The hostel in Lisbon used to be 12 euros a night, now it's 45 and the free breakfast is gone
I stayed at the same spot in Alfama back in 2016 and again a few weeks ago, and the whole vibe flipped. They took out the communal kitchen and put in a paid laundry room, so now you can't even cook your own pasta to save cash. Has anyone found a good city where hostels still feel like that, or is that just gone everywhere?
Tbh the same thing hit me in Budapest last year. Stayed at a place near Keleti that had a kitchen in 2018, went back and it was gone, replaced by a coffee bar selling 4 euro lattes. What still works for me is going smaller, like Sarajevo or Tbilisi. In Sarajevo I paid 10 euro a night in 2022 and there was a real kitchen with a fridge full of random food people shared. Tbilisi hostels are still pretty cheap too, though they creep up every summer. Your best bet is booking places with under 30 beds, the big chains are the ones gutting everything for profit.