If you refuse to stay in hostels, you’re probably from one of these 3 socioeconomic backgrounds

I spent three years living in Bangkok staying in everything from hostels to hotels to apartments.

The hostel experience taught me something interesting about class. Not everyone who could afford better stayed in hostels. And not everyone who stayed in hostels did so purely for budget reasons.

How people felt about hostels revealed their background in ways they often didn't recognize themselves.

Some people were comfortable in shared spaces because they'd grown up sharing. Others were comfortable because they'd been exposed to different travel styles and understood hostels as a choice, not a necessity. And some people would never consider hostels regardless of budget because sharing space with strangers violated something fundamental about how they understood privacy and class markers.

After years traveling and working in hospitality, I've noticed three distinct socioeconomic backgrounds that produce people who absolutely refuse to stay in hostels. Each for completely different reasons.

Here's what your hostel aversion probably says about where you came from.

1) Lower-middle-class strivers who see hostels as sliding backward

This group refuses hostels because they're trying to distance themselves from shared living conditions.

They might have grown up sharing bedrooms with siblings, living in crowded homes, having less privacy than they wanted. Hostels feel like regression to circumstances they worked hard to escape.

For them, having their own hotel room, even a cheap one, represents progress. It's proof they've moved beyond the shared living conditions of their childhood. Hostels aren't just about saving money. They're about not having to share space anymore.

I watched this dynamic constantly in Bangkok. Young professionals from lower-middle-class backgrounds would spend more on basic hotels than hostels cost because the private room mattered psychologically. It wasn't about comfort. It was about status relative to their past.

They'd talk about hostels like they were beneath them, but the real issue was that hostels reminded them of economic realities they were trying to forget. The shared bathroom, the communal kitchen, the lack of personal space. These felt like poverty markers, not travel choices.

This group sees travel accommodations as class signifiers. Where you stay matters because it reflects whether you've made it or not. Choosing hostels when you could afford hotels feels like admitting you haven't actually progressed.

2) Upper-middle-class people who've never had to share anything

This group refuses hostels because they literally can't imagine sharing space with strangers.

They grew up with their own bedrooms, their own bathrooms, privacy as a default. The idea of sleeping in a room with five strangers, using shared facilities, storing belongings in a locker feels foreign and uncomfortable.

It's not that they think they're too good for hostels. They just don't understand why anyone would choose that arrangement when privacy is available. To them, hostels aren't a fun travel experience. They're a compromise you make when you have no other option.

Working in luxury hospitality, I met plenty of people from this background. They'd traveled extensively but always stayed in hotels or rental homes. Hostels never entered their consideration because they'd never had to consider shared living arrangements in any context.

Their refusal isn't snobbery exactly. It's incomprehension. Sharing a room with strangers just doesn't compute as something you'd do voluntarily. Privacy isn't a luxury to them. It's a basic requirement.

When these people travel on budgets, they find cheap hotels or stay with friends. They'll pay more to maintain privacy because they've never lived without it and can't conceive of choosing to.

3) Working-class people who see hostels as too exposed

This group refuses hostels for reasons related to security and vulnerability.

They're often more familiar with shared living arrangements than upper-middle-class people. But that familiarity makes them cautious about who they're sharing with. They understand that not everyone in shared spaces is trustworthy.

The concerns are practical. Your stuff in a locker while strangers have access to the room. Sleeping in a space where you can't control who comes and goes. The social exposure of being around people constantly when you can't easily escape.

During my Bangkok years, I knew working-class travelers who'd camp, stay in budget motels, or find other cheap options before they'd stay in hostels. Not because they couldn't handle shared spaces. Because they didn't trust the security setup.

This group's refusal comes from experience with the reality of shared living, not inexperience with it. They know what can happen when you're sharing space with people you don't know. They're not willing to take that risk just to save money.

They'll also mention not wanting to socialize that much. After working service jobs or dealing with people all day, the forced sociability of hostels sounds exhausting, not appealing. They want privacy to decompress, not community.

Why these three specifically

Notice how these groups refuse hostels for completely different reasons that all trace back to their economic background.

Lower-middle-class strivers reject hostels because shared space represents poverty they're trying to escape. Upper-middle-class people reject them because they've never had to share and don't understand why anyone would. Working-class people reject them because they understand shared living too well and know the downsides.

Meanwhile, who actually stays in hostels?

Wealthy people slumming it for the experience, treating hostels as adventure rather than necessity. Middle-class people who see hostels as smart budget travel that allows more experiences. People from cultures where communal living is more normal and less loaded with class meaning.

And travelers who grew up with enough to be comfortable but not so much that privacy became a given. The sweet spot where hostels feel like a choice rather than either a step backward or an incomprehensible compromise.

What this reveals about you

Your reaction to hostels isn't really about hostels.

It's about what shared space means to you based on your background. Whether privacy is a luxury you're still claiming, a given you've never questioned, or something you protect because you know what happens without it.

If you refuse hostels because they feel like poverty, you're probably trying to prove you've moved beyond circumstances that involved sharing. If you refuse because you can't imagine voluntarily giving up privacy, you probably never had to share growing up. If you refuse because you don't trust the security or want the forced sociability, you've probably worked jobs that taught you to be cautious about both.

None of these responses is wrong. But they're all revealing in ways you might not have thought about.

I've stayed in hostels across Southeast Asia and Europe. Sometimes by choice when I wanted to meet people, sometimes by budget necessity when I was basically broke in Bangkok. The experience taught me that hostels are just accommodations. The meaning you assign to them comes from your background, not from anything inherent to shared dorm rooms.

Some of the best travel experiences I've had involved hostel common rooms and random conversations with people from everywhere. Some of the worst involved exactly the security and social exposure concerns working-class travelers worry about. It's not romantic or terrible. It's just a type of accommodation with trade-offs like any other.

But how you feel about those trade-offs, whether hostels even register as an option or feel like something to avoid at all costs, that reveals the invisible influence of class background on something as simple as where you sleep when you travel.