Matty Phillips

The Beach Bungalow was the most wonderful, social, fun place I’ve ever lived in. I made great friends with guests at the bungalow, even some that I’ve revisited in Europe. But the volunteers are really what makes it a special hostel. Living, working, partying and sleeping all in the same building we would spend nearly all day together. To say we were super tight friends would be an understatement! Everybody felt magic together that summer.

Our weekly routine at a minimum looked like this:

• Monday: start the week with a staff meeting. One of us would volunteer to cook for all 12 on staff. When it was my turn I made shakshuka.
• Tuesday: all the staff and guests takes the party bus to downtown together, spend some time at a club and especially celebrate if one of us had a birthday or a fellow volunteer is leaving.
• Saturday: at sunset kick off a DJ party on the deck with some drinks, lighting and good vibes.
• Sunday: we all work together to throw a barbecue for everybody in the hostel and watching the sunset together.

The Saturday night parties are some of my favorite memories. A few other DJs and I would mix music late into the night, taking turns to fill up the deck with partygoers and switching up the vibe.

One of the craziest parties we hosted involved Jell-O wrestling. I came in 2nd place overall. We also created tie dye t-shirts.

Volunteering was hard but rewarding work. I worked as the head housekeeper, doing special fix-it projects and working with other housekeepers. To keep the hostel going, at times we had to really push ourselves – like when we were short one housekeeper, but had 30 bunks to change! I’m never gonna forget how to change a duvet.

At other times, volunteers had to make good judgement calls. We spoke up in staff meetings about how to keep the hostel safe at night during graveyard reception shifts.

In addition to our regularly scheduled shifts we were all in charge of hosting one event each week. This meant we as a hostel would have 2 events scheduled each day! I always made my event a group trip to the salsa club.