Is It Better To Stay In A Hotel Or Hostel In London?

A single traveller comparing a £20 dorm bed with a £77.5 private room is comparing a £20 decision with a £77.5 one, and that is most of the argument. But two people sharing a private room, or four people splitting beds, change the arithmetic enough that the cheaper option flips. This article works through the sampled prices on this site's roster, 12 hostels and 18 budget hotels plus 6 aparthotels and 6 apartments, and settles the question per traveller type rather than giving one blanket answer. Where the site's facts are thin, on Airbnb comparisons especially, it says so and uses the numbers that do exist. If the thin Airbnb data leaves you wondering what else is out there, the companion piece on what people use instead of Airbnb in London works through the real alternatives with the same sampled prices.

Is It Better To Stay In A Hotel Or Hostel In London?

For one person, a hostel dorm bed is cheaper on every sampled figure: the median bed across the 12 hostels on the roster is £20 per night, against a median private room of £77.5 across 24 budget hotels and aparthotels. For two people the gap narrows, two beds at the median is £40 against one room at £77.5. For four people, compare four beds against a family or quad room, and the rows suggest both can win.

Start with what the money buys. A dorm bed is one bed in a shared room, sometimes four beds, sometimes ten or more, with lockers mentioned in several rows and shared bathrooms unless the row says otherwise. A private room in a budget hotel is a room with a door, usually a private bathroom on this roster's hotel rows, and no strangers. Both types on the roster carry the same London address risk: the price is only the lowest rate on the dates sampled, and the live rate varies by date and availability. To see how those room rates fit into a full trip budget, our guide to what London actually costs tourists walks through every layer of spending.

The lowest dorm bed on the roster is £14 per bed per night at Smart Camden Inn Hostel in Camden, a 4 minute walk from Mornington Crescent station and 26 minutes to Charing Cross. The lowest private room is £49 per night at Dolphin Hotel in Paddington, 5 minutes from Paddington station. Even the cheapest bed and the cheapest room sit £35 apart for one person, one night.

Ratings do not split neatly by type either. The highest rating on the whole roster belongs to a hostel: Wombat's City Hostel London scores 9.1 out of 10 across 19,145 reviews on the listing, and it offers dorms, private rooms and female-only dorms under one roof, with breakfast included and private bathrooms stated on its row. A guest review on that stay reads, "I think this was a great place to stay. It was clean and comfortable." Meanwhile several budget hotel rows score in the 7s out of 10 with four-figure review counts. Price type predicts less about satisfaction than the individual property does.

The middle option is worth naming early: many hostels on the roster also sell private rooms. Generator London lists dorms, quads and private rooms. Clink261 lists shared dorms, girls-only dorms and private rooms. That means the hotel versus hostel question is often really a dorm bed versus private room question, and you can hedge by booking a private room inside a hostel, keeping the hostel's common spaces and kitchen while closing the door at night.

Before going further, one thing to rule out: no visitor levy is charged in London yet. The government has said mayors will be given the power to introduce an Overnight Visitor Levy, that a Bill will follow, and that the levy will be charged as a percentage of the cost of accommodation rather than a flat fee, per the government's announcement on visitor levy powers. Nothing is added to tonight's bill on that account.

Is It Cheaper To Stay In A Hotel Or Airbnb In London?

This site's facts hold no Airbnb prices, so an honest comparison cannot use invented nightly rates for it. What the roster does show: whole-unit apartments sampled from £110 to £148 per night, and private rooms from £49. On those sampled figures, a hotel or hostel room undercuts a whole apartment for one or two nights, while an apartment's kitchen can close the gap on longer stays. If the hotel option wins for your dates, the guide to cutting a London hotel bill shows where the real savings are hiding.

The honest position first: the roster has no Airbnb rates, no Airbnb fee schedule and no Airbnb cleaning-fee figure, so any pound-for-pound Airbnb price printed here would be fiction. The closest thing the roster offers is its own apartment section, six whole units sampled between £110 and £148 per night, for example Centra Wharf in east London from £110 or Imperial Court Suites in Bayswater from £122, all with kitchens noted on their rows.

Set those against the budget hotel rows. Dolphin Hotel samples from £49 per night with a private bathroom stated, family rooms and no lift. Epsilon Hotel in Stratford samples from £65 with family rooms and a private bathroom. For a couple, a £65 hotel room and a £110 apartment are far apart per night before any cleaning fee or minimum stay an apartment platform might add, and those figures are not in this site's facts either.

The kitchen is the real lever. A guest cooking two meals a day from a supermarket shop saves money no roster row can quantify, which is why this comparison stalls at the room rate. The apartment rows note kitchens; the hotel rows mostly do not. The hostel rows frequently do: Smart Camden Inn Hostel notes a kitchen, Clink261 notes a kitchen, Park Villa in Bow notes a kitchen, and cooking is the standard way dorm guests keep a £20 bed from becoming a £45 day.

For context only, not as a budget rate: London hotels averaged £214.90 a night in August across all star levels, per RSM's tracker, which includes luxury. Every figure on this roster sits well under that market average, which is the point of comparing within budget types rather than against the whole market. Our sibling piece Airbnb versus hotel prices in London takes the thin-data problem head on.

Thinking of hedging with a hostel that has both dorms and private rooms? Check availability for your dates and see which side of the property prices better that week.

Is It Better To Stay In A Hotel Or Airbnb In London?

On the roster's own numbers, a budget hotel room wins on simplicity and usually on the nightly rate for short stays: private rooms start at £49 sampled, apartments at £110. An apartment wins when the kitchen and space matter, for groups or longer stays, since a two-bedroom unit sleeps more heads than any budget hotel room at a flat nightly price. Group arithmetic from the rows favours the apartment as headcount rises.

Work the arithmetic for four people, the case the per-file brief flags. Four dorm beds at the £20 median cost £80 per night. A private hotel room sleeping four, a family or quad room, is priced per room: Dolphin Hotel lists Quadruple and Family Room types from a £49 sampled low across its room mix, though the sampled rate is the lowest room type, not necessarily the quad, so the live listing is the only source for the four-bed rate. A two-bedroom apartment, Lamington Apartments in Hammersmith lists one, from £103 sampled, sleeps four under one flat price with a kitchen.

So for four people the candidates are roughly £80 in beds, an unknown-but-higher family room rate, or from £103 for a whole two-bedroom unit with a kitchen. The apartment becomes competitive exactly when headcount rises and cooking replaces eating out, and the hostel stays ahead when the four travellers are happy to share a dorm. The hotel family room is the option to price last, on the live listing, because the roster cannot pin its rate.

There is a second, quieter difference: what the stay includes. On the rows, free cancellation flags appear on all 12 hostel rows but on none of the hotel or apartment rows where the field reads Not stated, and Not stated is not no, it means the listing does not state it. Kitchens appear mostly on hostel and apartment rows. Private bathrooms are stated on most hotel rows and on two hostel rows, YHA London Thameside's en-suite rooms and Wombat's private bathrooms. Breakfast is included on exactly one row on the whole roster, Wombat's, and paid at Dolphin, Park Villa and a handful of others.

The pattern in plain terms: hostels trade privacy for price and shared facilities, budget hotels trade price for a locked door and a private bathroom, and apartments trade front-desk service for space and a kitchen. Aparthotels such as Staycity Aparthotels Deptford Bridge studios sit in between, a studio with a kitchen and a 24-hour reception, from £69 sampled.

What Does Each Type Usually Include, Per The Sampled Rows?

Reading the roster field by field: every hostel row lists 24-hour reception except Park Villa, every hostel row lists luggage storage, and every hostel row carries a free cancellation flag. On the hotel side, 24-hour reception is stated on almost all rows but free cancellation reads Not stated throughout, and breakfast is either paid or Not stated. Kitchens cluster in hostels and apartments, private bathrooms in hotels.

The table below is built only from the roster's own fields, and it is the fastest way to see what each stay type actually hands you at check-in. Where a cell says the listing does not state it, that is the honest reading of a Not stated field, never a claim that the facility is absent.

Two readings follow. First, the hostel rows are the most consistent: whatever else varies, the free cancellation flag and luggage storage appear again and again, which matters if your dates might shift. Second, the hotel rows pay for certainty in the bathroom column: private bathrooms are stated on nearly every budget hotel row, from Dolphin to Epsilon Hotel family rooms to Snoozebox Olympic Park, while the hostel rows either say shared or do not state it.

Getting around is another field worth folding in, because a cheaper bed further out can cost more in fares. TfL's capping page lists adult daily caps for pay as you go on contactless or Oyster, Zones 1 to 2 at £8.90 and Zones 1 to 3 at £10.50, and readers should check TfL for current fares. A Zone 2 or 3 stay like Epsilon Hotel in Stratford, 44 minutes to Charing Cross, saves on the room but can spend some of that on daily travel, while Zone 1 hostels such as Generator London near Russell Square keep the cap at the lowest band.

One more cost that is certain rather than variable: hotel and holiday accommodation in the UK is charged at the 20% standard VAT rate, and the government's VAT rates page states the standard rate. Whether a displayed price already includes it is shown on the live listing, so do not assume either way.

Which Is Better For One, Two Or Four People?

For one traveller the hostel wins outright, £20 at the median against £77.5 for a private room; for two it still costs less at £40 for two beds versus £77.5 for one room, though that private door comes at nearly double the price. At four people the gap narrows sharply: four beds total £80, and a family room or two-bedroom apartment from £103 can win once per-head costs and a kitchen are counted.

Take one person first, because the numbers are stark. A solo traveller paying the £20 dorm median spends £140 across a week of beds. The same week in a median private room, at £77.5 a night, costs nearly four times as much. That difference is the entire budget case for hostels, and no comfort argument on the hotel side closes a gap that size for a traveller watching money. A guest review of Smart Camden Inn Hostel reads, "The room was very clean and so was the rest of the hostel. The common rooms were very relaxing," which is the hostel pitch in one sentence: shared but clean.

Two people is the interesting case, because two dorm beds at the median, £40, still undercut the £77.5 median room by close to half. But two people are usually a couple, and a shared dorm of strangers is a different product for a couple than for a solo traveller. The hostel side's answer is a private room inside a hostel: Clink261, Generator London, St Christopher's London Bridge and Wombat's all list private rooms on their rows, so the couple can stay in the cheaper building and still close a door. Price those private rooms on the live listing, since the sampled £14 to £26 figures are per bed in dorms.

Four people is where the flip can happen. Four beds at the £20 median are £80, but families are usually not filling dorms; the roster's family-facing rooms are the comparison. Dolphin Hotel lists Family and Quadruple rooms, City London Hotel lists a Family Room from £125 sampled, Epsilon Hotel lists family rooms from £65 sampled, and Hotel DC in Stratford lists family rooms from £53 sampled with a private bathroom and air conditioning noted on its row. At £53 for four people, one hotel room undercuts four £20 beds. That single row is why the four-person verdict says compare, not hostel.

The verdict column is arithmetic from the rows, nothing more. Per-head, the four-person family room at Hotel DC works out cheaper per head than any dorm bed on the roster, which surprises people who assumed hostels always win. The hostel wins for four only when the four are friends happy to share a dorm, in which case £80 is the price of the whole party.

What Is The Girl Only Hostel In London?

Several roster stays offer female-only dorms rather than one girl-only hostel: Clink261 lists girls-only dorms, Wombat's City Hostel lists female-only dorms, St Christopher's London Bridge lists female-only dorms, Safestay Elephant & Castle lists female-only dorms, and Astor Victoria lists female-only dorms. No property on the roster is female-only throughout, so the honest answer names the floors, not a building.

The distinction matters for booking. A female-only dorm is a single room or a set of rooms inside a mixed hostel, bookable as its own room type on the live listing. Clink261, 6 minutes from King's Cross St. Pancras and from £18 per bed sampled, lists shared dorms, girls-only dorms and private rooms, so a solo woman can choose her level of privacy within one property. Wombat's does the same from £21 sampled, with an 18 minimum age stated on its row, plus breakfast included and private bathrooms.

A guest review of Onefam Notting Hill, which offers dorms and privates near Bayswater, reads, "An amazing place with such good vibes, amazing for solo travellers looking to make friends!! Staff were amazing and made sure everyone felt safe!" Quoted verbatim from its own stay; note it is a review of that hostel, not a safety claim about any area, and this site makes none. On the safety question generally, our guide are London hostels safe works through what the rows and official sources actually say, including the NHS's bedbug page, which notes that bites "can be itchy but do not usually cause other health problems" and offers no prevalence figures, because none exist in this site's facts.

For women weighing hotel versus hostel, the female-only dorm is the product that changes the calculus. It keeps the £18 to £21 bed price while removing the mixed-dorm hesitation, and every property listing it also carries the free cancellation flag, so the booking is reversible. Wombat's City Hostel London, from £21 per bed sampled, is the roster's strongest all-round example: female-only dorms, private rooms, breakfast included, a 9.1 out of 10 score across 19,145 reviews on the listing, and a Zone 1 location 31 minutes to Charing Cross.

Which Should You Book? A Verdict By Traveller Type

Solo on a budget: the hostel dorm, £20 median, no contest on the numbers. Couples: a private room inside a hostel, or a budget hotel from £49 sampled when a private bathroom is non-negotiable. Families of four: price a family room first, Hotel DC from £53 and Epsilon from £65 sampled can beat four beds. Long stays and groups who cook: the apartment or aparthotel, from £69 sampled with a kitchen.

The verdict table keeps every claim tied to a row.

Seasonality should pin the booking date too. On the dates sampled, dorm medians run £20 in November and January against £34 in June, and private room medians run £81 in January against £156 in October. A traveller flexible on month can save more by shifting dates than by switching stay type: the January private room median, £81, costs less than the June dorm-plus-upgrade path for many parties. Our guides on the cheapest months to stay in London and what a hostel costs in London carry the full month tables.

Whichever way the arithmetic points for your party, the next step is the same: check the live price for your exact dates, because every figure here is the lowest sampled rate and the live rate varies by date and availability. This is where Cheap Hotels London earns its keep, by holding the sampled numbers still while the listings move.

To close the original question plainly: a hostel is better for one or two people on a budget, a budget hotel is better for families and anyone who needs a private bathroom as stated, and the tie-breaker for everyone else is whether a kitchen and a common room sound like a feature or a chore.

Common Questions About Hotels Versus Hostels In London

Is It Better To Stay In A Hotel Or Hostel In London?

For one or two people on a budget, the hostel: the median dorm bed samples at £20 per night against a £77.5 median private room. For families of four, a family room can win, Hotel DC samples from £53 and Epsilon Hotel from £65 for the whole room, beating four £20 beds. Rate every case on the live listing for your dates.

Is It Cheaper To Stay In A Hotel Or Airbnb In London?

This site's facts hold no Airbnb rates, so no honest pound-for-pound figure exists here. On the roster's own numbers, private rooms sample from £49 per night and whole-unit apartments from £110 to £148. For short stays the hotel room is cheaper; the apartment's kitchen narrows the gap on longer stays.

Is It Better To Stay In A Hotel Or Airbnb In London?

A budget hotel wins on simplicity and usually on nightly rate for short stays; an apartment or aparthotel wins for groups and longer stays, where a kitchen and a flat per-unit price, from £69 sampled at Staycity Deptford Bridge, carry the stay.

What Is The Girl Only Hostel In London?

No property on the roster is female-only throughout. Several offer female-only dorms: Clink261 lists girls-only dorms from £18 per bed sampled, and Wombat's, St Christopher's London Bridge, Safestay Elephant & Castle and Astor Victoria all list female-only dorm rooms.

Do London Hostels Cost Less Than Budget Hotels Every Month?

On the dates sampled, yes, in the median: dorm medians run £20 to £34 across the year and private room medians £81 to £156. But the cheapest family hotel rooms, from £53 sampled, beat four dorm beds in high season, so check both for your party size and month.

Can You Get A Private Room Inside A London Hostel?

Yes, on several rows: Generator London, Clink261, Wombat's, St Christopher's London Bridge, Safestay Elephant & Castle and Park Villa all list private or family rooms alongside dorms, so you can keep the hostel's kitchen and common spaces and still close a door.