I’m familiar with hostels like onefam chain in Europe. But I’m not familiar with SEA at all. Anything I need to know? What’s the demographics of the hostels like? The atmosphere? I work part time.
I noticed some hostels attract people who just want to get drunk or fuck. I’m not into that. I’m more into genuine sober interactions with people who aren’t interested in drinking or sleeping with randoms. I’m a straight guy for context.
I’ve stayed at a lot of hostels all over SEA and also the onefam group in Europe. Biggest difference is that the party/social hostels in SEA are generally fine with / encourage anyone joining their events, and the bar area is often open to the public anyway. So these days I usually just find a cheap guesthouse nearby (private room in guesthouse can actually be cheaper than a hostel dorm room…) Then stop by the hostels for their evening events. There’s a really famous party hostel in Chiang Mai called Stamps where probably 30%+ of people on their nightly pub crawl / event aren’t even staying at the hostel.
If you don’t want any of this atmosphere at all every city also has plenty of quieter hostels too. Just go on Hostelworld sort by review score and read through reviews. I’ve stayed at random places with like 50 reviews (which is very little) and never had a bad experience at a SEA hostel.