Hostels on the AT

Hostels are a big part of the Appalachian Trail experience. They are scattered along the trail from Georgia to Maine and are as diverse as the trail is long.  During a 3 day stretch, we had the opportunity to stay in a different hostel each night. Our original plan had us staying at 2 with a night on the trail in between. A bad weather report for the middle day prompted us to book the one hostel between the other two. What we didn’t know at the time was the historical significance of the hostel we added last minute.

Weary Feet Hostel

We booked a night at Weary Feet Hostel because our plan had us hiking four long days prior and we wanted a good nights sleep. The bonus for this hostel was our visit from Jane and Paul.

The hostel is relatively new, having opened in 2019. It is housed in an old farmhouse and all the sleeping quarters are on the second floor. We always book a private room because we can afford it (save the cheaper bunk rooms for the young folk on a tight budget) and we prefer not being in a room with a bunch of strangers. Our room here actually had 2 queen beds in it. One thing it lacked due to it’s old construction was plenty of outlets. We had to search the room to find a place to charge our electronics up.

This hostel’s marquee feature is the hungry hiker dinner for $12.00. This is home cooked by the owner and some of her friends. You eat until you can no longer take a bite. Truly an all you can eat affair. Jane and Paul joined us for this and also picked up the tab, for which we are grateful.

Woods Hole Hostel

Woods Hole Hostel is one of the oldest hostels on the trail. It’s main building is in a log home originally constructed in 1880. For a complete history and awesome story of this place, check out this website.

As we hiked from Weary Feet Hostel to Woods Hole, we passed a side trail to Dismal Falls that we did not take because of pending rain and a desire to get to our destination ASAP. We soon were passed by hikers we knew that had camped for the night at the falls. They told us they were headed to Woods Hole and told us of several other hikers we knew well that were headed there as well. Our excitement for visiting the place just increased knowing we were to experience it with others we knew.

Our lodging for the hostel was a safari tent similar to the one we stayed in at the Boots Off Hostel. The wind was blowing pretty hard overnight and the flapping canvas was loud but our night’s sleep was still better than if we were in our tent. We were told that the view out the front of our tent would be good for sunrise. I setup my phone to take a time lapse of the daily event.

A tradition at Woods Hole is the communal dinner and breakfast. Most of the ingredients used for these meals are grown on the property.  At mealtime, the guests form a large circle and, after a moment of silence, go around stating their trail name and what they are thankful for. Once that is complete you go through a cafeteria style line and serve yourself on handcrafted pottery plates made by Neville, the owner and granddaughter of the founders. You then enter the house,  try to find a place to sit and enjoy your meal surrounded by new and not so new friends.

In the morning, as we waited for breakfast and for my time lapse of sunrise to complete, we sat on the porch with hikers we had gotten to know fairly well, including the family we had drinks with in Damascus and a couple of young nurses from Portland, ME. The coffee was so good that Amy had a few too many and as a result had to spend more time visiting bushes than normal that day.

Angels Rest Hiker Haven Hostel

Our third consecutive hostel stop was at Angel’s Rest Hiker Haven Hostel in Pearisburg.  We originally setup this stop for our resupply for the next leg of our journey. We needed enough food for four nights and five days of hiking. Side note – the first days after resupply suck because the pack is extra heavy. Little did we know we wouldn’t need all those meals.

As usual, we requested a private room and found ourselves in the Chillax Inn. This used to be the owner’s home but she had purchased a Class C motor home to live in and added the rooms in her home to her hostel stay options. These accommodations were awesome and we had a great stay. One of the other rooms was occupied by a young married couple (they are our son’s age) that we had just met at Woods Hole.

The resupply run to Walmart cost $5.00 per car, so we got our new friends to join us on the run. For the second time at a hostel equipped with a kitchen to use, we bought ourselves the ingredients for a spaghetti dinner. We ate well that night, maybe a little too well.

Besides the Chillax Inn, the property has a traditional bunk house, a trailer with a couple more private rooms and a full kitchen. They have a bath house for those in the bunkhouse and an area where you could pitch your tent. They have several people on board to help with shuttle driving as they are located about a mile from the trail and will pick you up and return you on demand. Overall, a well run establishment.

Other Hostels We Stayed At

Here is a list of other hostels we stayed at during our time on the trail. They are listed in order and link to the blog post they are mentioned in.

• Around the Bend
• The Barn A.T. Hostel
• The Lodge of Legends
• The Discerning Hiker
• Uncle Johnny’s
• The Station at 19E
• Boots Off
• The Broken Fiddle

Daily Data

Day	Miles	Total Asc	Total Desc	Steps
56	15.3	3231	2099	43522
57	11.5	2204	3743	38279