British Columbia Destinations

Nanaimo hostel is part of Pacific network

By Malcolm McColl

If you are ever looking for accommodation, take a pause, and during that contemplation you might consider a good place to stay is at a traveller’s hostel. Everybody at a hostel is going somewhere and they are each taking time to spend the night.

The experience is something like camping, with the facilities affording you either moments of solitude or confederacy with others.

The people who stop and go through the hostel are the story, and they come in various sizes with backpacks or bags, and it is the condition of the facilities which is so important to keep them coming back.

Hostels are popular with people on an itinerant schedule who are coming and going as they need to be, or see fit. Hostelling is an alternative to hotels, motels, or camping, or for others who seek a budget-conscious night or two in peace and tranquility.

Hostels are always places to consider staying and a good example is the Nicol Street International Hostel in Nanaimo, B.C., which takes in people from around the world on their way to endless varieties of destinations.

The city of Nanaimo has a municipal population of about 70,000, and there are about 150,000 in the immediate area, but BC Ferries lands millions of people each year at its Departure Bay and Duke Point Ferry Terminals.

The Nicol Street facility is quaintly tucked into a location near the centre of the city, at 65 Nicol Street, and is operated by John and Monika (Moni) Murray.

Guests of the Murrays come from all corners of the world including Germany, Mexico, Japan, Australia, India, Ireland and England.

"In the summer deep sea divers camp and hose off their gear in our yard,” said Moni Murray. “In winter the snowboarders stop for a night on their way to Mount Washington."

The hostel is a tidy bungalow with three rooms, four bunks to a room, and a few single rooms in the basement. A smaller two room-house overlooks a tidy garden and walkway that leads from an outdoor shower to the tenting area.

Guests of the facility enjoy a view of the harbor, including Newcastle and Protection Islands, can watch seaplanes leaving and arriving in the city core, and have a direct walk to the largest shopping mall downtown.

The Nicol Street International Hostel is a founding member of Pacific Hostel Network, a non-profit organization that has affiliations around the world, and with Backpackers of Canada.

Murray explained, "We started in 1985 with HI Hostels for nine years and then we started Pacific Rim Hostels, and that became Pacific Hostel Network,” which is best known as pacifichostels.com.

"Our membership in the Pacific Hostel Network runs north and south from Canada to Mexico on the Pacific Coast,” she said, “And the Backpackers hostels run facilities from east to west across Canada."

The pacifichostels.com network covers travellers from Alaska to Mexico. Staying in the hostels requires no upfront membership costs, which are absorbed in the fee at guest registration.

Pacifichostels.com has facilities both small and large, rural and urban, in their membership, including the Seattle Green Tortoise and the Banana Bungalows in San Francisco. Generally they are small independent operators. Because the market is budget wary, “The operators of hostels must face the reality of small margins,” said Moni, “It's not a big paying proposition. It's not a huge profit and the industry is changing. More hostels are beginning to cater to B&B and retreat clientele. More couples are visiting hostels. It's an ever-changing marketplace.” Murray said the network is organized around biannual meetings.

"We meet twice a year and strategize the international website and brochure marketing program for the member-hostels.

“We absorb marketing costs and pay a per-visit fee for promotion of the members. Our association’s marketing strategy affords the members a composite budget to promote far-flung hostelries and pass along public information,” and they pool the valuable marketing dollars instead of taking profit out for promotion.

"We are the grassroots of hostels. We are the supplier of low-cost accommodation on the Pacific Coast," she said.

Before getting into the hostel business Murray had a long career working for the Co-op in Nanaimo. "In the beginning people thought I was weird to open such a business," she called. "My cohorts all figured it was a ticket to failure."

Well they didn't have a notion about the single-minded determination of Monika Murray, did they? It was Moni’s inspiration and energy that contributed so much to the development of Pacific Hostelling Network from Mexico to Alaska. Visit www.pacifichostels.com for more information.