specials, you know, fourth night 00:33:19.339 --> 00:33:23.759 free and all this stuff. And it basically didn't 00:33:23.759 --> 00:33:25.940 really do much. All the things you talked about 00:33:25.940 --> 00:33:29.799 do help. And, you know, getting groups in the 00:33:29.799 --> 00:33:33.440 shoulder seasons. Not just European groups, but 00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:36.299 American school groups, all sorts of people. 00:33:37.599 --> 00:33:41.339 Seattle has one of the funny revolutions that 00:33:41.339 --> 00:33:43.740 happened in Seattle. Right when, you know, at 00:33:43.740 --> 00:33:46.400 the end of the Vietnam War, Boeing sort of pulled 00:33:46.400 --> 00:33:48.559 the plug on their Seattle operations and said, 00:33:48.640 --> 00:33:51.480 if you want a job, got to move to Southern California. 00:33:52.349 --> 00:33:55.529 And there's that famous moment, there's a billboard 00:33:55.529 --> 00:33:57.930 that said, last person leaving Seattle, turn 00:33:57.930 --> 00:34:01.589 out the lights. It was a funny time in Seattle. 00:34:02.190 --> 00:34:11.550 And what, anyway, if you want to improve things 00:34:11.550 --> 00:34:15.590 in the low season, yes, you do a lot of stuff. 00:34:15.809 --> 00:34:20.210 You lower the prices. But the biggest thing I 00:34:20.210 --> 00:34:23.329 would say, besides, Keep going on groups. Keep 00:34:23.329 --> 00:34:25.469 going on all sorts of things that you can develop. 00:34:27.429 --> 00:34:31.670 The key is, as the owner, don't freak out. Don't 00:34:31.670 --> 00:34:33.929 think, you know, it's not going to be forever. 00:34:34.210 --> 00:34:39.309 High season comes back, and really you're better 00:34:39.309 --> 00:34:42.429 off. Now I just sort of do a giant maintenance 00:34:42.429 --> 00:34:47.409 reset. So I go through the whole building, reseal 00:34:47.409 --> 00:34:51.579 all the grout and all the showers. I get all 00:34:51.579 --> 00:34:54.219 the rooms painted nice. I replace outlets that 00:34:54.219 --> 00:34:55.820 are a little bit loose, you know, where the plug 00:34:55.820 --> 00:34:58.980 falls out. And I look around for other things. 00:34:59.139 --> 00:35:02.539 Everybody wants a little, either a pocket or 00:35:02.539 --> 00:35:04.980 a shelf or something to store their phone and 00:35:04.980 --> 00:35:08.320 their gadgets, you know, inside their bed. And 00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:12.420 you just sort of do all those things, which is 00:35:12.420 --> 00:35:15.719 not fun. You're spending money and you're making 00:35:15.719 --> 00:35:19.260 less, but it makes the big... the whole year 00:35:19.260 --> 00:35:22.039 picture much better. The details focus on the 00:35:22.039 --> 00:35:23.659 details are in the off season when you can get 00:35:23.659 --> 00:35:25.400 in there because there's not, it's hard to do 00:35:25.400 --> 00:35:27.179 that in the high season. You can shut down four 00:35:27.179 --> 00:35:29.719 rooms and it doesn't kill you and you can really 00:35:29.719 --> 00:35:32.780 make them all nice. And it's interesting people 00:35:32.780 --> 00:35:36.440 really, I'm not that sensitive to paint, you 00:35:36.440 --> 00:35:39.639 know, like for me, if I, if I know somebody cleaned 00:35:39.639 --> 00:35:42.139 the bathroom, I don't, you know, I'm not affected 00:35:42.139 --> 00:35:45.420 by a little bit of a peeling paint in the corner, 00:35:45.460 --> 00:35:49.900 but guests are. And they they love fresh paint. 00:35:50.059 --> 00:35:53.000 It's a it's an interesting and it's not that 00:35:53.000 --> 00:35:55.960 expensive, especially you're much better off 00:35:55.960 --> 00:35:58.579 doing a good job. You know, all the sanding and 00:35:58.579 --> 00:36:00.960 prepping and doing all that and then high end 00:36:00.960 --> 00:36:05.500 paint. And you'll be you'll be much happier in 00:36:05.500 --> 00:36:08.079 the long run. Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, having 00:36:08.079 --> 00:36:10.619 that staying in the bunks, even just going and 00:36:10.619 --> 00:36:12.739 laying down in all the bunks and just looking 00:36:12.739 --> 00:36:14.679 at the walls. You know, you'll notice so much 00:36:14.679 --> 00:36:17.440 things that if you're just managing. walking 00:36:17.440 --> 00:36:19.579 through the day you don't notice so right the 00:36:19.579 --> 00:36:22.820 guests notice though right and you can't you 00:36:22.820 --> 00:36:24.860 can't count on your cleaners are going to go 00:36:24.860 --> 00:36:27.119 you know they're they're good people they want 00:36:27.119 --> 00:36:30.500 to clean but they don't have that same you know 00:36:30.500 --> 00:36:32.119 they're not going to be sitting in that bunk 00:36:32.119 --> 00:36:34.699 going oh that's terrible i gotta fix that now 00:36:34.699 --> 00:36:38.179 and and that's what you get by putting yourself 00:36:38.179 --> 00:36:41.340 back in the situation and then of course over 00:36:41.340 --> 00:36:44.000 the years i've stayed at a lot of hostels and 00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:48.320 you know you go You go to Edinburgh, you go to 00:36:48.320 --> 00:36:54.159 London, and then Chicago, everywhere. There's 00:36:54.159 --> 00:36:57.139 a ton of interesting hostels out there, and you 00:36:57.139 --> 00:37:01.820 get new ideas. You're not always going to get 00:37:01.820 --> 00:37:05.039 them. A lot of people don't share all their cool 00:37:05.039 --> 00:37:09.219 ideas, but one other thing I really love is a 00:37:09.219 --> 00:37:11.860 dishwasher, a commercial dishwasher. I don't 00:37:11.860 --> 00:37:14.079 know if you have had one. Interesting. I've had 00:37:14.079 --> 00:37:17.199 a residential one. To be honest, it was always 00:37:17.199 --> 00:37:20.039 a nightmare, but I've never dabbled. Those residential 00:37:20.039 --> 00:37:23.219 ones, they're not meant for the bar. But if you 00:37:23.219 --> 00:37:25.400 get a good one that's designed for a restaurant, 00:37:25.599 --> 00:37:29.079 and the cycles are usually about a two -minute 00:37:29.079 --> 00:37:32.500 cycle, so that means you're not dependent on 00:37:32.500 --> 00:37:35.059 your guests washing all their dishes, but all 00:37:35.059 --> 00:37:37.519 your dishes are always clean and ready for the 00:37:37.519 --> 00:37:40.280 next guest. And one of your staff members can 00:37:40.280 --> 00:37:43.960 go in there in 10 minutes and wash, you know. 00:37:44.360 --> 00:37:47.900 Five loads of dishes and put them away. And they're 00:37:47.900 --> 00:37:49.739 clean, right? The classic doesn't have the food 00:37:49.739 --> 00:37:51.659 left on the fork and all the classic. Right, 00:37:51.659 --> 00:37:54.840 exactly. Where you wash. The classic rewash before 00:37:54.840 --> 00:37:57.860 you use. Right, that's the old joke about hostels. 00:37:57.880 --> 00:38:00.599 You don't wash your dishes after you eat. You 00:38:00.599 --> 00:38:03.179 wash them before you eat. Yeah, no, I know that 00:38:03.179 --> 00:38:05.900 game. Right. That's awesome. Are you still part 00:38:05.900 --> 00:38:09.739 of the bus tours? They're still driving the bus, 00:38:09.780 --> 00:38:13.489 right? I love driving for the bus company. The 00:38:13.489 --> 00:38:17.969 COVID really shot the feet out from underneath 00:38:17.969 --> 00:38:20.809 the bus company. There was a couple of things 00:38:20.809 --> 00:38:27.510 going on, but the bus company is still super 00:38:27.510 --> 00:38:29.929 interesting, and the buses are nicer than ever. 00:38:30.929 --> 00:38:33.190 What's interesting is they just don't have nearly 00:38:33.190 --> 00:38:35.829 as many tours, so I don't get to drive. Plus, 00:38:35.929 --> 00:38:40.530 it's a physically very demanding job. You know, 00:38:40.610 --> 00:38:43.909 you drive. maybe eight, 10 hours a day. Plus 00:38:43.909 --> 00:38:47.670 you organize hikes and then you cook breakfast 00:38:47.670 --> 00:38:50.489 and you cook dinner and you're constantly talking 00:38:50.489 --> 00:38:52.949 to people and answering questions. And then it's 00:38:52.949 --> 00:38:56.050 a young man's job. Yeah, for sure. I'm almost 00:38:56.050 --> 00:38:59.489 70, you know, I'm, I, I love it. I would, I would 00:38:59.489 --> 00:39:02.510 go on a green tortoise trip any day, but, um, 00:39:02.510 --> 00:39:06.070 it's, uh, I think my days of actually driving 00:39:06.070 --> 00:39:10.929 trips are probably past me. Yeah. Yeah, but so 00:39:10.929 --> 00:39:16.389 the, let's see, some of the things that have 00:39:16.389 --> 00:39:19.670 happened, it's, you know, a lot of things in 00:39:19.670 --> 00:39:22.289 the end depend on what you love. Because if you 00:39:22.289 --> 00:39:25.989 don't love it and love what you're doing, it's 00:39:25.989 --> 00:39:29.289 going to be too much work. Yeah. Yeah, you have 00:39:29.289 --> 00:39:32.170 to love the, speaking from my point, yeah, we 00:39:32.170 --> 00:39:33.690 love just seeing the guests, you know, giving 00:39:33.690 --> 00:39:36.210 the guests a great stay and feeling them. have 00:39:36.210 --> 00:39:38.929 that, you know, smile on their face and seeing 00:39:38.929 --> 00:39:41.409 the guests connect. And especially when it's 00:39:41.409 --> 00:39:43.489 a first time hosteler, you know, they, it just, 00:39:43.510 --> 00:39:45.769 their mind's blown when they have that classic, 00:39:45.789 --> 00:39:47.909 great hustle experience. And it's so fulfilling. 00:39:49.389 --> 00:39:51.989 to do. So the smart ones will ask, you know, 00:39:51.989 --> 00:39:53.730 they'll go like, what's, what's the cool thing 00:39:53.730 --> 00:39:56.050 to do around here? And then you go, well, you 00:39:56.050 --> 00:39:58.809 know, today is a super low tide and there's these 00:39:58.809 --> 00:40:01.030 tide pools at this park and you just take this 00:40:01.030 --> 00:40:03.409 bus over there. And if you have all that stuff 00:40:03.409 --> 00:40:06.349 written down on a little flyer, you can hand 00:40:06.349 --> 00:40:08.929 to them and hopefully they give it back to you 00:40:08.929 --> 00:40:12.949 and it doesn't become waste paper. But, um, all 00:40:12.949 --> 00:40:16.130 that stuff, it really, um, Just like you said, 00:40:16.210 --> 00:40:17.969 just like the free trip to the hot springs you 00:40:17.969 --> 00:40:21.110 were talking about. Yeah. I mean, right there, 00:40:21.230 --> 00:40:24.929 you got four more nights, four more bed nights. 00:40:25.670 --> 00:40:32.150 Exactly. And I mean, it's also, it's important 00:40:32.150 --> 00:40:35.269 to think about the money and not waste money 00:40:35.269 --> 00:40:40.510 if you can. But it's also important to, if you 00:40:40.510 --> 00:40:44.130 teach your brain to focus on the experience. 00:40:45.039 --> 00:40:47.800 What's going to make people happy? You know, 00:40:47.820 --> 00:40:51.760 in some ways it's like a bar business. What's 00:40:51.760 --> 00:40:54.800 going to make women happy? And, you know, if 00:40:54.800 --> 00:40:56.900 you have a bunch of happy women hanging out at 00:40:56.900 --> 00:40:59.380 your hostel, the guys are going to want to hang 00:40:59.380 --> 00:41:02.219 out at your hostel. That's for sure. Yeah. I 00:41:02.219 --> 00:41:05.800 mean, who knows? I've never run a bar, but I 00:41:05.800 --> 00:41:09.099 think that there's some similarities there. And 00:41:09.099 --> 00:41:13.760 everybody wants to meet other people, but they're 00:41:13.760 --> 00:41:16.610 a little bit shy. or whatever, or they just don't 00:41:16.610 --> 00:41:19.849 have the social skills to put themselves out 00:41:19.849 --> 00:41:22.630 in a nice way. Right, and that's where a great 00:41:22.630 --> 00:41:24.730 hostel host comes in and can break the ice and 00:41:24.730 --> 00:41:27.489 connect the guests with those local experiences. 00:41:28.989 --> 00:41:31.710 Well, that's amazing, Rex. Anything in closing 00:41:31.710 --> 00:41:34.449 you have for our listeners out there or aspiring 00:41:34.449 --> 00:41:37.030 hostel owners looking to get into the industry? 00:41:37.590 --> 00:41:40.530 Well, I don't know. One of the first things to 00:41:40.530 --> 00:41:43.840 work on is your family. See who in your family 00:41:43.840 --> 00:41:45.820 has a little bit of spare cash that they can 00:41:45.820 --> 00:41:49.619 loan you. Because it always takes more. The more 00:41:49.619 --> 00:41:53.199 you dump in early on, the better your whole scene 00:41:53.199 --> 00:41:57.219 is going to be down the road. And like me, I 00:41:57.219 --> 00:41:59.780 had to learn the hard way. You know, I started 00:41:59.780 --> 00:42:03.059 with a hostel over, I mean, it's right in Seattle. 00:42:03.280 --> 00:42:06.880 It's right near the Space Needle and stuff like 00:42:06.880 --> 00:42:11.139 that. But that's not the activity center of Seattle. 00:42:11.630 --> 00:42:15.210 And it was a, it was a mind blowing how much 00:42:15.210 --> 00:42:17.150 happier the people were when I moved downtown 00:42:17.150 --> 00:42:21.869 and had a hostel down there. Yeah. Be in the 00:42:21.869 --> 00:42:24.789 right location. Yeah. It's a, it, in some ways, 00:42:24.809 --> 00:42:29.170 you know, it depends on the real estate life 00:42:29.170 --> 00:42:32.110 of, of the city you're trying to open up in. 00:42:33.070 --> 00:42:36.090 And of course, country hostels are great. They're, 00:42:36.090 --> 00:42:39.469 they're really cool. But I find in a lot of, 00:42:39.469 --> 00:42:42.519 a lot of times, They're more like a job, really. 00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:46.099 They're not a business. They're a cool job that 00:42:46.099 --> 00:42:48.039 you can, if you want to live there and work there, 00:42:48.139 --> 00:42:50.460 it's great. If you want somebody to do a really 00:42:50.460 --> 00:42:53.599 good job when you're not there, they're probably 00:42:53.599 --> 00:42:56.900 going to make all the money. Yeah. And that's 00:42:56.900 --> 00:42:59.119 great. That's great insights there. Amazing. 00:42:59.280 --> 00:43:01.679 Well, thank you so much, Rex, for taking the 00:43:01.679 --> 00:43:04.820 time to chat today. It's amazing to connect and 00:43:04.820 --> 00:43:07.219 see what you guys have done at the Green Tortoise 00:43:07.219 --> 00:43:09.639 Adventure Bus, Green Tortoise San Francisco and 00:43:09.639 --> 00:43:11.739 Seattle. I haven't I've been to the San Francisco 00:43:11.739 --> 00:43:14.019 one, but I'm looking forward to visiting you 00:43:14.019 --> 00:43:16.579 here sometime in Seattle. That would be great. 00:43:16.880 --> 00:43:21.920 Yeah. You know about Naha, of course. Yeah. Yeah. 00:43:21.960 --> 00:43:24.900 The North American Hustling Association. We got 00:43:24.900 --> 00:43:26.539 another conference. I've seen you at a couple 00:43:26.539 --> 00:43:30.820 of the conferences, but it's it's really I think 00:43:30.820 --> 00:43:32.519 what's really great about those conferences. 00:43:32.639 --> 00:43:36.519 You do learn a lot of things, but what you get. 00:43:36.840 --> 00:43:39.320 It is the contact high from other owners, other 00:43:39.320 --> 00:43:42.139 people who have success. And you get inspired 00:43:42.139 --> 00:43:45.840 to actually knuckle down and do the work. And 00:43:45.840 --> 00:43:48.800 I would highly recommend going to those conferences. 00:43:49.320 --> 00:43:53.780 I think this year is going to be in Canada. Yeah, 00:43:53.860 --> 00:43:58.219 Montreal. And April 28th is 2026. It'll be in 00:43:58.219 --> 00:44:01.260 Montreal. Very good. And yeah, a great event 00:44:01.260 --> 00:44:04.380 for... You know, we get people going there, hostile 00:44:04.380 --> 00:44:07.199 owners and aspiring hostile owners. You know, 00:44:07.239 --> 00:44:10.840 it's cool just to hang out with a bunch of fellow 00:44:10.840 --> 00:44:13.719 hostile owners and see what they're doing. It's 00:44:13.719 --> 00:44:15.940 so relatable. And like I said, inspiring networking. 00:44:16.019 --> 00:44:19.119 And it's great for just. getting to know everybody 00:44:19.119 --> 00:44:21.519 because then you know the travelers come over 00:44:21.519 --> 00:44:23.400 for three months and you know they're bouncing 00:44:23.400 --> 00:44:25.400 around different hostels so once you can say 00:44:25.400 --> 00:44:27.980 oh you know go visit my friend rex up in seattle 00:44:27.980 --> 00:44:31.260 or you know vice versa it's it's cool to uh offer 00:44:31.260 --> 00:44:34.420 that and uh yeah it's a it's a cool hostel community 00:44:34.420 --> 00:44:36.920 if you haven't already joined naha to be a part 00:44:36.920 --> 00:44:40.539 of yeah word of mouth it's it's a lot it's a 00:44:40.539 --> 00:44:44.260 ton amazing thanks a lot all right rex thank 00:44:44.260 --> 00:44:47.289 you so much i'll talk to you soon Sounds good. 00:44:47.309 --> 00:44:47.730 See you, brother.