This section is dedicated to take away all your "I wish someone had told me that before I went!" experiences. This way, you can spend less time settling in, and more time making new friends in your chosen hostel.
Aremenia's cosmopolitan capital is a quirky place and there are several Yerevan hostels to choose from. People here are very proud of their ancient traditions, though the population is not without its skeptics. In this one city you can look back on the Soviet era and marvel at the monuments and infrastructure Moscow provided to this far-flung province, contemplate some of the finest and most free modern art from the Soviet Union, visit old fashioned markets and taste the fruits of hard hands-on labor, learn about the Armenian Genocide and deepen your understanding of the political situation in the Caucus, or just go for a walk and people watch in this both conservative and down-to-earth culture.
This is certainly a country of monuments, and if there aren't enough for you in town already, Yerevan serves as a solid base in the center of this compact land for day trips to important religious sites and nearby towns.
We've watched the number of hostels in Yerevan grow in recent years. Now that there is some choice in where to hostel, consider how well established your Yerevan hostel is as some hostel touts seem to be more similar to shared flats than to true backpackers' hostels. Yerevan isn't huge, but a location near the city-center and a metro (subway) station is preferable as this makes it really easy and cheap to get to the airport bus, train station and all the sights without the confusion of trying to read Armenian mini-bus display boards.
Written by local expertz for Yerevan
Carl
