There’s a reason I’m planning my Tokyo Hostel Strategies about four months out. It seems I will be in Tokyo during Golden Week. Prior to this trip I had never heard of Golden Week. Wikipedia states that many “Japanese nationals take paid time off during this holiday, and some companies are closed down completely and give their employees time off. Golden Week is the longest vacation period of the year for many Japanese workers.” They also say “Despite significantly higher rates, flights, trains, and hotels are often fully booked.” Uhh-Ohhh.

This led me to believe that it’s a good time to establish a booking for a Tokyo hostel. Hostelworld had listings for a total of 88 properties in Tokyo at the time I wrote this. Before I did any filtering I found that there were 63 properties available for the period of April 28th through May 2nd, a period immediately prior to my flight back to the U.S. on May 2nd. When I set the filter to show that I only wanted hostels and not guesthouses, hotels or campgrounds. it lowered the number to 55 hostels. The biggest concentration of the hostels seemed to be in Taito, which is the section of the city that is often referred to as Old Tokyo. When I said I only want to see hostels that were rated 8/10 or better the number dropped to 44 hostels. Ratings are important to me, but so are the number of ratings. The price of the 44 hostels ranged from $13.93 to $29.81. The cheapest hostels tended to be cheapest because they were farther away from the center of the city and they weren’t as nice as more expensive hostels.

In the end, my three main criteria for my hostel stay in Tokyo turned out to be location, price and privacy. The hostel that I booked have a relatively good, not great, rating with over 2,000 reviews. The location of the hostel I booked was what I considered to be optimal for my situation. It was very close to a major metro station. It was in a location I felt would not be one where street or proximity noise would be a problem. It was very close to some of the major attractions I wanted to see.  The price of the hostel I booked was a little under $20, a good price for a hostel in Tokyo. The hostel didn’t get a really high rating for cleanliness but the reviews tended to imply that much of that wasn’t due as much to the staff as to the guests. That tend to be what you get in less expensive hostels. The ratings also said the “atmosphere” wasn’t great. This is hostel-speak for a lack of a party atmosphere, a definite plus for me. The privacy issue comes in when there are curtains on the sleeping bunk for each bed. It help shut out some of the distractions of the room movement.