Funfare for the Common Man

'Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.' Walt Whitman This was a trip that really made me feel my age, to borrow from Jarvis Cocker *. I’ve done plenty of budget travelling and backpacking in my time, and for the most part I still enjoy it – when you’re on the road for a month, you have to do so on a budget, let’s face it – but in my cantankerous old ways, I have a hard time putting up with the crap that comes with staying in youth hostels. Whenever possible, I opt for a single room, but in many cases, you’re still faced with lots of noise and other general tomfoolery (like loud, idiotic backpackers talking utter nonsense till the wee hours of the morning). I think I’ve reached my limit when it comes to sharing rooms in hostels, not that I was ever much of a fan of it to begin with. In Lviv I stayed at the Kosmonaut Hostel where I was kept awake every night by French and...