YHAgroup.org.uk

The new handbook’s been out for about a month now, so a review of it is long overdue. Here’s an overview of what’s in it, what’s no longer in it, and what needs to go back into the next one…

The front cover sets the family-friendly tone that the YHA is clearly keen to emphasise, and also sets the stage for the bold use of photography throughout the book.Having opted for glossy, full-colour printing on every page, YHA have maximised the return on this investment by using plenty of good pictures to illustrate the world of hostelling. Outside the hostel door, images drawn from VisitBritain’s photo agency Britain on View complete the picture.

The first fifteen pages introduce the YHA and its services, covering issues like “What to expect in a Youth Hostel” and “Great Food Available”. I’m pleased to see they’re attacking people’s preconceptions of what youth hostels are like - perhaps remembered from some dim-and-distant school trip - with statements like this:

Relax

Times have changed. You don’t have to share, do chores or stay out in the rain. Sit back and relax for as long as you like or explore the wide world outside day or night. It’s up to you.

Then we’re into the hostel listings. As usual they’re split up into regions, but the regions have been reorganised as follows:

• London
• The Island of Jersey
• The South West
• Home Counties and the South East Coast
• East Anglia, Fens and Beaches
• Sherwood Forest and Lincolnshire Wolds
• Stratford and the Welsh Borders
• Derbyshire Dales, Peaks and Staffordshire Moorlands
• Yorkshire Dales, Moors and Coastline
• North West Cities and Lakeland
• Northumberland, Durham and Hadrian’s Wall
• Welsh Mountains, Moors and Coastline

A fold-out map inside the back cover allows you to trace the boundaries of the new regions (it appears that the decision to merge the old North West Cities and Lakeland was taken so late that the map shades them in two different colours). The more descriptive names may be helpful to tourists, but what won’t help them is that the web site still uses the old regions - making it more difficult to use the two in conjunction with eachother.

Each region’s section opens with a large-scale road map (railway stations are marked too) which helps locate the hostels in broad terms. Of course the more rural places tend to be away from the roads and towns marked on the map, but it’s still a big improvement on what’s gone before and should be welcomed.

After that come the accommodation listings, listed three per page in the case of hostels, up to six per page for bunkhouses, camping barns and other places. Hostel locations are classified as “City”, “Countryside” or “Coast” and labelled with a coloured bar on the edge of the page. The classification idea is a good one, but it’s a shame to lose the colour-coded sections that made it easy to find a particular region in the book.

The listings follow the regrettable trend of putting less and less information about hostels in the handbook. Once upon a time the handbook would tell you

• What dates the hostel was open
• How much it cost to stay
• A map and directions to help you find it
• Which OS map you’d find it on
• How far to the nearest shop/pub/bus stop/railway station

Now, in the age of Information Technology, all this information is excised from the book. Instead we get a picture, a star rating, a price band (which can be cross-checked with the table on the bookmark to get a minimum price), an address, a paragraph of text, and a row of icons indicating the hostel’s facilities (there’s a key to them in the back cover). Only if it’s a camping barn do you get distances to shops and pubs, an OS (Landranger) map number and a map reference. I’d like to see this information available for all properties.

The lack of maps and/or directions is a serious omission. I worry for the family attracted by this glossy brochure to spend a weekend at, say, Tanner’s Hatch - who spend the night wandering the woods trying to find it. Sure, the information is available (up to a point) on the internet, but that’s not a lot of help when you’re in the middle of a wood at one o’clock in the morning!

The volume finishes with a web-style “Frequently Asked Questions” section and two indexes, one listing hostels by City/Countryside/Coast location, the other listing them alphabetically. Guest houses, bunkhouses and camping barns have their own separate indexes.

Though there are odd pages placed between the regional sections covering aspects of hostelling such as volunteering or Hostelling International, there’s no mention of affiliated groups anywhere in the book. As there’s nothing about us on the website either it means that there’s no mention in any YHA publication that groups even exist. Group members may be forgiven for being sceptical about the YHA establishment’s professed enthusiasm for YHA groups!

Conclusion

So what is the final verdict on the latest incarnation of the handbook? As a glossy brochure intended to attract people - especially young families - into the world of hostelling, it’s a pretty good piece of work. I hope it succeeds in that ambition. However, as a guide, which is what it says on the cover after all, it’s less useful. Form has been allowed to triumph over function. There’s simply not enough information there to guide you to the hostel - which is what one might expect the purpose of a hostel guide to be. Let’s hope for better in 2009…