The Making of STAY: A Story of Passion and Place
There were many highlights of the 2026 NAHA Conference in Montreal. Hostels like Gaslamp Hostel, RAD Hostel, Howzit Hostels, Barndoor Hostel & Campgrounds, The Crash Pad Chattanooga, and Northwest Portland Hostel all took home awards. Connections were made. Friendships were formed. Industry information was shared, and invaluable insights and knowledge on hostelling were shared at the conference.
One standout was a documentary entitled STAY: A Story of Passion and Place, produced by the BHostel Podcast in partnership with Cloudbeds, a cloud-based hospitality management software platform. The 13-minute film is about Northwest Portland Hostel in Portland, Oregon. Producer and host Bryant Perkins was at the conference to represent the team behind the project (Brooke McKelvey and Larry George II) and to speak to the documentary's intended goal of highlighting the people behind a hostel's operation, namely the owner, Jim Kennett.
The concept of STAY was created by Perkins, who has been producing and hosting the BHostel Podcast since the onset of the pandemic, though he was quick to acknowledge how the project could not have been executed without his team and without the support of Cloudbeds.
“If I had shot it myself, I would have missed a lot. The reason it looks so intentional is because of Brooke,” said Perkins. “She put the authenticity behind that production to make sure that Northwest Portland Hostel was captured in the best light.”
While it was Perkins and McKelvey who did the shooting on-site, Perkins pointed out how it was Stephan Leuenberger from Cloudbeds the one who initially reached out to him about the idea of working together on a visual documentary highlighting hostels in North America. Leuenberger had seen the work that Perkins had done and expressed interest in working together on a piece.
It took a few months to put together a vision for the series and decide which hostel to feature for the first episode of STAY, since the North American hostel market is robust and features many owners with compelling stories and captivating hostels. But, given that Jim Kennett had such a strong and lasting reputation in the hostel industry, shooting something about the Northwest Portland Hostel seemed only natural.
“Anybody who knows Portland knows that this was shot to show that this is Portland,” said Perkins. “Northwest Portland Hostel represents that.”
Capturing the Hostel Community
With so many stories to tell within the hostel and its ever-revolving door of guests, and several different angles to take when trying to convey the real Portland, Perkins explained how he and his team took a step back before determining a single direction for the project. That entailed building a shot list that catered to the questions they were asking themselves about what was most fundamental to convey through the documentary.
“The approach was methodical. Anybody can turn on a camera and shoot, but we pride ourselves on creating that shot list,” said Perkins. “From a cultural standpoint, we asked ourselves, how can we reflect hostel culture back? How well do we know our audience? Because if we know our audience well, we can reflect everything back at them.”
That, Perkins said, is the essence of successful marketing and advertising. While the documentary is not intended to be a marketing piece, understanding that the purpose of the documentary was to illustrate hostel culture using the people of Portland and the uniqueness of the hostel and Hostel Cafe, its neighboring cafe, as being hubs for community became the main thought point behind the project.
“What are the common values used by the hostel community? What are the systems or common beliefs held by the owners, the (hostel) staff, the guests? Those are the things people use to establish norms in their lives, and that’s what we needed to reflect back to our audience in thirteen minutes,” said Perkins. “That’s what we thought about before we even turned the camera on.”
While the emphasis of the documentary is on the hostel and Kennett, who can be seen doing projects around the hostel and engaging with guests and the hostel and at Hostel Cafe, there are candid moments of people connecting at the hostel and also some of its events, showcasing how inclusive hostels can be for their community. The many events and gatherings that the hostel holds, from its sewing groups to its eclectic mix of musical groups that meet at the hostel, made it easy for Perkins and his team to capture the essence of community through what the hostel puts out each day.
“Northwest Portland Hostel isn’t just saying they’re a community hostel. We didn’t have to make it or paint it that way. There’s already a thriving community in and around the hostel,” said Perkins. “Community is like an extension of family in hostel culture.”
