You set up a company to run a few hostels and in the blink of an eye you’re serving coffee to Oscar winners and throwing sold-out concerts in your own bar.

Okay, maybe that “blink of an eye” is a bit more like 25 years… Back in April 1998 Wombat’s founders, Marcus and Sascha, legally established their company. Neither they, nor anyone else had any idea where that journey would lead.

A quarter of a century later, Wombat’s is a multi-award-winning international hostel chain. It’s still run by the same owners and accommodates more than 850,000 overnight stays per year – not too shabby.

After such success hosting travellers from all over the world, we decided to open up to our neighbours too. Our in-house cafés (serving our very own Wombat’s Roast) are becoming increasingly popular with the locals around our hostels – which brings us back to the Oscar winner…

Our newly opened Wombat’s Café in London was graced by the wonderful Dame Helen Mirren recently. To our astonishment, she treated herself to a coffee which she must have really enjoyed because she even asked for a business card before she left. What an honour! Maybe her people will get in touch with ours… Will we see the Golden Globe and Academy Award winner again? Our fingers are crossed for a sequel.

Our anniversary month also saw Wombat’s City Hostel Munich Werksviertel acting as a venue for the famous “Lange Nacht der Musik” festival. It was our first time partnering with the event (through our womBEATS music initiative) and it was a huge success. Thank you to the artists Alex Cumfe, Shane Ó Fearghail (see photo on top), Rebecca McRedmond and Marcus Bruns for packing out our house and creating an electrifying atmosphere.

That wasn’t our only womBEATS cooperation though. On May 10th, we teamed up with Waves Festival Vienna, Austrian Music Export and the Austrian Cultural Forum to bring the fantastic acts Good Wilson and Farce to London. We were delighted to be part of the ‘Austrian Heartbeats’ program and, as always, the womBEATS shows had free admission so that everyone could enjoy such a special night.

Celebrate With Us: 25% Off!

To celebrate 25Years of Wombat’s, we have a special offer for you. Book on www.wombats-hostels.com before 2nd June using the promo code Celebration25 to get 25% off your stay.*

Stay tuned for more surprises!

*Offer valid on reservations made before 02.06.2023, with ‘stay date’ up to and including 31.08.2023. Full payment is required at the time of booking and is non-refundable. The dates of the reservation cannot be changed. Early departure, cancellation or failure to honour the reservation will not entitle you to a refund. Minimum age is 18.

The time has come – Wombat’s City Hostel London is now home to its own cosy coffee cove. Here, travellers and locals can meet, chat, chill, work and soak up the London weather.

After a fantastic reception in Vienna and Munich, London is the third city hostel in which Wombat’s Café opens its doors.

What awaits you here? A journey into the famous Viennese coffee house culture with the best brew on offer alongside an assortment of sweet and salty snacks. All of this, housed in gorgeously designed surroundings. The only thing missing are the infamously grumpy Viennese waiters. Luckily, in our café, you’ll only find a welcoming atmosphere.

We are serving our own Wombat’s roast (see here), a mix of fair-trade Brazilian and Indian arabica. We know precisely where our quality beans come from and we pay a fair price for them. These premium beans are roasted by experts at Kaffee Campus Krems, near Vienna.

Your coffee will be prepared to perfection by our trained baristas on Faema equipment – connoisseurs won’t be disappointed. Our snacks are just as special – we serve fine, homemade sweets and cookies from a local patisserie.

Enjoying an espresso, Wombat’s co-founder Marcus Praschinger puts it perfectly –

“London really has it all – but a peaceful haven with extraordinarily good coffee, authentic Viennese cosiness and a cosmopolitan, urban atmosphere is truly something unique.”

O’zapft is’: that’s how you celebrate in Munich. Wombat’s founder Marcus with Werner Fuchs (Hofbräu) opening hostel and beer keg!

From left to right: Josef “Sepp” Glasl (Urkern GmbH), Florian Reif (Communication Werksviertel), Marcus Praschinger (Wombat’s), Werner Fuchs (Hofbräu).

Come with us for a quick tour through the new hostel!

Welcome! The main entrance…

… the reception…

… the outdoor terrace…

… the dorms with the brandnew multifunctional bunkbeds…

… and the breakfast area.

Back to opening eve with womBEATS presenting Paula Carolina live…

… And Shane Ó Fearghail & The Host – As The Music Program’s Host.

Wombat’s City Hostel Munich Werksviertel features a cozy womBAR…

… with selected products from our partners Georg Grohs (Wieninger Wine) and Mike Neureither (Ottakringer Brauwerk).

It’s toasted, baby! Wombat’s great selection of signature toasts is waiting for you in Munich Werksviertel!

Life is back at Wombat’s and it feels good!

The late-summer travel business has regained momentum. And September has also been the month of big steps for the future of Wombat’s City Hostels.

In our homebase, the City Hostel Vienna “Naschmarkt”, we have developed and tested some new elements for an even more exciting Wombat’s experience. Let’s take a closer look:

Thank You For The Music!

What a great way to bring people together, what a great festival: Wombat’s was the proud official ho(s)tel partner of the amazing Waves Festival 2021. On September 11th, we were thrilled to use our Café area to host a live showcase of the great Slovenian band Freekind!

Co-operations with cultural events and hosting live shows in our City Hostels will play a big role in Wombat’s future. We love to connect with artists from the local and international scenes.

New Breakfast – It’s Tasty, Baby!

Once again, our guests in Vienna got to be our guinea pigs as they tested our new breakfast which offers a large variety of choices including options for our vegetarian and vegan guests. The results? They loved it! Here’s what you can expect at our new “tasty brekkie” in Vienna:

Choose your breakfast base! We offer “Classic” – with bread, ham, jam & butter or “Vegan“ -with bread, jam, hummus, margarine. Then pick any 2 extras for free – we have cheese, homemade porridge, vegetable sticks, yoghurt & granola and fresh fruit salad. Your tasty brekkie also comes with bottomless coffee or tea for only € 5.90.

What a great way to start am exciting day full of discoveries in a new city. In the upcoming months, we will be revamping Wombat’s Brekkie in our City Hostels Munich, City Hostel London and City Hostel Budapest as well. Enjoy!

Bar’s Open!

After far too long, we were also able to finally re-open our legendary womBAR in Vienna! Again, we used the time on hiatus to revise all our providers and offers. The re-opening brings great new products and services focusing on value and quality. Have a look at our new womBAR’s menu here or, if you are a fast reader in the video 👇

It feels very good to have life return into our hostels and to be able to again It feels great to have life return to our hostels and to resume our mission of bringing people together again. 😉

See you soon!

Unfortunately there is not only justice in this world and not everybody is blessed with health. Sadly, some people and families have to deal with severe strokes of fate that they cannot cope with on their own.
For this reason, we would like to pay tribute to the great work of Vienna’s mobile children’s hospice MOMO, which provides medical and psychosocial support to severely ill children aged 0-18 and their families. MOMO was founded in March 2013 by Caritas, CS Caritas Socialis and the mobile children’s nursing service MOKI-Wien. Since then, MOMO has cared for more than 314 families and it has been possible to help every family that needs help! Support from MOMO is free of charge, regardless of how often MOMO employees come to the families and how long they stay. The children’s hospice depends in large part on the support of voluntary donors.

We are very proud of our partnership with MOMO since June this year and now support the children’s hospice financially with 1000€ per year. A big thank you goes to Michaela Dimitriewicz, the wife of one of Wombat’s founders Sascha, who has been volunteering for MOMO for many years and has made us aware of this great institution! We would also like to praise all the other MOMO employees for their great work and their commitment and look forward to continuing our cooperation!

The Oktoberfest runs from Sept 21st – October 6th 2019

What do hostel workers need most after an exhausting summer season? A 16-day beerfest, along with a hostel full of intoxicated guests. NOT, you would think, but we actually still enjoy this.

There are the bizarre moments – like the guest we only saw wearing a helmet (“to avoid injuries when passing out”) or the guy wearing a zebra costume for breakfast. I asked him where he got that one from, to which he replied, “I don’t remember, I woke up in it.” Or the guy who returned at 3am with nothing but his underpants (he couldn’t tell how that happened, but we know it). We have seen it all, and whatever you do, we won’t tell your girlfriend. Here’s how to Oktoberfest:

Avoid the weekends.

Especially avoid Saturdays. Especially the Saturday on the second weekend, when FC Bayern has a home match. Do yourself a favour and go on a weekday. Even on a Tuesday afternoon, it’s still the biggest party on earth. It’s easier to find accommodation. You”ll have to line up less than an hour for the rollercoasters, you’ll get inside the tents without lining up for hours and a free spot at a table will be much easier to find as well.

Don’t try to reserve a table

Because they don’t accept table reservations when the tent is likely to be full anyway. You just enter the tent of your choice. Scan it for empty spots and ask the other people on the table “ist hier frei?” – that’s it, and it’s also a good conversation starter.

First eat, then drink!

Oktoberfest beer is stronger than the regular stuff. It can get quite warm in the tents, so you will be thirsty and might drink more than you intended. The salt on the pretzels will do the rest. Start your day with a hearty lunch – I recommend one of the many beer halls. Augustiner Bräustuben (http://www.braeustuben.de/) serves excellent pork knuckle for just €9,20. The alcohol will hit you in a much more enjoyable way when you have some lardy food in your stomach.

Leave your stuff at the hostel

The Oktoberfest throng is a pickpocket’s paradise. You won’t want to be paranoid all the time about the contents of your pockets. Also leave your eyeglasses at home, you know, drunk people sometimes throw around their arms in a somewhat uncontrolled manner…

First rollercoaster, then binge drinking

Have mercy on me. I don’t want the contents of your digestive system raining down on me when I queue up. Please!
Still, if you are not yet completely wasted, sneaking out of the tent after the first Maß and go for a ride on the giant carousel or one of the rollercosters is definitely worth the experience.

Which tent?

There are 14 big ones and 20 small ones altogether with seats for 100,000. The first one you’ll see at the main entrance is the Hippodrom, well known for its champagne bar (WTF?) and the occasional celebrity visitor. Schottenhamel is a large one (it seats 10,000) and the tent where it all starts when the mayor taps the first keg. The biggest one is Paulaner Festzelt (capacity 10,900). The best about it is the large outdoor area on its southern side, so you can enjoy the autumn sun. The locals’ favourite is still Augustiner, the only one left tapping the beer from traditional wooden kegs. The tent where the shit really hits the fan is Hofbräu – like the Hofbräuhaus beer hall it’s very popular with tourists who intend to party hard. Mind that the waitresses will ask you to leave when you have an empty stein in front of you and refuse to replace it with a full one immediately. All the tents come with very cheesy oompah-style brass music playing traditional Bavarian songs like “Sweet Home Alabama” or “Country Roads”. You will certainly hate it until you’ve finished your fifth stein, then you’ll love it.

Don’t go to the wine tent

This is a BEERfest, for chrissake! Don’t be a nerd and drink wine. You just don’t!!!

Try not to pass out

The tents close just before midnight and those who can’t make it on their own legs any more will be brought to the slope under the “Bavaria” statue by the security guys. There are hundreds of “Bierleichen” lined up there every evening and the pickpockets will leave you with nothing but your underpants. You have been warned!

All in all the most important thing is to have fun. Go out and party hard!