Albatross Backpackers In! wins award title
Feb 28 2009 by David Old, The Journal
A NORTH East hostel which hosts backpackers from around the world has been voted the best in the country.
Albatross Backpackers In! saw off competition from 900 other hostels to be crowned as the number one hostel in England.
Hostelworld.com customers voted the huge building in Grainger Street, Newcastle, into top spot in a recent poll for the second year running.
And the success tastes sweet for owners Chris Picha and his wife Liane Rose, who have run hostels in London, Jamaica and the US.
They set up the business after taking on the derelict building four years ago.
Chris said: “It was unhabitable when we first arrived and needed a lot of work, it took a year to transform it. There was not one roof tile in tact or a floorboard that didn’t need changing. We took out 200 skips full of rubbish.”
The hostel has 26 rooms and can sleep 177 people. There is a kitchen, TV room, computers and even a pool table in the basement. Guests vary from stag parties to international travellers.
Chris said: “We’ve had people from Hawaii, Alaska, Siberia – all over the world. Our staff speak eight languages.
“We get party people, students, backpackers, families, church choirs, we even had a 92-year-old woman who had come to see Hadrian’s Wall. But we always make sure everyone feels welcome and wants to come back.”
Liane said: “It’s wonderful working here, you meet so many different people and no day ever goes how you think it will.”
Canadian Justin Zygmont, 32, has been travelling around the UK for the past two months. He said: “It’s great here, there’s everything you might need and it’s well run.”
