In 1909, Richard Schirrmann, a German teacher, took his students on an organized school trip around the country. They got caught up in a storm and had to find refuge in an empty school building. A simple idea, not the lightning, struck Schirman. He saw a possibility to bring affordable accommodation to students and young people by letting them stay in dormitories when schools were not in session. Three years later Schirman started the world’s first youth hostel. Neighboring countries caught on to the new idea. In 1932, delegations from Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, and UK established the Internal Youth Hostel Federation. The Americans joined a year later. And today as you look around, hostels are everywhere around the world.
My name is Cindy, also rhymes with travel junkie. A friend said I was probably a gipsy in my previous life. One of my many secret missions in life is to convert you to run off every once in awhile.
