Priorities

Quite late in my life - feels way too late! - I realized the difference between hotels and hostals. 

I was travelling a lot for work and for fun. And always stayed in a hotel. In my 50s I was introduced to AirBnB - the original one, before they lost their way and changed their mission from facilitating personal intercultural connection into maximizing profit. And finally, at almost 60, I stayed in a hostal. In Austria the name is (used to be): youth hostal. So I thought: well, I‘m an old fart now, but if they do not kick me out, I’ll try it!

They didn’t kick me out!

My experience was life-changing! (Ha! Now we’re owner-opperating a hostal in Santa Catalina, Veraguas, Panama! So, definitely life-changing!)

You see, in a hotel nobody is talking to anybody. Everybody has their invisible, protective wall around them. If I sometimes tried to start a conversation in the best case a 3 sentence smalltalk ensued, in a tone and facial body language that made it clear it wasn’t appreciated but just barely tolerated. Most often, the folks looked at me as if saying: why do you talk to me? Are you weird? What do you want from me? These were not questions, but statements - despite the sentence structure and punctuation!

In a hostal it is the opposite! Everybody talks to everybody! If you don’t, you are weird! In the last few years I met so many amazing, interesting and interested people! The places I’ve visited are no longer bringing a smile to my face, when remembering or looking at pictures. The people I met, however, surely do!

There’s only one problem: they all have only single beds! And when travelling with your partner, it sucks to have to spend the night separated! Especially when you get older, because you are much more aware of how little time we have on this planet, how little of that little time is still ahead of you, and - most of all - that it is not guaranteed that your partner is still going to be on your side the day after tomorrow.

With that in mind, when the floorplan of our hostal necessitated two bunkbeds parallel to each other next to each other, I suggested to Iris, to make it a doublebed bunkbed instead of two single bunkbeds. I thought, couples would appreciate this opportunity a lot, especially those, who are on longer trips - some of them are travelling for several

Bunkbed with queensize mattress

Today, again, a couple inquired about beds. When hearing that two single beds cost them 20$, and the one double bed costs 22$, they decided to take the single beds. They saved 2 dollars per night! Whao! With minimum wage income of 15$/hour, that is somewhere around 8 minutes of work.

When folks are young, time doesn’t matter, and time with your partner is taken for granted. Being older, having had more experiences and less time left, time - especially time with my partner! - is more important than good food, than seeing another sight, more important than pretty much anything!

I guess, priorities change with time…