Youthink Hostel

Top choice in Cluj-Napoca


A labour-of-love restoration project has transformed a 1920 building, abandoned for a decade, into something between a hostel and an ecotourism retreat. Original wood beams, fireplace and hardwood floors retain the early-20th-century splendour, while the seven- and eight-bed dorms are clean and modern. Aptly for such a cheery and eco-conscious hostel, you'll be greeted by friendly dogs and a cat.

Produce from pear and walnut trees, part of a 2400-sq-metre garden, sometimes find their way to the locally sourced breakfast spread.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Cluj-Napoca attractions

1. Alexandru Borza Botanic Gardens

0.21 MILES

These wonderfully relaxing gardens comprise rockeries, neoclassical statues peeping from tangles of rose, and a Japanese-style garden with a crimson…

2. Hungarian Cemetery

0.36 MILES

Founded in the 16th century, this stately cemetery is a memorable place to stroll among elegant tombs and mausoleums of Transylvanian poets and composers,…

3. Hungarian Reformed Church

0.59 MILES

Commissioned by the king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, in 1486, this church took more than 20 years to complete. Its interior seems spare at first glance…

4. Museum of Zoology

0.6 MILES

An encyclopedic collection of bottled, jarred and taxidermied specimens from butterflies to waterfowl.

5. Statue of Baba Novac

0.61 MILES

A statue of Serbian revolutionary Baba Novac, who plotted against the Ottomans, stands outside the 15th-century Tailor's Tower.

6. Tailor's Tower

0.62 MILES

Rotating exhibitions of local art within this stone tower can be somewhat threadbare. But it’s still worth wandering inside this pointy-roofed former…

7. Statue of Matthias Corvinus

0.66 MILES

Hogging the limelight in front of St Michael’s Church is a bulky 1902 statue of horseback Matthias Corvinus, the famous 15th-century Hungarian king.

8. Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania

0.67 MILES

On the upper floor of a renovated neo-Gothic building, dating to the 16th century, find well-tended exhibitions on Romanian peasant life throughout the…