Way Hostel Madrid
Old-school backpacker hostel with the best €22 dorm bed near Sol
Backpacker-first hostel on Calle Relatores, 6 minutes from Puerta del Sol and on the Huertas–Lavapiés seam. Strong free-walking-tour programme, themed dinner nights, shared kitchen + kitchenette, happy hour, daily bar crawl.
Way Hostel sits on Calle Relatores, a narrow medieval street in Huertas, four minutes' walk from Tirso de Molina metro and six from Puerta del Sol. The vibe is deliberately old-school backpacker — not a design-heavy boutique, not a big-box party house, just a proper sharing-room-with-strangers hostel where you cook pasta in the shared kitchen, play cards in the lounge, and join the tapas crawl because the staff member leading it knows every bar on Cava Baja.
The building has two bunk-layout styles: mixed dorms of 4, 6, and 8, and a small number of private doubles. Bathrooms are shared per floor — clean, with water pressure, but no en-suites. Linens are included; towels are an extra €2 or bring your own. Air conditioning in all dorms. Reading lights and plugs at every bed. Lockers in every dorm.
Social programming is the strength. Free walking tour of the Austrias daily at 10:30. Tapas crawl Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. Happy hour at the lounge bar 19:00-20:30. Themed dinner on Fridays (€10 — paella or tortilla workshop). A 'tour or class about local culture' — flamenco intro, Spanish slang lesson — usually Wednesdays. It's the kind of curated social calendar that normally only shows up at twice the nightly rate.
- 01€22 for a 6-bed central-Madrid dorm bed is the strongest price in Centro without compromising cleanliness
- 02Free morning coffee + free daily walking tour is the old-school backpacker formula done right
- 03Friday themed dinners (€10 paella) are the easiest icebreaker in any Madrid hostel
- 04Calle Relatores is quiet at night — Huertas action is 3 streets away, not outside your window
- 05Staff-led tapas crawl goes to Cava Baja's Cueva del Chavo and Lamiak, not tourist traps
- 6 min walk to Puerta del Sol, 4 min to Tirso de Molina metro
- Morning coffee in the common room, free every day
- Themed dinners + free local-culture classes
- Among the cheapest 4- and 6-bed dorm beds in Centro
“Really affordable for the location, the morning coffee and the common room actually made it feel like a hostel in the classic sense.”
“Paella night on Friday was genuinely fun, met four people I ended up travelling with to Seville. Staff ran it themselves which felt authentic.”
“Good central location and a proper shared kitchen. Bathroom is shared but always clean when I used it. Towels are an extra fee which caught me off guard.”
- Tirso de Molina metro station4 min walk
- Puerta del Sol6 min walk
- Plaza Mayor7 min walk
- Cava Baja tapas street8 min walk
- Lavapiés district6 min walk
- Prado Museum12 min walk
