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Hostels are one of the great pleasures of backpacking and one of the more reliable ways to set off an allergy. Shared rooms, communal bedding, old buildings and a rotating cast of strangers add up to a lot of dust, a lot of pollen coming in on other people’s clothes, and occasionally a resident cat. If you arrive somewhere new and spend your first evening sneezing, the room is usually the reason.
This is manageable with a bit of preparation. Here is what actually causes flare-ups in hostels, and what you can do about each one.
Dust mites are the main culprit
Dust mites live in bedding and feed on shed skin. They thrive in warm, humid conditions, which describes a hostel dorm in most of the world for most of the year. It is not the mites themselves that cause the reaction but proteins in their waste, which become airborne when a mattress or duvet is disturbed.
Hostel mattresses are the problem area. Sheets get washed between guests in any decent hostel, and duvets and pillows are washed far less often. The mattress itself may never have been cleaned in years of use.
A few things reduce your exposure without requiring you to carry much:
- A sleeping bag liner, ideally silk or tightly woven cotton, which puts a barrier between you and whatever the bedding is carrying
- Your own pillowcase, which weighs almost nothing and is the single most useful item on this list, since your face spends the whole night on that surface
- Shaking out the bed outside the room rather than in it, if you are making it up yourself
- Choosing a top bunk where you can, because dust settles downwards and lower bunks tend to be worse
If you react badly to dust mites at home as well, it is worth knowing what the fix looks like there. Encasing your own mattress and pillows in a barrier cover is the standard recommendation, since it stops the allergen reaching you while you sleep. Some of the better anti-allergy mattress protectors also handle moisture, which matters because humidity is what allows the mite population to grow in the first place.
Damp and mould
Old buildings in humid climates, which describes a great many hostels in southeast Asia, southern Europe and coastal South America, often have mould in bathrooms and sometimes in the walls of dorms themselves. Mould spores set off similar symptoms to dust allergies, and they also cause problems for people with asthma.
You can usually tell within a minute of walking into a room. Look at the ceiling corners and the grout in the bathroom, and take the smell seriously. Rooms without windows are far more likely to have a problem, and a room with a window you can open is worth paying a couple of extra pounds for.
If you are booking ahead, reviews are more reliable than photographs. People complain about damp specifically, and the word will appear in reviews if it is an issue.
Pollen comes in with everyone else
In spring and summer, hostels in rural or park-adjacent locations effectively import pollen all day. Every person who walks in from a hike brings some in on their clothes and hair.
Rinsing your hair before bed makes a real difference during high pollen season, because otherwise you spend eight hours with a night’s worth of pollen next to your face. Keeping the window closed at dawn and dusk, when pollen counts peak, also helps, though this can be a difficult negotiation in a shared room without air conditioning.
Changing out of your day clothes before you sit on your bed is a small habit that keeps the sleeping area cleaner than the rest of the room.
Animals
Plenty of hostels have a dog or a cat, and they are often not mentioned on the booking page. If you are allergic to animals, this is worth asking about directly by message before you book. Cat allergen in particular is persistent and spreads throughout a building on clothing and air currents, so a hostel cat that never enters the dorms can still cause you problems.
Practical kit worth carrying
- Antihistamines, more than you think you need, since brands and availability vary a lot by country
- A nasal spray if you use one, packed in a sealed bag in case of pressure changes
- Your inhaler if you have asthma, plus a spare, and never buried in a checked bag
- A saline nasal rinse, which is unglamorous and extremely effective after a dusty day
- A few disposable face masks, useful on long bus journeys and in particularly dusty rooms
- Your own pillowcase and liner
Carry a written note of the generic names of your medications, since brand names differ internationally and a pharmacist in Vietnam will not recognise a British brand.
Choosing rooms that suit you
If you have significant allergies, some room types are consistently better. Smaller dorms have less bedding and fewer people in them. Rooms with hard floors are better than carpeted ones, since carpet holds far more dust. Newer hostels in modern buildings tend to have better ventilation, and private rooms give you control over the window.
Spending slightly more on accommodation in high pollen season, or in one particularly humid city, is a reasonable trade. A fortnight of broken sleep and blocked sinuses costs you more of the trip than the price difference does.
Know your own pattern
The most useful thing you can bring is knowledge of what sets you off. If you already know that dust affects you more than pollen, prioritise the liner and the pillowcase. If it is mould, prioritise the window and the reviews. Backpacking involves accepting a certain amount of discomfort, and this is one of the areas where a small amount of planning removes most of it.