“Pre-drinks at the Bristol Wing bar at 8pm, walked to King Street at 9, ended up at the Full Moon at midnight, and somehow arrived back at the hostel at 3am via Stokes Croft. The fact that I started and ended in a hostel bar made the £25-pub-budget night feel like a £60 one.”
Ex-police-station hostel on Bridewell Street that funnels its profits into a Bristol homelessness charity. Five-minute walk to the Thekla and the King Street pubs, ten to Temple Meads via Uber. Bristol's highest-rated hostel with free breakfast and a kitchen that actually works.
Backpacker hostel attached to The Full Moon pub on the edge of Stokes Croft, Bristol's street-art and counterculture quarter. Live music nights downstairs, a beer garden out back, and the cheapest bunks within walking distance of the city centre.
Converted Victorian grain warehouse on Narrow Quay, right on Bristol's floating harbour. The quietest hostel in the city, with riverside views from the cafe-bar and a five-minute ferry hop to the SS Great Britain.
Hostel attached to a bowling alley and bar on Park Row, smack in the middle of the Old City student quarter. Cheapest central beds in Bristol with a built-in party downstairs, ten lanes of bowling, and a bar that runs late on weekends.
Bristol Wing and YHA Bristol bars stop serving at 23:00 — Full Moon and Rock n Bowl run later if you want to keep going without leaving the building.
The Thekla offers Hostelpedia readers' nights occasionally — Wednesdays in summer — check the board at the Wing's reception.
King Street is a 5-min walk from the Wing and Rock n Bowl, 8 from YHA Bristol, 12 from the Full Moon. Plan the night accordingly.
Bristol's craft beer scene is brilliant — Lost & Grounded, Wiper & True — and most hostel bars stock at least one local. Ask for the Bristol option, not the Carling.
If you're catching an early train, sleep at YHA Bristol or the Wing. The Full Moon's pub bass and Rock n Bowl's bowling music will both keep you up past midnight.
