Hello and welcome to the Independent Daily Travel Podcast for Thursday.

And it's Simon Calder here on a bright and sunny Toronto morning afternoon, of course, in the UK.

I'm just walking past the Ritz Carlton.

Goodness knows how much this hotel must cost. But I imagine that the tax that you

would pay on a single room stay is actually more than the 35 pounds that I've just paid

for a fantastic hostel experience. And that's what I want to talk about, the opportunities

that hostling offers. Now, I am not a technically a youth in the sense of a youth hostel.

That designation has long since gone anyway. The realm in which we are living is that anybody who

really doesn't want to pay too much for their trip is able to stay at a hostel. I have just

stayed for the first time actually in the fantastic Clarence Park. It's about a 12 minute

walk from Union Station. I'm actually just on my way there not to catch a train,

but to get a mega bus so I'm fully in my comfort zone everybody. But let me just tell you

what you get for your 35 pounds you get a room in a

shared dorm now immediately that's going to put an awful lot of people off oh and I'm just crading my

neck because there's the CN tower soaring away above me yes so it's going to put a lot of people off and that is

understandable. You've got a shared bathroom, of course. These places do have private rooms though.

Personally, I'm very happy to share. I mean, I'm just going to climb into my bunk,

go to sleep for seven hours or however long it is, and then wake up

again. Yes, slightly annoying this morning. Somebody has set their alarm for half past six, but that's

okay. No problem with them needing to get up early, but the main thing is you meet fascinating people so i've

been talking to a guy from Saskatchewan uh the flattest place on earth he says talking about how

you can drive for 16 hours and it still looks exactly the same, which is quite something, talking to some students

...