But yeah, he started with a bus he had bought.
He did a road trip to Panama. So Boston to Panama.
Wow. Pretty wild. Lots of fun stuff. Met all
these people. And there was a sort of unofficial
network of, call them hippie buses, that ran
around the world. Some of them were London to
Cape Town. There was, you know, there were all
sorts of all over the planet doing the same thing,
taking a bus that's sort of out of service by
regular bus companies, but still usable. I mean,
a lot of these things, they're made to go four
or five million miles. You know, they're not
made like a car. Hello, friends and travelers.
Thanks for listening. You are riding along on
the Hostile 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 road
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. All right, welcome back to the Hostile
Road Trip Podcast. Today I'm filling in for our
host, Jimmy Black. He's not with us today, but
he's here in spirit. And I'm honored to be joined
with Rex Baldwin from Green Tortoise Hostel.
Welcome, Rex. Hey there. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, thanks for joining us today. So, you know,
I've known you a little bit, but I know you've
got a lot of great experience in the hostel industry
and have done many amazing ventures and seen
a lot. So we'd love to be very excited for the
episode and can't wait to dive into it. We'd
love to kick it off with your beginnings in the
hostel industry. What was your first exposure
to hostels? Well, let's see. In the mid -70s,
I joined the Green Tortoise Adventure Travel.
So that's a bus, sort of a camper tour company.
And we always would be dropping people off at
hostels. And our schedule, anyway, it was amazing
times. Very similar in some ways to a hostel,
but sort of more intense. It's the sharing economy.
People getting together, sharing maybe a smaller
space, but getting more fun and better value
for their travel money. We had a bunch of different
things. We would do these cross -country tours,
camping tours that would go, you know, Bryce
and Zion and places like that. And then out to
Yosemite. We did a lot of different camping tours.
And then we started a line run from L .A. to
Seattle. And we would go. One of the funny things
that sort of started us thinking about hostels,
we would get to Seattle. And the hostel would
always be full. And sometimes we would call them
the day before and try and reserve a space. And
they would, you know, they would do it, but they
weren't exactly psyched about it because the
way the Green Tortoise interior on the bus was
set up, people would become friends. And by the
time they got to Seattle, they'd be like, oh,
I'm not going to stay at the hostel. I'm going
to go hang at Susan's couch or whatever, Bill's
other spare bedroom. But we knew there was a
lot of people who needed that service. So we
decided to open a hostel in Seattle to accommodate
our traveler guests for a place to stay in Seattle.
We basically discovered it was a more viable
business than the bus company. You have to kiss
ass in about 15 different states. And everybody's
telling you how everything is going to be. And
you work like a demon. You do all these great
trips. People love it. And then 10 years later,
you got to buy another bus. And do it all, you
know, rebuild the interior and modify, you know,
get better. Every year we always improve things.
But when you start a hostel, maybe you're leasing,
but a lot of times you buy the building. You
do a bunch of great things. Business is going
well. You're helping people. People are jazzed
about staying with you. And 10 years later, the
thing you paid. $100 ,000 for is now worth $200
,000 or whatever. The scale is obviously different
in different cities. So we started a hostel in
San Francisco. Did you have the bus before the
hostel in San Francisco? That's right. The bus
was based out of San Francisco. Started in 73,
I believe. It was my partner, my longtime business
partner, Gardner Kent. Super interesting guy.
I talked to him this morning. He was just like,
anyway, as true with all these interesting folks,
super busy, still couldn't make it on them. But
he said, well, tell him hi for me. I think he's
met both of you guys at different hostel conferences.
But yeah, he started with a bus. He did a road
trip to Panama. So Boston to Panama. Wow. Pretty
wild. Lots of fun stuff. Met all these people.
And there was a sort of unofficial network of
hippie buses that ran around the world. Some
of them were London to Cape Town. There were
all sorts of all over the planet doing the same
thing, taking a bus that's sort of out of service
by regular bus companies, but still usable. I
mean, a lot of these things, they're made to
go. for five million miles. You know, they're
not made like a car. Every aspect of the bus
is replaceable and in some cases upgrade. You
can upgrade the braking systems and the fuel
systems and other different things. Anyway, so
we had a lot of fun. He started out taking that
bus he'd done on the road trip to Panama and
took it to Boston to show off his kids to his
parents. But he went down to a ride center in
Berkeley and he got all these people who wanted
to pay him 60 bucks or whatever it was to go
across the country. And well, you got to remember
the price of fuel was about 11 cents a gallon.
Wow. Different times. So it was like he was thinking
about life, trying to figure out, you know, but
suddenly here he is. He arrives in New York and
Boston and all these happy people. And he made
money. All the good things in life. You met a
woman. All the things that make a shared economy
better. So that's how the bus company started.
And they'd expanded. I started working for him
with him in 77. And yeah, he had trips to Baja
and back and forth across the country slowly,
but surely he kept adding a couple of days to
the trip. And we do, you know, camping options.
Just beautiful, amazing places. You know, we
met this woman, Nellie Cooney. She lived on the
Ogallala Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. And
she let us camp in her backyard. And she would
put on sort of a Native American food dinner
for us, for everybody. And then we'd go play
in the Back 90, which was... Anyways, the Badlands,
I don't know if you've been there. It's just
amazing, sort of bizarre, interesting scenery.
And we did all sorts of camping trips. Yosemite,
Grand Canyon, you know, some of the regular stuff,
but also the places that really stick in your
brain when you're there. Kodachrome Basin. Bunch
of different places in the Four Corners area.
That part of the United States is amazing and
it's hard to get to. If you land, you're a traveler,
you're in New York City, you think, oh, okay,
what can I do? I can fly to San Francisco, which
is what a lot of people do. It's still beautiful,
but there's a lot of gorgeous places in this
country. So, yeah, but we would land in Boston.
I mean, we would land our line run in Seattle.
This was, I think we started in either 80 or
81. And we'd have all these people that just
got off a great trip. And we would stop and cook
a meal at a hot springs halfway up in this place
in Oregon. And they go swimming in this really
nice swimming hole. And we had this giant sauna
that we built that had a roll -in heat source.
The propane, the thing that got the rocks nice
and hot was outside where the room where you
were. And then we roll this big track, like a
mining cart full of, you know, super hot rocks
into a 25 person sauna and get super hot. And
then they, you know, run out and jump in the
Creek and, and then get back on the bus and drive
to Seattle, that kind of thing going both ways.
We would do. Northbound would be a breakfast,
you know, sort of a make your own pancakes and
omelets. And southbound would be a salmon dinner
that we'd, you know, go buy silvers from the
fishermen in Seattle. And it was a lot of fun.
Amazing. Yeah. Gosh, the experiences, I couldn't
imagine. Those are incredible. All these cool
people. Really, you just. It's very interesting
how we sort of get this, I think the media spreads
this myth that people are not cool or not interesting
or maybe they're all selfish or whatever. We
get this fear factor that people like our president
like to impose on the world. But the reality
is the vast majority of people, you put them...
close to other people. You stick them with good
food, interesting experiences, fun stuff outside,
physically comfortable, and they're happy as
hell. Yeah, the magic happens. Yeah, and so we've
sort of segued that into the hostels. The one
that we've moved twice in Seattle, I didn't start
with the perfect building. I didn't really understand
what the people, what the customers wanted. My
partner, Gardner, he's, I would say, a little
bit more aware of humans. And he just walks into
a room and goes, oh, this would be a little bit
nicer if that was different and this was different.
So he bought an old, well, it was a legal hotel
in San Francisco on Broadway in the North Beach
District. So, you know, lots of cool history
down there. Beautiful property. Yeah, I've been
to that one. It wasn't beautiful when he bought
it. Okay. Just in case you're wondering. As most
hostels are, you know, you got to put in the
love. The old guy, the cool guy that owned the
building before ran a restaurant in the ground
floor. And then, so that giant ballroom, that
ballroom was filled with like plywood and chicken
wire shacks that... All the waiters and the waitresses
and the cooks and the sous chefs and all those
people, everybody had a dressing room. It's hard
to believe that big room. Yeah, it's massive.
The windows were boarded over, those beautiful
stained glass windows that he refurbished and
stuff. So all that fun stuff you can see in the
hostel now really wasn't there. And there was
funny stuff. So each room up in the hotel in
the upper part was different. offices and actually
about half of them were just empty not being
used there was one that had a was very weird
uh you know nice old italian man he had this
room with a mirrors on the ceiling and a big
pink heart -shaped bed i guess he would like
try and uh talk waitresses into going up there
with him who knows people are funny huh yeah
yeah anyway but we so we opened um Both of those
hostels happened in 93. I opened in Seattle a
little bit before Gardner opened in San Francisco.
He did a more thorough remodel. So the bus was
running for, what, 15 years before you guys said,
let's get a base camp kind of in San Francisco
and Seattle or approximately? 20, 20 years. 20
years. Wow. You guys were on the road and you
were kind of co -captain, just cruising along.
It was a whole giant, you know, we had a giant
mailing list of people, mostly. you know bay
area travelers who were familiar and loved our
trips and yeah wow so now amazing fast forward
30 years more later you know after you work on
something for 50 years it's it's it's it's very
interesting you have to i i find like every couple
of i'd say twice a year i go down i sleep in
one of my bunk beds you know i i mingle you know
you go out and have a beer um we have lots of
nowadays i find millennials you have to bribe
them to get together so right different we do
that with free ice cream and free tours and uh
open mic night and stuff like that to um uh get
people yeah come down to the common area meet
other people talk you know you have to lube whatever
you call that, conversational lubricants. Right.
And get people. And then, of course, that's what
they really wanted. But they won't do it on their
own. Yeah. And I think that's a key to a good
hostel. If they understand the importance of
the common area and how to use that common area.
Because, of course, low -end hotels, what do
they have? They'll have like a... 12 by 20 room
with a desk at one end and a computer. You want
to get out of there as fast as you can. But a
good hostel will have a lot of things going on.
Activities in the morning. Hopefully we were
lucky enough. I don't know how many years ago,
but well, Gardner hooked up with a woman who
would run these free walking tours around San
Francisco. And then she got so many people from
the outside world joining the hostels that it
became this giant thing. She could actually get
the bar owners to pay her to bring, you know,
50 happy young travelers to their bar. I mean,
any bar on a Wednesday night that's dead. you
know in a you know rainy night in san francisco
or a rainy night in seattle i mean you dream
of that right if you're the bar owner and uh
it didn't it was anyway we've done that we got
uh we hooked up with this uh a company that free
seattle free walking tours they do walking tours
around the city one architecturally oriented
another one that's oriented towards fountains
seattle happens to have a whole bunch of weird
cool fountains you know um animals people uh
fountains that are coordinated with with uh music
and uh so yeah you gotta know your town and know
what uh what not just what people know is out
there to see you know if you're in st louis you
know it's not just the arch you know that there's
really cool Shakespeare plays almost every night
in the park and, you know, and it's free or almost
free. And sometimes it's three bucks or five
bucks. If you learn those things in your town
and then, you know, communicate that ahead of
time, people will book for three nights instead
of, you know, Seattle for some people is a two
night town. Yeah, that's a great, yeah, great
advice. We have, I'm at our hostel in Santa Barbara
right now. and we have a hostile van and I just
took everybody up to the hot Springs in Montecito
yesterday for free, you know, and the people
were blown away. I had, you know, eight people
go with me and it was just that, just what you're
saying, that classic, you know, backpackers connecting,
getting to know each other and people booked
like four of them booked an extra night, you
know, to stick around for that adventure. So
it broke that ice. Everybody they talked to in
the common area gets a contact high. And so then
it's like, it doesn't just affect those. eight
people you took on a free tour to see jimmy hendrix
grave or you know free tour to see we all that
stuff comes back so valuable and now how about
uh so tell us let's get into the seattle like
uh you're you know i guess when you found the
building walk us through a little bit about the
those times of uh you ended up in seattle and
yeah tell us about the building you found and
kind of what that experience was like getting
uh getting it going well let's see if you think
about what was going on in seattle um in 92 and
that's when i started looking um nirvana was
the was the big thing there was no amazon there
was uh microsoft but it wasn't big like it is
now and really it was a boeing town and real
estate was real different and i was I was focused
on finding a building that we could own, which
took a long time. It wasn't, you know, they don't
have a bunch of old hostels just sitting around
in America. You pretty much have to find a building
that nobody else wants, usually an apartment
building that doesn't have bathrooms for all
the units or some aspect of it that's... you
know, makes it less expensive, less valuable
to the straight world. And then you got to be
ready to put in a lot of good energy because
Hostors are young. They're strong. They're just
learning their bodies. They break everything.
That's for sure. They take all the spoons. I
always laugh, you know, there's like the good
housekeeping seal of approval, right? And then
there's military grade and then there's hostile
proof. Oh my God, that's so true. It has to be
stainless steel. It has to be really well thought
out to not hurt people and to also, you know,
just basically take constant abuse and, you know,
just laugh it off. That's what you want, all
your equipment. And that includes beds and bathrooms
and all that stuff. We early on, Seattle is one
of those things, one of the things you worry
about in bathrooms is mold. And what I discovered
in my, not the first building, but the second
building is radiant heated floors. And if you
put in tile floors in your bathrooms and then
you put in hot water underneath it. So the bathroom
floor, for one thing, every time somebody goes
in there, it's not like, you know, my feet are
on cold, freezing tile. No, my feet are on nice,
warm tile. But the other thing it does is it
dries the room out between showers. And so you
get, you know, a lot less mold problems, a lot
less. And just generally speaking. Getting clean
is one of the things that makes people happy.
So it's always tempting to do these gang bathrooms,
you know, where in a lot of hostels you'll see
because, I mean, the zoning and the use and the
way that building departments are set up, it's
easier to build one big bathroom with four showers
and three toilets and two sinks or something,
you know, whatever. The numbers have to go with
whatever you need for your floor area ratio.
Really what people want is a small amount of
privacy, a bunch of nice, warm, clean tile bathrooms.
And, you know, I've also learned about circ systems
within the domestic hot water. You put a pump
on the hot water thing, so there's hot water
that's always about two feet away from every
sink and every shower. So they're not running,
you know. $1 .50 worth of water down the drain
just to get a warm shower. That's amazing. That's
so smart. Yeah. And people appreciate all that
stuff. I mean, it's funny. When we started, I
think when we opened up the first year, we were
charging $8 a night. And then we sort of fairly
quickly went to $10. But over the years, Things
are great. I think we're charging $37 a night
now. Obviously, we use dynamic pricing tools
like a lot of people. If you're the last 10 people
booking in our hostel, you pay more. There's
a lot of things that you learn. Did you stay
in a lot of hostels? I guess you did. You were
on the bus for 20 years getting a lot of tips
and tricks and ideas for your own hostel. You
know what's funny about that? I wasn't, I should
say, I wasn't really a hostile guy. I'm a camper.
And on the buses, for the most part, except at
the beginning and the ends of the trips, we would
be out in these beautiful national parks, state
parks, camping places. And when I started the
business, I sort of... You put your own values
in. You say, oh, I'd like to have a nice, quiet
place and, you know, a little bit out of the
way to sleep, you know, and then I'll go into
town and have fun. No, that's not what hostelers
want. Hostelers want to open the front door,
go out, and they want to see four options, two
good restaurants and two good bars, and maybe
even a venue where they can go catch some live
music. My place I started in wasn't ideal. I
mean, people liked it. The price was great. I,
you know, put a lot of comfort and focus on things
they could do. But within about a year and a
half, I moved downtown. And it was way different.
You know, people were so much happier. And, well,
I don't know what you, the problem is a lot of.
So running a hostel is a very labor intensive
business. And so I think from a perspective of
a regular business person, it's too much work.
You know, they sort of take a look at it and
go, oh, you mean I got to deal with 18 employees
and I'm going to do all this and I'm only going
to make that. Anyway, so what you you have to
just sort of keep moving. In my case. I did what
I could afford to get the doors open. It worked
for a while. That building, thankfully, in Seattle
got to be worth a lot more. And we sold it quite
a few years ago, but still we quadrupled our
money on it. Nice. And that helped do future
improvements on the next couple of buildings.
And we're a tenant now, but we're also in the
best building in Seattle, really. Amazing. Tourist
Ground Zero. The street is closed off in front
of our hostel, and they have all these fun, have
you seen these wiggly chairs that kids can sit
in and roam around? Anyway, it's on our website
if you look at, but there's people playing music
out front, and you just, you walk out the door,
you feel like, okay, I'm right in this cool,
interesting city. And then right across the street
is the Pike Place Market, which is Seattle's
version of Fisherman's Wharf or whatever they
call the cool old fish markets in New York. Yeah.
Yeah. No, we've got experience with that, too.
And it's like sometimes you want to make a hostel
and it's way more difficult to open it in a maybe
more remote location or out of the way location
and try to convince people to come stay at you
versus if you just go right in the heart of the
action. and just where the demand already is
and just create a better experience than what
everybody else is doing. Um, oftentimes that
works a lot easier and works a lot better. Um,
have you seen the, uh, like the traveler change
a lot, um, over the years? Like, have you seen
swings? Right. I mean, I feel right now we're
in California and Mexico are hostels, but, uh,
you know, since COVID we haven't really seen
the international traveler. return like it was
pre -covid have you seen like swings over the
say past 50 years of uh you know high backpacker
demand and then kind of backpacker demand kind
of cooled off or has it always been kind of consistent
what what is that what has that been like or
what have you noticed well i noticed and i don't
know exactly why but we have we have seen the
foreign travelers come back and i think some
of that is just Nothing I did right. Seattle
is a popular town for Asians. So we have a, we
have a whole, you know, in the winter we get
Aussies and Kiwis, obviously, but we also get
lots of any, any Asian person that young, they
can afford to travel usually on their dad's credit
card or something, you know, who knows, but there's
a lot of them in Seattle and we get them. And
then in the summer, You know, you get your English,
German, French, you know, a smattering of Italians.
It's not as popular of a destination as like
Santa Barbara or San Francisco or Los Angeles,
but it's still got, Seattle has a funny sort
of, call it a work cachet. So we get a lot of
young kid from, Indiana or Ohio who wants to
be a programmer, wants to get into the tech world.
And they just come. Sometimes they go to school.
But we get a lot of those and they stay two,
three weeks. We turn out to have long -term guests
because they always get to know the building
and they sort of people, they'll try and... get
over a little bit. Time to move on. We just say,
hey, it's great. And one of our things we do
is say, okay, take three weeks off. If you want
to come back in three weeks, you can have another
week, but not. not endless stays. Don't show
up with all your suitcases, 10 suitcases and
your coffee table. Exactly. Pile up a bunch of
stuff. Then the next thing they do is start putting
their junk on someone else's bed when that person
checks out. And then somebody goes in, Oh, now
that room's full. I want another room. It's like,
you got to go up there and say, how about your
property? How many rooms do you have there in
Seattle? It's 30 rooms. So, and we could, Definitely
use about another 20 rooms. That's a good thing.
Is it all dorms or mix of privates or what is
the layout like? All dorms, but I made about,
let's see, we have eight rooms that we put, we
call them family dorms. So they'll have a queen
bed on the bottom and a queen bed on the top.
In some of our rooms, there'll be four queens
and two twins. And in the winter, we rent that
as a private. And it's just two people in there.
And, you know, they have a sink, but they don't
have a TV. They don't have a couch. You know,
they don't have some of the things they wish
they had. So it's not all that popular, but it's
still useful. And, you know, accommodates the
swing of low season and high season. In high
season, a couple can stay in one of those double
beds cheaper than they rent two twin beds. Interesting.
Yeah, that's a privacy curtain. You know, so
they can do what couples like to do. Yeah, no,
that's interesting with having that dynamic.
We've switched around between dorm rooms and
private rooms, but never thought of that, making
that kind of double queen and having the extra
twin beds to maybe host more groups in the summer.
But then the same room just fits perfectly for
a, you know, a standard, you know, two friends
or two couples. in the wintertime. So it's creative
to get dynamic with your layout to try to figure
out how to fill the beds. It's tricky, though,
because the world has now built a bunch of nice
bunk beds, wall -hung bunk beds with good lockers.
Everybody's got to have those certain needs taken
care of. They want their stuff to be safe. They
want to go out. Not have to think about it at
all. Just go out and have fun, party, come back.
All your junk's still there. So, but one of the
things the world hasn't figured out, and I looked
into, you know, there's these pods, which are
somewhat like that, but they don't really, they're
not, they don't use the space efficiently enough.
They're basically just a private room that's
a little bit smaller. And so that's interesting.
And I don't know. So we've had to you end up
having to build what you want. And that's, again,
very tricky. So we every year we have to we add
a little bit more stainless steel to these beds
and lockers systems and, you know, paint them,
of course, and get them nice looking for another
high season. But, yeah, it's a it's a. It's a
good thing. If we had more space, if real estate
in Seattle wasn't so expensive, you'd have a
storage room and you'd just break down the room,
turn it into a true private, throw an armoire
in there and a TV and give them what they want.
Anyway. Have you found obviously there's highs.
cyclical years of good years bad years you know
it's all going up and down but i guess is there
things that you find help uh you know really
help sell beds more things you kind of focus
on like i don't know maintaining relationships
with groups over in europe to try to get more
group bookings or being really engaged in like
the chamber of commerce or visitor bureau or
i guess those kind of things when when beds when
occupancy is kind of low and uh where does your
head go and where do you try to what have you
noticed over the years that like oh man this
really helps having these relationships or this
networking or something along those lines this
may sound funny um i think my personally my biggest
takeaway was to relax um you know um I used to
just freak out, you know, December would come
or November. Basically, Halloween is our turning
point in Seattle. And after Halloween, the occupancy
just goes to hell. And I would just be, I'd run
these weird specials, you know, fourth night
free and all this stuff. And it basically didn't
really do much. All the things you talked about
do help. And, you know, getting groups in the
shoulder seasons. Not just European groups, but
American school groups, all sorts of people.
Seattle has one of the funny revolutions that
happened in Seattle. Right when, you know, at
the end of the Vietnam War, Boeing sort of pulled
the plug on their Seattle operations and said,
if you want a job, got to move to Southern California.
And there's that famous moment, there's a billboard
that said, last person leaving Seattle, turn
out the lights. It was a funny time in Seattle.
And what, anyway, if you want to improve things
in the low season, yes, you do a lot of stuff.
You lower the prices. But the biggest thing I
would say, besides, Keep going on groups. Keep
going on all sorts of things that you can develop.
The key is, as the owner, don't freak out. Don't
think, you know, it's not going to be forever.
High season comes back, and really you're better
off. Now I just sort of do a giant maintenance
reset. So I go through the whole building, reseal
all the grout and all the showers. I get all
the rooms painted nice. I replace outlets that
are a little bit loose, you know, where the plug
falls out. And I look around for other things.
Everybody wants a little, either a pocket or
a shelf or something to store their phone and
their gadgets, you know, inside their bed. And
you just sort of do all those things, which is
not fun. You're spending money and you're making
less, but it makes the big... the whole year
picture much better. The details focus on the
details are in the off season when you can get
in there because there's not, it's hard to do
that in the high season. You can shut down four
rooms and it doesn't kill you and you can really
make them all nice. And it's interesting people
really, I'm not that sensitive to paint, you
know, like for me, if I, if I know somebody cleaned
the bathroom, I don't, you know, I'm not affected
by a little bit of a peeling paint in the corner,
but guests are. And they they love fresh paint.
It's a it's an interesting and it's not that
expensive, especially you're much better off
doing a good job. You know, all the sanding and
prepping and doing all that and then high end
paint. And you'll be you'll be much happier in
the long run. Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, having
that staying in the bunks, even just going and
laying down in all the bunks and just looking
at the walls. You know, you'll notice so much
things that if you're just managing. walking
through the day you don't notice so right the
guests notice though right and you can't you
can't count on your cleaners are going to go
you know they're they're good people they want
to clean but they don't have that same you know
they're not going to be sitting in that bunk
going oh that's terrible i gotta fix that now
and and that's what you get by putting yourself
back in the situation and then of course over
the years i've stayed at a lot of hostels and
you know you go You go to Edinburgh, you go to
London, and then Chicago, everywhere. There's
a ton of interesting hostels out there, and you
get new ideas. You're not always going to get
them. A lot of people don't share all their cool
ideas, but one other thing I really love is a
dishwasher, a commercial dishwasher. I don't
know if you have had one. Interesting. I've had
a residential one. To be honest, it was always
a nightmare, but I've never dabbled. Those residential
ones, they're not meant for the bar. But if you
get a good one that's designed for a restaurant,
and the cycles are usually about a two -minute
cycle, so that means you're not dependent on
your guests washing all their dishes, but all
your dishes are always clean and ready for the
next guest. And one of your staff members can
go in there in 10 minutes and wash, you know.
Five loads of dishes and put them away. And they're
clean, right? The classic doesn't have the food
left on the fork and all the classic. Right,
exactly. Where you wash. The classic rewash before
you use. Right, that's the old joke about hostels.
You don't wash your dishes after you eat. You
wash them before you eat. Yeah, no, I know that
game. Right. That's awesome. Are you still part
of the bus tours? They're still driving the bus,
right? I love driving for the bus company. The
COVID really shot the feet out from underneath
the bus company. There was a couple of things
going on, but the bus company is still super
interesting, and the buses are nicer than ever.
What's interesting is they just don't have nearly
as many tours, so I don't get to drive. Plus,
it's a physically very demanding job. You know,
you drive. maybe eight, 10 hours a day. Plus
you organize hikes and then you cook breakfast
and you cook dinner and you're constantly talking
to people and answering questions. And then it's
a young man's job. Yeah, for sure. I'm almost
70, you know, I'm, I, I love it. I would, I would
go on a green tortoise trip any day, but, um,
it's, uh, I think my days of actually driving
trips are probably past me. Yeah. Yeah, but so
the, let's see, some of the things that have
happened, it's, you know, a lot of things in
the end depend on what you love. Because if you
don't love it and love what you're doing, it's
going to be too much work. Yeah. Yeah, you have
to love the, speaking from my point, yeah, we
love just seeing the guests, you know, giving
the guests a great stay and feeling them. have
that, you know, smile on their face and seeing
the guests connect. And especially when it's
a first time hosteler, you know, they, it just,
their mind's blown when they have that classic,
great hustle experience. And it's so fulfilling.
to do. So the smart ones will ask, you know,
they'll go like, what's, what's the cool thing
to do around here? And then you go, well, you
know, today is a super low tide and there's these
tide pools at this park and you just take this
bus over there. And if you have all that stuff
written down on a little flyer, you can hand
to them and hopefully they give it back to you
and it doesn't become waste paper. But, um, all
that stuff, it really, um, Just like you said,
just like the free trip to the hot springs you
were talking about. Yeah. I mean, right there,
you got four more nights, four more bed nights.
Exactly. And I mean, it's also, it's important
to think about the money and not waste money
if you can. But it's also important to, if you
teach your brain to focus on the experience.
What's going to make people happy? You know,
in some ways it's like a bar business. What's
going to make women happy? And, you know, if
you have a bunch of happy women hanging out at
your hostel, the guys are going to want to hang
out at your hostel. That's for sure. Yeah. I
mean, who knows? I've never run a bar, but I
think that there's some similarities there. And
everybody wants to meet other people, but they're
a little bit shy. or whatever, or they just don't
have the social skills to put themselves out
in a nice way. Right, and that's where a great
hostel host comes in and can break the ice and
connect the guests with those local experiences.
Well, that's amazing, Rex. Anything in closing
you have for our listeners out there or aspiring
hostel owners looking to get into the industry?
Well, I don't know. One of the first things to
work on is your family. See who in your family
has a little bit of spare cash that they can
loan you. Because it always takes more. The more
you dump in early on, the better your whole scene
is going to be down the road. And like me, I
had to learn the hard way. You know, I started
with a hostel over, I mean, it's right in Seattle.
It's right near the Space Needle and stuff like
that. But that's not the activity center of Seattle.
And it was a, it was a mind blowing how much
happier the people were when I moved downtown
and had a hostel down there. Yeah. Be in the
right location. Yeah. It's a, it, in some ways,
you know, it depends on the real estate life
of, of the city you're trying to open up in.
And of course, country hostels are great. They're,
they're really cool. But I find in a lot of,
a lot of times, They're more like a job, really.
They're not a business. They're a cool job that
you can, if you want to live there and work there,
it's great. If you want somebody to do a really
good job when you're not there, they're probably
going to make all the money. Yeah. And that's
great. That's great insights there. Amazing.
Well, thank you so much, Rex, for taking the
time to chat today. It's amazing to connect and
see what you guys have done at the Green Tortoise
Adventure Bus, Green Tortoise San Francisco and
Seattle. I haven't I've been to the San Francisco
one, but I'm looking forward to visiting you
here sometime in Seattle. That would be great.
Yeah. You know about Naha, of course. Yeah. Yeah.
The North American Hustling Association. We got
another conference. I've seen you at a couple
of the conferences, but it's it's really I think
what's really great about those conferences.
You do learn a lot of things, but what you get.
It is the contact high from other owners, other
people who have success. And you get inspired
to actually knuckle down and do the work. And
I would highly recommend going to those conferences.
I think this year is going to be in Canada. Yeah,
Montreal. And April 28th is 2026. It'll be in
Montreal. Very good. And yeah, a great event
for... You know, we get people going there, hostile
owners and aspiring hostile owners. You know,
it's cool just to hang out with a bunch of fellow
hostile owners and see what they're doing. It's
so relatable. And like I said, inspiring networking.
And it's great for just. getting to know everybody
because then you know the travelers come over
for three months and you know they're bouncing
around different hostels so once you can say
oh you know go visit my friend rex up in seattle
or you know vice versa it's it's cool to uh offer
that and uh yeah it's a it's a cool hostel community
if you haven't already joined naha to be a part
of yeah word of mouth it's it's a lot it's a
ton amazing thanks a lot all right rex thank
you so much i'll talk to you soon Sounds good.
See you, brother.