Carrer Ripoll 21, +34 93 301 9751, itacahostel.com, doubles from €60, shared dorm rooms from €12 A little taste of Latin America in the otherwise sleepy neighbourhood of Poble Sec.
Rather then having to rely on a shared dorm phone in some abandoned hallway like all the other long-distance couples, we had email.
Carrer de Poeta Cabanyes 23, +34 93 442 5164, hostelmambotango.com, doubles from €36pp, shared dorm rooms from €27 Sally Davies is a Barcelona-based writer and expert on the city.
Many travelers these days seem to be swapping Frette sheets and 24-hour room service for shared dorm rooms and 1,000-calorie-a-day 1,000-calorie-a-day 1,000-calorie-a-day
Moments before it happened, Cassidy, Jimena and Declan were sitting in the girls' shared dorm room, casually chatting about what the cafeteria might be offering for dinner that night.
The budget brand, which opened its first hostel in Elephant & Castle three years ago, has taken over a Georgian townhouse within the city walls, and has beds in a shared dorm from £18 per night and private twin rooms from £60.
Passeig de la Mare de Déu del Coll 41-51, +34 93 210 5151, xanascat.cat, shared dorm rooms from €16.75pp The "swimming pool" mentioned on the website is actually a Jacuzzi, but, hey, it's got a Jacuzzi!
In San Francisco I could have stayed in a houseboat in Sausalito or a Hacker House (a shared dorm room aimed at the city's young wannabe Mark Zuckerbergs) in Silicon Valley.
Avinguda Meridiana 97, +34 93 245 8414, barcelonaurbany.com, doubles from €25pp, shared dorm rooms from €12pp Located in the quiet barrio of Horta, where the air is that bit fresher, the Garden House is the bucolic budget option.
The fusion hotel in Prague, for example, is both a hotel and a hostel offering standard private rooms and traditional shared dorm rooms, as well as nontraditional meeting spaces, like the rotating bar and lounge and the playroom, which features colorful, oversize folding sofas attached to the wall.
