NEW YORK -- When Elliot Winick was 14 one sweltering summer in Brooklyn, he wanted to take his bike and see the world. Well, some of it. What kid hasn't?
'But my parents wouldn't let me unless I was in an organized, supervised group.' Like most parents.
That's how he got into youth hosteling. He joined the American Youth Hostels and that summer went with a group biking through the Pennsylvania Dutch country.
It was the start of a love affair with bike touring and hosteling that has taken him all over the United States, Canada, Europe; to Cuba and, most recently, to China.
'I've covered 50,000 miles in 13 years, mostly biking.' But he notes you don't have to go that way. 'In Europe, people go by train and some hitchhike.'
'It's not just tour groups. Actually most people who join don't go in groups. But we have 250 tours scheduled this year.'
Not too many hostelers have traveled as far hosteling as has Winick, now a paid official of the AYH. But some have.
It's safe to say, hosteling has opened horizons and broadened life experiences for thousands upon thousands of young people. 'We have 100,000 members in this country but there are probably a million hostelers. They tend to join when they are going on a trip.'
For a time, hosteling leveled off in the U.S., if not in Europe, where it started, Winick said. But the biking, backpacking, camping rage has made for boom times in American hosteling. There are 250 hostels in the U.S. and, he says, 'We're growing fast.'
New York City is one place without a hostel. Although it's AYH council is the country's largest, the cost of operating a hostel in the city has so far precluded starting one.
Establishing one is now a top AYH priority. It has the support, Winick says, of the city and such major firms as Citibank, which recently sponsored with AYH's local council a 32-mile 'Five Boro Bike Tour' as one promotional effort. Some 17,000 cyclists participated.
Hosteling's a good deal, Winick says. It costs $7 for a young person under 18 to join. It is $14 for those 18 and over -- as far over as you want to go.
Winick, 30, led a bike hosteling tour in Guangdong Province around Canton, China, in February. One of his group was an 83-year-old man from Louisiana, he says. 'The average age was 50.'
'The name is a misnomer. Hosteling is for everybody,' he says. Everybody on a tight budget, that is. One thing the state of the economy is helping these days, is hosteling, he says.
The new hosteler gets the annual AYH handbook plus updated information on any changes in the operation of hostels listed in the bi-monthly Hosteling Communique and the quarterly Hosteler's Knapsack. These are publications of the national organization. Also available are annual summer and winter booklets detailing the various tours. The non-profit AYH operates a biking, camping, backpacking equipment center that makes quality equipment available by catalog at reasonable prices. The 30 regional councils provide their own literature to members.
The handbook gives details of the operations of the various hostels, many of which are graded according to quality of facilities and charge standard summer and winter overnight rates -- 'Shelter,' $2.50 summer, $3 winter; 'Simple,' $3.50, $4.50; 'Standard,' $4.50, $5.75; 'Superior,' $5.50, $7.50.
Shelter pretty much means a roof over your head. Simple means the hostel meets minimum standards -- bunk beds, at least cold running water for washing, showers or tubs, a fully equipped kitchen, a heating system that can maintain 55 degrees F. in winter. Add a little space and hot water plus dining area and common room at standard hostels. Superior gets you such things as laundry facilities, linen rental, even game rooms and quiet rooms.
Winick says important minimum standards also include requirements for separate facilities for men and women and supervisory house parents.
In some areas, there are 'Home Hostels,' which means just that -- in someone's home. In other areas, the hostelers use supplemental accommodations -- the local Y, a hotel, school or camp, which charge higher than hostel rates. The details on each are in the handbook along with maps of trip routes, suggested itineraries, clothing and equipment lists for camping, hiking, biking, canoe trips.
'Most European hostels run a little less, $2 to $4 a night,' Winick says. 'They vary a lot. In Rome, it's in the Olympic Village. In some places, it's a castle. In others, it's simple. But the ones that are in the International Youth Hostel Federation meet minimum standards and are clean.'
Winick says some hostels are non-affiliated, particularly in Scandinavian countries. He says these may lack supervision or standardized facilities requirements.
The bike tours are organized to include all costs although a little spending money is necessary.
For example, there's an introductory 8-day backpacking trip for beginners in Massachusetts' Berkshires for $219. 'We provide the equipment.'
For teenage beginner bikers, two weeks around Cape Cod including food, lodging (all of it in hostels), transportation, insurance, bike shipping, $447. 'Anyone who's in good health can do it. It's a relaxed trip -- 20 to 25 miles a day.'
For the slightly more experienced, 24 days from New York to Quebec via Montreal. The group plans its own route and does a lot of camping but the budget provides for some nights indoors if it rains, $537.
In the Detroit area, there are Great Lakes sailing trips, climbing and backpacking in the Rockies, spelunking in western Pennsylvania and Ohio, minibus tours in the Southwest, the California coast by bike, Alaska, Hawaii.
There's one they call 'The Ultimate' -- 73 days biking and camping over 3,500 miles coast to coast. Three are scheduled this year. Winick did that one, of course. The cost is $1,689.
In winter, AYH operates ski trips for as little as $50 for a weekend. 'We find some skiers who think of hosteling only for skiing,' Winick says.
A combination of camping and hosteling takes you through France and Switzerland in 36 days for $1,555 with all air transportation, food, insurance and tour leader included.
Other tours abroad include bike trips through Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia, the Low countries, Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, England, Germany. By public transportation there is one to European arts festivals and one called simply 'The Grand Tour.'
There's a minibus trip in New Zealand. Now there's a monthly trip to China. Several are planned for the regions around Peking and Shanghai in addition to those in the Canton area.
'Accommodations are in hotels and guest houses,' Winick says. It costs $2,600 to $3,000 including air fare, food and lodging for 16-21 days. He says that compares to $3,500 to $4,000 for a trip of similar duration for a regular tourist.
When he was 19, Winick went on his own journey through Europe, cycling for 11 weeks and staying at hostels. At 20, he led the first organized AYH bike tour group in Europe. 'There were 14 of us.'
'Three or four groups of 10 each go now on most tours.'
In 1979, he led the first bike tour of Cuba. It is a regular on the list of organized trips now.
The value of such touring? 'Kids come back changed people. For that matter, adults do, too.
'For teenagers, it is a growing experience, getting out on their own, learning how to interact with people. Biking is the least of it.'
There are 51 countries in the international federation, 5 million members worldwide. It has grown from a single hostel founded by Richard Schirrmann, a German schoolteacher, in a 12th century castle in Westphalia, after he had been unable to find accommodations for the city students he took on hiking trips to the country.
Isabel and Monroe Smith, who had taken students on summer hosteling tours of Europe, opened the first U.S. hostel in Northfield, Mass., in 1934. Most U.S. hostels now are in New England, the Midwest, particularly around the Great Lakes, in Colorado and the Rockies and on the West Coast. But hosteling is growing in the Southwest and even the South where hostels were unable to operate until recent years because, Winick says, they have always been open to all races.
Now there is hosteling in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, Winick says.
To spread hosteling further, there is a bill in Congress, the Youth Hostel Act, to provide $9 million in seed money for a national hostel plan to renovate existing structures for hostels in areas that lack them. Winick believes it may win approval despite the Reagan administration's spending curbs because the funds involved are small and the benefits large.
For information about AYH or to join, Winick says, contact your local AYH council or write: American Youth Hostels, National Administrative Offices, 1332 'I' Street NW, Washington, DC 2005.
