Hello everybody. Well, yesterday, if you were listening to the independent travel podcast with me, Simon

Corder, you would have found me in beautiful Stubal in Portugal, just south of Lisbon. Well, today I have

travelled further south and I wanted to tell you about the joys of hostels.

I'm in the lovely village of Carapatera in southern Portugal,

a bit of a surfy place, and I am staying at the Hostel Do Mar.

I'm just walking into the beautiful entrance,

and we've got four surfboards here, not on the

minor bicycle, a beautiful map of the whole Portuguese coast pretty much just stretching down

actually I think from about 100 miles of coastline with all the Rotta Vincentina, which is a great long distance path.

Think of it a bit like the walk to Compelstella.

Anyway, here I am walking up and, oh, the first thing I'm seeing is about hundred editions of National Geographic magazine and a

book swap place. Here we are. Have you finished a great book? Too heavy. Need a new one. Leave your

old beloved or not so beloved book with us and put one of these in your bag. How lovely that is.

Oh, all sorts of things. What would you like? That's a very nice, well, German language guide to Portugal.

There's all sorts of, well, mostly German, some Swedish, I think, books here.

And there's also a Stavanger yearbook from 2013,

if you are interested in what happened

in that fine Norwegian city nine years ago.

Just walking up now to the kitchen.

This is just a joy.

So, oh wow, there's a balcony, there's a roof terrace,

there's a group of people sitting out there enjoying the last rays of the afternoon sunshine.

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