A Look at Hostels in the USA

Ordered by number of hostels:

• New York City - 55 hostels, 59327 reviews
• Los Angeles - 21 hostels, 8990 reviews
• San Francisco - 14 hostels, 12671 reviews
• San Diego - 8 hostels, 3183 reviews
• Miami - 6 hostels, 4200 reviews
• Chicago - 4 hostels, 5121 reviews
• New Orleans - 4 hostels, 2443 reviews
• Honolulu - 4 hostels (Honolulu only), 2198 reviews (all of Oahu Island)
• Las Vegas - 3 hostels, 2811 reviews
• Boston - 2 hostels, 7867 reviews (possibly 3 hostels in the summer)
• Seattle - 2 hostels, 833 reviews

Ordered by number of reviews:

• New York City - 55 hostels, 59327 reviews
• San Francisco - 14 hostels, 12671 reviews
• Los Angeles - 21 hostels, 8990 reviews
• Boston - 2 hostels, 7867 reviews (possibly 3 hostels in the summer)
• Chicago - 4 hostels, 5121 reviews
• Miami - 6 hostels, 4200 reviews
• San Diego - 8 hostels, 3183 reviews
• Las Vegas - 3 hostels, 2811 reviews
• New Orleans - 4 hostels, 2443 reviews
• Honolulu - 4 hostels (Honolulu only), 2198 reviews (all of Oahu Island)
• Seattle - 2 hostels, 833 reviews

EDIT: I double-checked the Boston hostels and two of them aren't hostels. One is a YMCA and one is a YWCA.

Here's the listing for YWCA:

IMPORTANT! ALL of our 'dorms' are PRIVATE ROOMS. If you reserve a 2-bed dorm, you are agreeing to pay for both people.

A dorm room where the entire room has to be booked is a hotel room with bunk beds, not a dorm.

If anyone is opening a hostel in Boston let me know because I live in Massachusetts. There are only 2 hostels in the actual city, and there are 200,000 college students.

The two Boston hostels counted here are HI Boston and Abercrombie's Farrington Inn. The Prescott International Hotel and Hostel is located in Everett, Massachusetts, not Boston. I believe HI opens a second location in the summer.

As coming from a company that aggressively watches our hostelworld ratings, there are a few things you should all be aware of when looking at Hostelworld ratings.

First of all they are not weighted. Meaning each score from 20 percent to 100 is worth one point as opposed to a weighted system which would give the higher scores more points. Because it is not weighted this means there are only two 'good' scores on hostelworld - a 4 and 5.

So while they list a three as 'average' getting all 3's gives you a 60% score. Now looking at the thought process someone offered above makes that hostel now look like they are a very poor hostel when in fact, they are 'average' as graded by the guest. And unfortunately i think most guests will look at things the exact same way.

This also means if you get all 4's you get a score of only 80%, but rationally it seems if you get the second top score on all categories shouldn't you be something like a 90% instead of an 80% which makes you seem very average to the viewer?

And before someone says it's sour grapes or something like that, ALL my company's hostels are in the 80's in each of our cities. But it's very hard to maintain because one really bad score say of 20% requires four 100% scores to bring the average back into the 80s!

I love the hostelworld folks but i've been saying to them for years that this is not an appropriately rated system of expressing true ratings.

I've always thought there should be a weighting system that reflects the words they use to reflect the numbers. In other words, a 4 is 90%, a 3 is 75 or 80%, a 2 is 60 or 70% and a 1 is like 30%.

Wonder if anyone else out there agrees with me....

I believe your math is right. and it seems a shame that a good hostel can suffer so much from one bad review.

I agree that the ratings are good for a reference and hopefully, thoughtful people look more closely at the comments as i think that is more telling than the actual ratings.

For instance, one of our hostels is known as a 'party' hostel. if you're looking for a place to hang out and have a late night, you'll be really happy there. if you are looking for a smaller, quiet hostel we're not your best choice. So someone who wants the second type can give a bad rating that someone who wants the first type would give a great rating.

So i think in the end, the comments, taken with a grain of salt of course, are the best guide.

I also like that hostelworld has added the 'type' and 'country' of traveller. I think there is a big difference in rating based on being a 'novice' or an 'experienced' traveller. And from the management side, knowing what country someone is from is helpful too. That way we can see if we are having a pattern of problems with people from certain countries. If so, we can then work on finding out what isn't working and try to fix it. Sometimes it's as simple as translating something better or having more people on staff who speak a certain language.