High Street Hostel

High Street Hostel is the oldest backpacker hostel in Edinburgh, open continuously since 1984 on 8 Blackfriars Street — the steep half-lane that drops from the Royal Mile down to the Cowgate. It's where every Edinburgh backpacker from the pre-pod generation slept; the walls are covered with graffiti, post-its, tour flyers, and Polaroid memorabilia from four decades of guests. This is the most atmospheric low-budget hostel in town — not smart, not new, deliberately scruffy, and proud of it.

The building holds around 150 beds across five floors, no lift, in a converted 16th-century tenement. Dorms are 6, 8, 10 and 12-bed mixed plus female-only dorms. Bunks are older wooden bunks — they squeak, the mattresses are functional rather than plush, and the paint is peeling in the authentically-Old-Town way. Under-bunk lockers are small (you'll need to leave your backpack next to the bunk). Heating and hot water both work, which sounds basic but is a real win in a 450-year-old building.

The shared kitchen is on the ground floor — four hobs, two ovens, three fridges, a long wooden table that seats twenty. This is where the hostel culture happens: shared-pot dinners on Sundays, travellers cooking haggis at 2 am after the pub crawl, a guest-pantry shelf that's been accumulating pasta and spices for years. Behind the kitchen is a small cobbled back courtyard with a covered smoking area and one of the only outdoor hostel spaces in Old Town.

No on-site bar, but Whistlebinkies (live bands, 100 metres), Bannerman's (rock basement, 2 minutes) and The Royal Oak (Scottish folk, 5 minutes) are all on the Cowgate side. The hostel has a long-standing partnership with the Original Edinburgh Pub Crawl which meets in the ground-floor common room.

18+ only, card only, and the front door locks at 2 am with key-code access afterwards.