KHAOSAN TOKYO ORIGINAL HOSTEL IN JAPAN

Khaosan Tokyo Original Hostel in the Asakusa district of Tokyo was our first “home” on this year-long journey. Being such an expensive city, we had to make some small sacrifices when choosing a place to hang our hats for four nights. This guest house provided an affordable option even though it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable or best-smelling hostel we’ve stayed at.

Yet where it fell short in room size and clean showers, the location was hard to beat–very close to a Tokyo Metro station and just a couple of blocks from the historic Sensoji Buddhist temple and more modern SkyTree tower. The rooftop patio also provided a nice view of the river and city beyond. Here’s how the Khaosan Tokyo Original Hostel ranked in our book.

PRIVATE ROOM:

Private rooms at Khaosan Tokyo Original Hostel offer a bunk bed that come with sheets and blankets for two people. Surprisingly, Mark was able to fit lengthwise just fine at 6’6″ in the bottom bunk. Although this was a private room, it afforded very little space for us. The bunk bed took up most of the room and only provided two feet of open space from the bed to the walls. This meant for close quarters, which was hard with our two big backpacks and trying to get things in and out of them without getting in each other’s way. The private rooms don’t come with private bathrooms, instead we had to use the shared toilets and sinks with all other guests on our floor. Our private room was located right across the narrow hall from two toilets and, as you can imagine, this sometimes meant we were subject to unwanted smells in our room. The view from our window was just of the next-door building’s white wall, about four feet away. Our favorite thing about our room, however, was the air conditioning, which worked great at cooling us down after hot days walking in the city.

AMENITIES:

Khaosan Tokyo Original Hostel provides segregated toilets and shared shower rooms with free shampoo, soap, and a shared hairdryer. The toilet rooms always seemed well cleaned yet omitted a strong funk by midday. Whereas the shower rooms could’ve been cleaned better. On the first floor is a commons area with a TV, and a kitchen complete with a mini stovetop, a fridge, pots and pans, mugs and a water purifier. Free coffee and tea were also always in the kitchen which Mark enjoyed.

PRICING:

At 5000 yen/night, it was a superb deal for a private room in this city, especially being just around the corner from the main Asakusa tourist attractions and a short walk to the Tokyo Metro stations. It was the cheapest private room at a hostel in Tokyo that looked clean and reasonable when we booked it online.

LOCATION:

We loved the location of Khaosan Toyko Original as it was close to the Asakusa tourist attractions and just a two minute walk to the entrance of the Tokyo Metro station. This made it quick and easy to explore other parts of Tokyo. Even though it was near the busy tourist sites, the hostel was set off on a quiet side street with hardly any traffic going through it, making our stay very peaceful. The main highlight for the hostel is its rooftop that is open during the day and provides a river view with the Tokyo Skytree on the horizon.

Next hostel on our route: Takayama, Japan.