You'd think this would be an easy decision... Booking a hostel is supposed to be the easy part of planning a trip. Find somewhere with good reviews, hit "Book Now" and start daydreaming about beach days and weekend road trips.

Instead, you find yourself comparing six different room types, zooming in on photos to work out whether the lockers are actually big enough for your backpack and wondering if "social hostel" means making new mates or getting dragged into a pub crawl before you've even figured out which bunk is yours.

Then you notice another option. Female dorm. Now you've got questions.

Is it quieter? Safer? More comfortable? Will you still meet people? Is it worth paying a little extra? Or is it exactly the same experience with different roommates?

The answer is... yes and no.

The biggest surprise about female dorms is that they aren't really about the room at all. They're about what makes you feel most comfortable while travelling, and that's different for everyone.

Female Dorms Aren't "Better". They're Just Better For Some People.

One of the biggest myths around female-only dorms is that they're the obvious choice for every solo female traveller.

They're not.

Some women book female dorms every single time they travel because they simply prefer them. Others couldn't care less and happily stay in mixed dorms for months without thinking twice. Plenty of backpackers even swap between the two depending on where they're travelling, how long they're staying and what's available.

There isn't a right answer, and nobody at check-in is handing out awards for choosing one over the other.

If anything, experienced travellers worry less about who's sleeping in the room and more about the hostel itself. A brilliant hostel with a great atmosphere will usually beat a mediocre hostel with a female dorm every single time.

It's The Little Things Nobody Tells You About

Nobody books a female dorm because they're excited about the storage options. It's the little things that end up making the difference.

You can unpack your bag without feeling like you're playing a game of Tetris around three strangers' hiking gear. Getting changed doesn't require the flexibility of an Olympic gymnast wrapped in a towel. If you've forgotten a hair tie, someone almost always has a spare. Hair dryers, straighteners and dry shampoo somehow appear from every corner of the room.

None of that is life changing. It's just... easy.

After living out of a backpack for a few weeks, easy becomes surprisingly appealing.

Mixed Dorms Have Their Own Perks Too

If every travel blog stopped pretending this was a competition, backpackers would probably stress a lot less.

Mixed dorms aren't the "lesser" option. They're simply different.

Some of the funniest travel stories start because someone in your room asks, "Anyone keen for tacos?" Next thing you know you're watching the sunset at Shelly Beach with people you'd never met twelve hours earlier or planning a Blue Mountains trip with someone from Canada, Germany and Ireland.

That's not because the room was mixed.

It's because the hostel made it easy for people to meet.

The best hostels naturally create those moments in shared kitchens, over breakfast, in common rooms or while borrowing a surfboard. The room is just where you sleep.

If making friends while travelling is something you're nervous about, our guide to Is It Easy To Make Friends While Backpacking Australia? explains why almost everyone feels exactly the same on day one.

Let's Talk About Sleep...

Every hostel promises a good night's sleep. Every backpacker laughs.

Whether you're in female dorms or mixed dorms, someone is going to arrive late after their flight. Someone will set an alarm they don't wake up to. Someone will unpack a plastic bag as though they're auditioning for a percussion band at 2:17am.

That's hostel life.

Female dorms aren't magically silent.

They can, however, feel a little calmer. Many travellers say they enjoy the atmosphere because people naturally tend to settle in earlier or spend less time hanging around inside the room.

Not always. But often enough that plenty of women notice the difference.

The Hostel Matters More Than The Dorm

If you take one thing away from this article, let it be this. People don't spend six months talking about the room they slept in.

They talk about the hostel. The breakfast where they met their travel mates. The surf lesson they almost skipped. The sunset that turned into dinner, which turned into drinks, which somehow turned into extending their stay for another week.

That's why reading hostel reviews properly is so important. Skip past the comments about mattresses and look for reviews mentioning atmosphere, community and people. They're usually the ones that tell you whether you'll actually enjoy staying there.

If you're trying to work out what separates an average hostel from a memorable one, have a read of What Backpackers Actually Look For In A Place To Stay.

So... Are Female Dorms Worth It?

For plenty of travellers, absolutely. Not because they're the only good option. Not because mixed dorms are something to avoid. Simply because they offer a different experience, and sometimes that's exactly what you're looking for.

If having a female-only space helps you relax after a busy day exploring, book it. If you're happy in a mixed dorm, book that instead.

The best part about backpacking isn't proving you're a certain type of traveller. It's finding the kind of trip that suits you, whether that's surfing every morning, spending afternoons at the beach or making friends over free breakfast before deciding what the day has in store.

Looking For Female Dorms In Sydney?

If you're searching for female dorms in Sydney, Stoke Beach House offers dedicated female-only rooms just 100 metres from Manly Beach.

You'll still enjoy everything that makes hostel life memorable: free daily breakfast, complimentary surfboards and cruiser bikes, shared spaces designed for meeting other travellers and a relaxed community atmosphere while having the option to retreat to a female-only room at the end of the day.

Because the best hostel memories rarely happen inside your dorm. They happen everywhere else.