Hostels have long been a cornerstone of the tourism ecosystem, providing accessible travel and a sense of camaraderie among youth travellers across the globe.
It’s with this in mind that G Adventures formed a partnership with Hostelworld to bring a new style of travel to 18 to 35-year-olds – Roamies.
This new collaboration has launched a collection of 38 trips in 15 countries staying across more than 50 hostels, and sees travellers exploring iconic destinations with the world’s hottest hostels as their home base – to both hang out and kick-start adventures.
Departures kick off on 8 May 2022 with trips between five and 34 days duration that prioritise maximum freedom and flexibility, with optional activities available to book, plus the support of an expert chief experience officer (CEO) every step of the way.
According to G Adventures’ founder, Bruce Poon Tip, the traveller has changed following the pandemic, and the partnership was born out of the desire to create something entirely new for younger travellers, many of whom have been deprived of the opportunity to travel over the past 20 months.
“We’ve always had great respect for Hostelworld – it’s an amazing company with an incredible commitment to the advancement of travel, a quality we appreciate and share,” Poon Tip said.
“The pandemic gave us the opportunity to act like a start-up again. As we learned more about Hostelworld’s business, we realised there was an opportunity to create something special by bringing our brands together to create the perfect mix of backpacking and organised travel.
“Together we’re creating a new style of travel for our customers that will allow them to have a better travel experience and support our model of community tourism, which is based on investing in as many local and small businesses as possible. There is no better representation of that than in the hostel market, of which many are family-run businesses.”
Gary Morrison, chief executive officer of Hostelworld Group, said the partnership presented an exciting opportunity to create a new type of backpacking adventure for young travellers.
“Our mission is to help hostellers meet other travellers they want to hang out with while travelling, so partnering with G Adventures to offer a combination of hostelling and adventure travel made absolute sense,” he said.
“When young people travel, they want to do more than just see places – they want to make meaningful connections and have new experiences that positively change their perspective on themselves and the world.
“We truly admire G Adventures’ ability to create tailored group trips that put meeting new people and supporting local communities as the focal point, something our customers are extremely passionate about. With so many young people missing out on trips of a lifetime in the last couple of years, Roamies will offer them an entirely new type of planned backpacking adventure in 2022.”
Roamies trips are priced from $249pp for a three-day trip, and countries visited across the entire current collection include Albania, Austria, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Peru, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Featured image: Peru Lima Kokopelli Hostel Barranco Courtyard (supplied)
