{"id":127972,"date":"2020-06-05T13:51:01","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T13:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hostelworld.com\/blog\/?p=127972"},"modified":"2022-07-21T14:40:21","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T14:40:21","slug":"from-backpacker-to-hostel-owner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hostelworld.com\/blog\/from-backpacker-to-hostel-owner\/","title":{"rendered":"From Backpacker to Hostel Owner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I was a kid, I had always dreamed of traveling the world. I think my obsession began when my dad bought me a stack of old National Geographics from a charity shop. I read them cover to cover dozens of times, inspired and bewitched by far off places, untouched landscapes and exotic cultures. I first hit the road on my own when I was eighteen, hitchhiking across Europe and ending up backpacking across India where I spent two years living on $10 a day.<\/p>\n

I quickly fell in love with the freedom I could experience whilst traveling and had no problems being uncomfortable if it meant I got to live such an incredible life of epic experiences\u2026 I hitchhiked, couchsurfed, worked on farms, sold t-shirts to tourists and camped my way around the world, learning a lot along the way.<\/p>\n

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Over the last twelve years of travel, I\u2019ve stayed in many incredible places and met many amazing people. From shepherds\u2019 huts on Pakistani glaciers to man-made cave temples in Turkey, incredible party hostels in Colombia to chill beachside communes in Cambodia, I\u2019ve seen and experienced a lot of amazing places to bunk down for a night or more.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, I began an epic journey – the goal is to travel from the UK to Papua New Guinea without flying. I made it as far as Pakistan but then life intervened. Whilst hitchhiking across Iran I fell in love with an Iranian girl called Nina. Determined to somehow make it work, I paused my travel plans so that we could fly back to Iran and get married. We then spent a couple of years hustling hard and building The Broke Backpacker<\/a> up to a point where it could support two people.<\/p>\n

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Me and Nina celebrating Pakistani Independence Day with friends<\/p>\n

Fast forward a couple of years and The Broke Backpacker is one of the most popular travel sites in the world, with a team of over twenty awesome people and 1.5 million visitors a month. Recently, I\u2019ve been able to take a step back from my work and think about what is important to me.<\/p>\n

For over ten years now, I\u2019ve had a dream and that dream has been to open an eco-conscious, digital nomad friendly, backpacker hostel\u2026<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve imagined the kind of place where one could stay for a day, a week, a month and feel at home. A hostel which has everything you needed\u2026 beautiful views, comfortable beds, friendly vibes, damn good coffee, an excellent bar, a pool table (of course), an amazing pool, plentiful greenery, a slackline, delicious food and, crucially, the kind of place where one could work from \u2013 I wanted to build the kind of hostel I had always looked for but never found \u2013 somewhere I could work my ass off during the day, in peace, and then be assured of a good time in the evening with plenty of social areas to chill at whatever pace I was feeling.<\/p>\n

And so, the dream for Tribal Hostels was born\u2026<\/p>\n

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Two years ago, I made the decision to slow down and to spend 6 months a year based in one place. That place is the backpacker paradise of Bali\u2026<\/p>\n

Famed for its serene landscapes, excellent surf, plentiful diving spots<\/a>, eclectic party scene and incredibly high standard of living (for expats and digital nomads), I was really just passing through a couple of years back when I ended up taking in a four-week-old puppy I found dying on the beach. Two years later and Chimmigi (Which means \u2018what are you saying\u2019 in Farsi) lives a charmed life of being incredibly spoilt.<\/p>\n

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Chimmigi the day I found her on the beach<\/p>\n

One year ago, I pooled all my savings with a friend and together we bought a large chunk of land in the up and coming backpacker paradise of Perenan in Bali.<\/p>\n

And here we are, one year later, just one week away from getting the steel frame up.<\/p>\n

I had quite naively hoped to get the hostel open by September 2019, but It took a lot longer than we anticipated to get our architectural designs locked down.<\/p>\n

In February, we finally broke ground on the plot. Before we did this, we held a ceremony asking Dewi Sri (the god of the sawah<\/em> \u2013 rice paddy) to kindly relocate to a nearby temple and inviting the business spirits in. Check out the video below to see what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n