HI - Chicago Hostel

Great
i liked hi chicago. the staff were nice and very accommodating. they had an information desk that i visited everyday i was there and everyone (except one person) was knowledgeable and helpful. i went on one of the outings and had a really good time. the rooms and (private) bathrooms were clean.

Location, location, location!
The location is awesome for this place and it's great that you can come and go twenty-four hours a day! The view of the el trains going by in the dining room is awesome. I would go back there in a minute and recommend others to visit. But I was expecting the place to be freakishly clean based on what people commented on and what guidebooks say, but the mens community bathroom had showers that were not super clean. Bring your shower sandals and enjoy Chi town!

Excellent
All the good things said about this place are completely true. It is the best hostel I've stayed in so far. Best thing about it is the toilet and shower were actually in the dorm room I was in. So it was like a hotel room with eight beds. An excellent hostel in a great location.

Good Place With Some Quirks
Our stay at the hostel was good. This was my girlfriend's first stay at a hostel and we are in our forties. I have stayed at HI Chicago before and this trip wasn't quite as good as my other stay but by no means bad at all. This hostel's location is just plain great! It can't be beat. Of the five staff I encountered three were fantastic, one was indifferent, and one was downright rude. Our key cards continuously didn't work, so that got to be the running joke of the weekend. The room next to us was having such a loud time that I had to go tell them to quiet down and report them to the front desk. They finally quieted down after the front desk was called. It was almost 1 a.m. The value here is tops, it is clean, and a perfect fit into a budget-minded person's traveling. I will be back and hope the stay will be a tad better with the employees, and guests themselves.

Superb
Great hostel, it's in a fantastic location! Easy to find and make your way around the city. it is great value for money that's for sure. Took a while to check in but once it everything you could possibly need was here. Great advice on things to do. The dorm room was spacious and clean. The bathroom was also clean and tidy. Anyone thinking of staying here should do it.

Excellent Location, Knowledgeable/Friendly Staff, Great Value
I recently stayed here at the HI-Chicago hostel for one night and had a great time! My girlfriend and I stayed in (when I believe to be) the only dorm room with four other guests. The rooms were in excellent condition WITH a locker for each bed, a shower in the room, and a bathroom. This is a much better situation than the 1-bathroom-per-floor conditions at Arlington House International Hostel. This is a very, very organized hostel and feels like much more than just a bed to sleep in. The breakfast was EXCELLENT which included a banana, cereal with milk, orange juice, toast, and a muffin. The staff seemed very friendly and very knowledgeable about the local area. Speaking of area--this hostel is located in the heart of Chicago with great access to everything via CTA (Chicago Transit Authority--the buses and trains/subway). The hostel is no more than a couple blocks from the water. This hostel is HIGHLY recommended for those traveling to Chicago. The only possible downside is the price; $35.77 to be exact (for non-HI members). This may seem like a lot, but you ARE in Chicago and you really are getting high-class treatment! If you have the option between HI-Chicago and Arlington International Hostel, definitely fork out the extra 6 or 7 bucks and go with HI for many reasons.

Great value! Awesome location, very clean and safe!
I was in Chicago for Lollapalooza (Aug. 2007), and wanted to stay at this hostel, but it was fully booked when I called in May to reserve a spot. Disappointed, I found another hostel that was a huge disappointment! The last day I was in Chicago, the day after Lollapalooza ended, I found out what this HI Chicago hostel was really like. Not quite a palace, though just as big -- it is a great hostel, and far superior to the other place I stayed. At $35/night for a dorm bed (and over $100 for a private room), it is pricey for a hostel. But the location is everything, and this place is literally steps away from Grant Park! There is air-conditioning and lockers in each room. You need to provide your own lock, but they are big enough for a good sized suitcase or backpack. I felt safe, and the atmosphere was friendly but not full of clingy people. Check-in required a ton of patience as the line was very long and not efficient. However, I found the staff to be quite friendly and they have an excellent reference area for Chicago tourist info as well as organized trips throughout the week and discounts available for many local attractions. There are several hotels in the area, and none of them are cheap. Yes, this is still a hostel, but the value and location are really hard to beat! If I could do it all over again, I would have called every day hoping for a reservation availability.

Spectacular location with clean, modern and secure facilities. This is especially good for walkable travel connections by "L", Greyhound, Amtrak, even airports. Even though it is more expensive than other Chicago hostels, it is worth it.

This hostel won't appeal to people who like to mingle and party till 3 a.m. -- some may say it has a sterile atmosphere, which is why i like it. The rooms and bathrooms are kept clean and it appears to have every amenity a traveler would need. There are some downsides -- it is fairly expensive but considering its location and the cost of maintaining a building this size, it is justified. The last three times i stayed here was in winter and they seem to let a lot of transient locals stay here. I know this may sound like a broad generalisation, but i would probably trust a fellow traveler more than a local that is staying at a hostel out of necessity. They always seem so dodgy, hanging around the room all the time. I always expect to come back and find my locker door torn open with a crowbar and my belongings stolen. I know it's a generalisation but whenever there has been grief at hostels i have stayed at, like at this place, it has always involved a local trying to rip someone off.

This is one of the best hostels I've ever stayed in. The only disadvantage is that you are likely to be innundated with girl guide trips and school groups, but if that doesn't bother you, the rooms are large, clean, and many of the dorm rooms have their own bathroom and toilet. There is also plenty of information around about things to do, places to eat, and they even organise walking tours and nights out from reception if you are on your own or don't know what to do.

This hostel is massive and really clean but seems very unfriendly. We found the staff to be rude and not very welcoming. We were unable to check in until 2 p.m., which would have been fine but our room hadn't been used the night before and was clean and ready to use. The woman behind the desk wasn't even busy either so could have checked us in. The place also seemed to be full of kids and school teachers running around the place and messing with the lifts. The location was awesome and for that fact the best hostel to have stayed in -- it is way overpriced though!

An absolutely fabulous place to stay! Clean rooms, nice beds, great location, and an extremely helpful staff who plan lots of excursions to different places in Chicago, many of them free! I was there over St. Patrick's Day, and it was the perfect place to be. I'll take the so-called sterile personality of a clean, large, welcoming hostel over the friendly dirt of a place I stayed in earlier in my trip any day!

I stayed over Thanksgiving this past year. this was my first experience staying at a hostel, so I was a bit nervous. However, it was easy to find, clean, comfortable, and the staff friendly. I was impressed with the facilities and the discounts on various attractions. I was able to walk all over the city and return back each night without getting lost. I plan to return very soon.

This hostel is typical of most larger institutional hostels to be found across the world. It has all the facilities you'll need but without the friendliness or character that you might encounter at a smaller hostel. I arrived at 1:55 p.m. to check in and was told in a stern voice "we don't check in until 2 p.m. exactly." The person on the front desk than sat and did nothing till 2 p.m. and checked me (the only person) in. Than the next morning at 10:55 a.m. a woman came into my dorm room without knocking while I was getting dressed and said "you've got five minutes to leave. check out is at 11 a.m., get dressed." Obviously the rules are being followed but someone the personal touch or character gets lost. It feels like there's no one in the building, even though it's filled to the brim with lots of interesting people. I suggest the tours they run (especially the bar tour) and found the majority of the staff to be friendly. In short, don't expect any kind of atmosphere (disappointing if you are a solo traveler), but expect great facilities and awesome location.

First of all people. Location, Location, Location. It seems to me that you simply could not be more centrally located if you spent $300 a night. I watched the trains going on the Loop from my window (had earplugs, can't imagine sleeping in a snore filled Hostel room without them no matter what and I didn't think the train was very loud at all). You are like a couple of blocks away from almost every "subway" and bus station you'd ever possibly need and about a ten minute walk from the Amtrak station. Now for the disclaimer -- I am a forty-something-year-old bald guy with varicose veins -- I was not there for the social life of the place. I was there to spend around 30 bucks a night for a clean, safe place to sleep and store my stuff right in the middle of Chicago so I could go stare at exhibits. Man, did it exceed my expectations for that. They do have internet available for like $2 for twenty minutes (adds up), but, as I understand it, the Library (down the block) has free wireless internet hookup as well if you bring your laptop. There were like eight computers and a printer (printing was extra, I think) so there was always room. There was only one computer on which you could upload photos, but I was successful doing it on that terminal. The kitchen facility seemed huge to me. The two very large fridges to store your food were crowded, but never horribly so. Had no problem with people messing with my food. Lots of stuff to cook with and it seemed to stay pretty clean. None of the TV rooms, gathering places seemed cramped at all. The staff I dealt with was, on the whole, very friendly and very knowledgeable. There was a time or two I wondered if I was standing in their blind spot at the counter as they took a while to acknowledge my existence, but besides that they were great. The rooms and bathrooms were plenty clean for me. The bunk beds in the dorms were plenty comfortable (on these last two points I am not the pickiest person in the world, mind you). The lockers next to the bunk beds were on the small side, but worked ok for me (liked that they took the very small "baggage locks" I use). The showers seemed to have plenty of hot water. There are laundry facilities (think it was $1.50 wash, $1 dry -- the dryer did dry a whole load completely), but only on the fourth floor and there was no laundry soap available while I was there (7-11's are everywhere, though -- Walgreen's was cheaper for lots of stuff and they are not very far away). As for the social atmosphere, I got the feeling that if you wanted to get some people together to go out with it wouldn't be all that hard to do. They did offer some outings led by staff that looked interesting (didn't have time to go/wouldn't have fit in). There was frequently a ping-pong game going on in the main room. Hey, look maybe you have to make your own social hookups, but what a centrally located, well-run place to operate from!