Lookout Lisbon! Hostel Review (Lisbon, Portugal)

Wow, just wow! I loved my stay at Lookout Lisbon! Hostel, and would highly recommend it to travelers stopping by this city. A few hostels invited me to stay with them, but I knew I had to check out Lookout Lisbon as it was ranked #1 on Tripadvisor.

Upon Arrival

The reason why Lookout Lisbon! Hostel is called what it is, is that it is adjacent to the “lookout”, which overlooks the whole city.

The view from the balcony

After a bit of a hike, I made my way to Lookout Lisbon. When I arrived at the hostel, I already felt a certain warmth in the atmosphere. I was greeted by Andre who introduced himself, gave me a tour of the place, and told me to ask him if I ever had any questions. When I was unsure about his name he even wrote it down for my reference. He was extremely attentive to my needs and was helpful in all situations.

Andre told me about the board of activities they had, ranging from tours of Sintra to surfing lessons to pub crawls. I was again impressed with the organization of events. The events are a smart concept (that more hostels should implement) as they allow more opportunity for people to meet each other.

I could already tell that community and people were an integral part of this hostel. The place was a bit smaller than what I expected, but I think it was part of the vibe they wanted to give off. A smaller hostel means a tighter-knit community you can get to know and make friends with.

Hostel Rooms

The rooms were extremely clean! Every day I would see employees washing the place with meticulous care.

The bunk beds have three levels. The bottom two have curtains that allow for a slight bit of privacy which is nice:

I stayed on the top bunk, which frankly, I found slightly inconvenient when I needed to bring things up like my phone and my laptop. But other than that, the beds were comfortable, clean, and already made for you (which is wonderful and uncommon in hostels).

Since Lookout Lisbon is conveniently located near Bairro Alto (the area with an active nightlife), they have a policy of closing the windows around 10-11 PM. The city gets bustling at night so this rule helps reduce noise and lets people sleep.

Lockers

Another plus: there’s no need to pay extra for lockers! The lockers were huge, big enough to store carry-on suitcases and backpacks. I merely placed my valuables inside while leaving my suitcase of clothes out.

Common Room

Because it’s a small hostel, you’ll find a lot of people socializing in the common room with couches, a balcony, dining table, and other knick-knacks. As an R&B/hip-hop fanatic, I loved that they played really good tunes throughout the day!

Free breakfast – If you wake up before 9:30 AM, you’ll get to eat their free breakfast which includes bread, ham, cheese, jam, cereal, tea, milk, and more. Unfortunately, I had only woken up in time once so I didn’t end up snapping photos!

Dining table

Hallways

You can rent bikes and surf boards, which are hung all over the walls of the hallways. I really liked the decor. Confession: I don’t know how to ride a bicycle, so that was not in the cards for me!

Bathrooms

There were two shared bathrooms and one private bathroom. As you can see they’re quite clean and again, nicely decorated:

I ended up using the private bathroom a lot because it was located conveniently across my room.

Kitchen & Laundry Machines

If you ever get hungry, you can cook food in their kitchen. And they have a stocked fridge, so when you want to insert your items you just need to label them to indicate they’re yours. Items that aren’t labeled are free-for-all.

For 3 euros, you can use their laundry machine and hang your clothes on their stands:

Random Social Events/Free Sangria

On my second night, Andre invited me to their sangria night! You can’t deny that the hostel’s free sangria is an outstanding perk.

And on my last night, one or two of the volunteer employees were leaving so we had a going away dinner celebration. For 3.50 Euros, we ate a hearty risotto and tortilla meal all made by one of the talented employees. And we learned the names of the entire table. Literally. I usually forget people’s names, but we had such good conversation that my memory was on point that night!

I think the family dinners and breakfast meals make the hostel truly something special. Having left the United States for over 3 months, I found that sharing a meal with completely new faces from all ends of the globe gave me an interesting, warm sense of “home”.

Afterwards the employees surprised us with some delicious cocktails! Nothing completes a meal like some alcoholic goodness:

Final Thoughts

If you’re searching for accommodations (and new friends) in Lisbon, look no further. My experience here was the best out of all of my hostel stays so far! As you can tell, I enjoyed Lookout Lisbon because of the community aspect, location, the clean rooms and bathrooms, lockers, privacy curtains, perks like free breakfast and sangria, and so much more. They really put a lot of thought into making the experience great for young travelers. Thanks to all the employees I got to meet – Andre, Fabio, Rita, and Filipa – you guys are great!

If you are planning to stay, you can click here to see the latest prices.

To get to the hostel from the airport: 

Using the metro, the price was only around 1-2 euros to get from the airport to the hostel. Not too shabby!

From the airport, take the red line on the metro towards “São Sebastião”. Once you hit “Alameda” get off and change to the green line towards “Cais do do Sodré”. Get off at “Baixa Chiado” and take the escalators to “Largo Camões/Rua Misericórdia”. The escalators should go up for a long time…I think there were three of them. Once you go outside, walk to this statue with a bunch of people. Go to the statue and look in front of you and you’ll see a blue church. Walk to the church, then turn left and walk all the way up that street (it should go uphill). Keep walking up perhaps 7 minutes or so (it will get tiring) and on your right there will be the Gloria tram and the lookout right above it (pictured above in this post). Once you see that, Lookout Lisbon! Hostel should be on your left!

*Thanks to Lookout Lisbon! Hostel for supporting me on my stay! As always, all opinions are my own.