How to Eat While Hosteling

Hosteling is an affordable way to travel, and many hostels offer kitchen facilities or cafeteria services that can save you even more money. Just figure out your food budget before you leave home and follow these guidelines that will help you eat well and stay healthy throughout your trip.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Hostel Guides
• Fruit Snacks
• Plastic Dishes
• Hostel Membership Cards
• Backpacks
• Camping Utensils

1. Find out in advance if your hostel has a communal kitchen that you can use.

2. Ask if any prepared meals are available at the hostel, free or otherwise. Some hostels provide a basic breakfast, while others have cafeterias where you can buy two or even three meals a day.

3. Ask about the house rules when you arrive. Is food allowed in the sleeping area? Is anything in the kitchen off-limits? Is there a specific area of the fridge that you are supposed to use?

4. Follow common-sense food safety guidelines: Don't travel with perishable foods, don't defrost meat on a counter in the hostel kitchen, and don't forget to wash all utensils and preparation surfaces before and after you use them.

5. Label anything you leave in a communal refrigerator or pantry ' otherwise, people may think your food is fair game.

6. Cook small portions of food, so you won't have to worry about storing leftovers, or ask two or three other hostel guests to pitch in for a group meal.

7. Try to connect with other hostel guests if you want to eat out. You can save money at restaurants that offer "family style" dining or serve dishes suitable for sharing.

8. Ask the hostel staff about the best places to get good, cheap food in the area.

Tips & Warnings

• Find out if your hostel membership card will get you discounts at local restaurants or pubs.
• Always carry a bag of nuts, dried fruit or trail mix in your backpack, just in case you miss a meal because the hostel kitchen, local shops, or restaurants are closed.
• Remember that some hostels have a lockout period during the day, so you will have to pack a lunch and take it with you if you are self-catering.
• Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with a strange kitchen before using it, and always make sure you know where the fire extinguisher is, just in case.

on 8/8/2006 It is not 200 calories, but 1300 calories for the military MRE's. For the civilian MRE's it can range around 800-900 calories.

on 11/22/2005 MREs or Meals, Ready to Eat can be bought at most army surplus stores. They contain about 200 calories and are designed for the fighting soldier. Military MREs are true 'No cook' meals that are ready to be eaten cold or hot (some have flameless heater packets in them that you just add about hand full of water and it'll get read hot to warm up your food). In civilian uses, like traveling or backpacking, you can open up the MRE and strip out what you like and don't like in the package (comes in many meal flavors and dishes) and tuck what you like in the backpack or cargo pockets in your pants. Army MREs have a shelf life of 5 years, and if memory serves me right, about 2-3 years at 25-30C (85F-93F I would guess). The way to tell the expiration date is to look at the date issued on the package or the box and add 3-5 years. If the place you bought it from is rather warm, then expect 3 years from the date shown. Civilian MREs or the 'No cook' type of MREs have the expiration date printed on it. Normally about 2 years on a fresh stock. Best to buy in advance, and taste the meal before buying it as a back up. There are better MREs out there made by civilian companies. As a guiding starting point for people to check on the many food options: http://www.mec.ca and check in the camping section.

The freeze dried foods aren't really MREs because they need a little preparation time before you can eat them. It is always wise to have a small stainless vacuum bottle and keep boiled hot water in it at the start of the day and reboil or add new hot water at night. It is best when traveling to pick up some of the civilian MREs that just require boiling hot water (or the hot water in your bottle) and 3-5 minutes wait time and you have a nice hot meal. These meals can be purchased at about $1.50 - $9.00 US, pending the ingredients in the package. A typical 2 portion meal is about $3.00-4.00 US. There are many choices to pick from ranging in meat to meatless dishes and sweet deserts. The meals weight about the weight of your computer mouse to the computer keyboard pending the contents. Keeping at least one or two of these MREs ensures you'll always have something to eat if you can't find anything around if closed or if you don't like the food locally. A 0.5L (500mL) vacuum bottle holds enough hot water to make one MRE (if you got the MRE that requires you to add boiling water). A 1.0L (1000mL) vacuum bottle can make two meals or one meal and a hot coffee, tea, hot-chocolate, etc. The water bottle will have the water hot for about 6-8 hours.

on 11/22/2005 When using similar facilities in close proximity to others, consider their lifestyle choices and religious beliefs.

For example defrosting pieces of pork or bacon or even ham in a communal sink or on worktops would offend people of jewish faith, muslim faith as well as vegetarians.

Always remember to clean up after yourself, but do not keep tidying up after others, always leave a kitchen how you would expect to find it!

on 11/22/2005 I can summarize how I ate when i was hostelling in one word: RAMEN. It is lightweight and pretty much free.