Tried coworking in a hostel common room for a week and got zero work done

Thought it would be great for networking but ended up playing pool with a guy from Sweden for three days straight. Anyone else find hostels impossible for actual focus?

3 comments

3 Comments

riverdavis1mo ago

Man, that sounds rough but honestly I get it. Hostels are basically designed for the exact opposite of focus. Like, the whole point is to meet people and hang out, not stare at a laptop. That Swedish pool partner must have been good conversation though, right? Maybe try a library next time, but I bet the vibe just wont hit the same. Sometimes the best work happens when you least expect it, but a hostel common room is basically asking for trouble.

sethfoster1mo ago

The one angle nobody talks about is the noise from cheap hostel kitchen extractor fans. I stayed in a place in Barcelona where the common room was right next to the kitchen, and that fan would kick on every thirty minutes with a hum that vibrated through the floorboards. It made listening to a podcast impossible and any kind of deep focus a joke. Sometimes the physical design of the building itself works against you, not just the people. Those fans are designed to move air, not to let you finish a spreadsheet.

sagecooper1mo ago

The extractor fan thing is a brutal detail that nobody warns you about. Add in a fridge that hums and a dishwasher that sounds like it's trying to take off, and the common room becomes this weird symphony of mechanical noise. It's almost worse than loud people because you can't really ask a fan to keep it down, you know? I've started checking hostel reviews specifically for "noisy common areas" after one too many nights trying to work through that low-level drone.