The Best Hostels in Melbourne, Australia

This 40-bed hostel in the vibrant suburb of Brunswick is set up to receive independent travellers on working holiday visas. Their service not only helps in providing work and a simple route into the local culture, but those on holiday also get to benefit from the warm atmosphere. Through their host of regular events, it’s easy to make friends here. Some dorms are mixed.

No Melbourne hostel earns reviews quite as impressive as United Backpackers, an über-contemporary property directly opposite Flinders Street Station. The personality of Melbourne’s graffiti-lined laneways infuses the halls that link United’s sleek dorms and private rooms. The unbeatable address, buzzing atmosphere, cosy chill-out spaces with beanbags galore, city tours every morning, free pancake breakfast in the huge kitchen and nightly events in the Lost & Found basement bar are other highlights.

Party animals, look no further. Base’s crowded calendar of events is what makes this place tick, especially at the pumping Red Eye Bar – check out Big Willy’s boozy bingo, Wings and Sings night, Fat Friday DJs, Sunday Funday beer pong… the list goes on. Occupying a purpose-built bright red building just a stroll from Acland Street, the Esplanade and Luna Park in the beachside borough of St Kilda, Base features state-of-the-art amenities, free pancakes for breakfast, a travel guru to book tours and a range of mixed and female-only dorms plus privates with their own balconies.

A three-storey Georgian home built in 1888, the Nunnery housed the Daughters of Charity for 60 years before welcoming a slightly rowdier group of people – backpackers – through its doors in more recent times. The three- to 12-bed dorms are simple but exude 19th-century charm. The well-worn floorboards, eclectic decor, grand staircase, stained-glass windows and quirky religious artworks remind guests of the building’s former life. Perched on the northeast corner of Carlton Gardens amid the cafes, bars and boutiques that make Fitzroy Melbourne’s hipster hub, the Nunnery’s centrepiece is a leafy courtyard to hang out in.

Space Hotel shows off some of Melbourne’s most luxurious budget beds – the dorms all include personal reading lights, power points and partitions between bunks, while the private rooms boast LCD TVs, desks, wardrobes and bar fridges – as well as there being an onsite bar and restaurant, gym, game room, cinema and rooftop retreat kitted out with a jacuzzi. This backpacker hotel is also ringed by some of Melbourne’s top attractions, including Queen Victoria Market to the west, Chinatown to the south, Carlton Gardens’ Royal Exhibition Building to the east, thanks to an enviable Russell Street address on the northern edge of the city centre.

Welcome to Melbourne’s very first carbon-neutral hostel. Habitat HQ offsets all its emissions, composts all food waste, uses no plastic bottles and maintains its own beehives. This property is as good for backpackers as it is for Mother Nature, with colourful dorms and private rooms, a courtyard bar, a herb garden, gleaming bathrooms, a fireplace, free tea and coffee all day in the kitchen and a convenient St Kilda Road location, a 20-minute tram ride from the middle of the city.

This former Salvation Army training college looks more like a castle than a hostel, but Home at the Mansion has welcomed backpackers through its doors since 2010. Situated just north of Victoria’s Parliament House on the eastern edge of the city, this ornate structure contains a selection of great-value four-, five-, six- and seven-bed dorms plus double-bed privates, as well as a sun-drenched courtyard, DVDs and a PlayStation, free tea and coffee and the bubbly Victoria’s Secret cafe-bar.