Many youth hostels across Europe enforce strict age limits, explicitly banning guests over thirty-five or forty from sleeping in their cheapest shared dormitory rooms.

A closer look

Many youth hostels across Europe enforce strict age limits, explicitly banning guests over thirty-five or forty from sleeping in their cheapest shared dormitory rooms. This discriminatory policy is implemented to preserve a specific energetic party vibe and prevent creepy interactions between eighteen-year-old backpackers and middle-aged individuals going through a midlife crisis. Turning thirty-five means society officially deems you too old to sleep on a questionable mattress in a room with twelve snoring strangers who dry their socks on the radiator. It is a harsh existential milestone when the budget travel industry firmly decides that your joints can no longer handle top bunks and aggressive techno music at three in the morning