Riga Hostel

This is a large Party hostel located at the edge of old town. 5mins walk to the bus station/Train station and 5minutes to the heart of old town. The staff is friendly ,but can be a little underpowered at some times. You get a free beer when you are checking in , and the bar is open 24hours a day. There is a smoking room next to the bar so you can decide where if you want to smoke or a smoke-free environment.

Friendly Franks is NOT one of the more quiet hostels. We where in room 12, facing the road and did you know that the construction workers are working 24hours a day? Well the do! And this noise is added to the drunk people who are trying to sleep. And there is sometimes a lineup to use the showers

Fully funtional kitchen, supermarket 3mins away, Free Tea /coffee, Free Internet

This place is often fully booked so book ahead! And that means that all of the 130beds is occupied. If Im going to Riga again, Im going to stay here again

Cool hostel with a friendly fun staff that leads night time excursions out to party for the people staying here. About a 15 minute walk from the bus/train stations.

Upon checking in you'll get a free, cold beer. Rooms are clean and what you'd typically expect from a hostel. One of the best things about this hostel is that it's very easy to meet other people, and there are lots of common areas. There is a bar downstairs and a lounge adjacent to the bar with lounge type seating. Upstairs, there is a "game room" with a Playstation and numerous games. I beat a Brazilian guy in heated video game of FIFA soccer, and it was probably the athletic highlight of my stay in Riga.

There is also a fully stocked kitchen upstairs which I used to cook breakfast. It is a bit small, but clean and functional.

The hostel also organizes some interesting day trip excursions. One of them involves going to a former Soviet Missile base to shoot AK-47's and other deadly guns. I'm not too interested in shooting guns, but the scope and scale of the missile base is supposed to be pretty impressive.

We also heard rumors of another excursion that you can put together here, but you need at least 10 people. Basically, you rent out a bus, get served tons of vodka, and drive out into the woods somewhere. Then they give you shotguns and you go out into the woods and get to fire them. I am not making this up. I've heard you also need to bring a passport, which led Deats and I to speculate that the actual mayhem takes place in neighboring Belarus, where the laws are presumably more relaxed. Alcohol + shotguns didn't seem like a healthy combination to us, so we passed on this one.