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What the guidebooks say!

Generator Hostel London voted Budget Accommodation of the Year and Hostel of the Year 2009!

Click the title of each guide to be taken to their website.

Lonely Planet

The Generator in Bloomsbury is one of the grooviest budget places in central London and the futuristic décor looks like an updated set of Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil. Along with 238 rooms (837 beds), it has a bar open to 2 am, a large lounge for eating, watching TV or playing pool, a room with Internet kiosks, safe-deposit boxes and a large eating area….

Let’s Go

Looks like it’s straight out of Blade Runner. Sleep in cell-like units with bare walls and metal bunks, relax in the “Turbine”, complete with video games and pool tables, receive nutrition at the “Fuel Stop”, or interface with the ‘net in the “Talking Head” quiet area. The bar, open M-Sa 6pm-2am and Su 6pm-12:30am, has a free jukebox and big-screen TV, with beers and shots £1 during happy hour (6-9pm). 8-bed basement dorms have lockers and share cavernous military-style bathrooms; upper floors have smaller rooms and slightly more privacy.

Fodor’s 2002

Easily the grooviest youth hostel in town, this former police barracks has a friendly, funky, and international vibe. Talking Heads, the Internet café, provides handy maps and leaflets, plus a chance to get on-line. The Generator Bar has cheap drinks and a rowdy, young clientele, and the Fuel Stop cafeteria provides inexpensive meals. Rooms-designed on a prison-cell theme complete with bunk beds and dim views-are simple but clean. This is an excellent choice for the youthful and adventurous traveller.

The Independent Guide

Britain & Europe 2001

Just minutes from Covent Garden and Leicester Square The Generator is located in the heart of Bloomsbury. It is the UK’s largest tourist hostel, with over 800 beds offering an unbeatable combination of convenience and value.

Open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with friendly staff who are always on hand to help. There is a late bar (open 6.00 pm to 2.00 am) which provides the perfect environment to meet young travellers from all over the world. Other facilities include a games room with pool tables and satellite TV, Internet Café, safety deposit boxes and free luggage storage on departure. All bed sheets and towels are provided free of charge as are hot showers 24 hours a day. Accommodation is available in single, twins, triples, quads, multirooms and dorms. The hostel is generally suitable for 16-30s but there is no age limit.

The Rough Guide

A huge, funky hostel in a converted police barracks, hidden away down a cobbled street. The neon and UV lighting, 1984 posters and post-industrial décor may not be everyone’s tastes, but the youthful clientele certainly enjoy the cheap bar that’s open daily until 2am. Over 800 beds.

Cheap sleeps in London

Mars to Earth, come in please.

The Generator is something else. If you know and like the architecture of the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, with its exposed piping, swirling neon tube lights, and open-grid ceilings, you will love the Generator. Designed along futuristic lines, with hard-edge graphics and decoration, it is popular pit stop for Cheap Sleepers young enough in body, mind, and spirit to appreciate this far-out London sleeping factory designed to provide clean beds and a chance to meet other like-minded voyagers. You will bunk in dorm rooms designed to sleep up to eight, and shower down the hall in cubicles divided by corrugated tin. Food and drink are consumed in the Fuel Stop (cafeteria), the Turbine (dining room), and the Generator Bar. Talking Heads is an additional facility where groups can meet. Breakfast is an all-you-can-eat affair and included in the room rate. Anyone can drink at the bar. Management states that the Generator is really beyond description and that you have to experience it to get the true flavour. Go and try it for yourself, but be sure to book early, because there is going to be a long queue ahead of you.

Facilities and Services: Bar, central heat, hall phones, lift, luggage storage, restaurant, office safe (50 p per opening), all rooms non-smoking, TV lounge

Official accommodation guide

Where to stay and what to do in London 2001

Budget accommodation with an exciting futuristic design theme. Extensive communal areas including bar, games room, Internet room and tourist information centre.

Hostels UK 2nd edition

This is definitely one of the weirder joints in England. It’s a huge, monstrous brick building on a side street just off Russell Square – which, itself, is practically on top of the world-famous (and free!) British Museum – in a quiet neighbourhood of Camden. And the hostel logo is a guy with a cyber-helmet on. Or is that a cyber-face? Who knows? Anyway, this enormous hostel packs in 800 beds. Yes, 800. It’s a basic place, to be sure, but fun and reasonably well equipped. It is what it is, a place to get hip with Generation X-ers from all over Europe. The bar and cafeteria here seem to focus the socializing, and rooms are decently maintained. There’s a serious herd feeling, but if you can stand that, it’s an okay bunk.