40 Berkeley

I was there for a conference stayed a few days in a private double bed. It is bare bones, but clean and I had a great view from my room. There are places you can go and study upstairs or even in the living room with the free popcorn machine off to the side. I enjoyed my stay here, the bathrooms are a little eh… but it’s a hostel not the Marriott.

One of the best hostels I’ve ever stayed at. You can’t beat the location and price. View was excellent.
Just a note… BRING A FAN! Those Boston summers are hot, so be prepared.
Food was alright, staff is extremely nice and accommodating.
Please understand, this is a hostel! If you are not sure what to expect, then don’t have crazy expectations. Their job is to provide comfort to the masses/​travelers, not to make this your 5 star vacation room.

You know what you’re going to get with a cheap, bare bones hostel. Nothing in your room besides a bed, pillows, towel, chair, desk, dresser, and ceiling fan/​light; just the bare minimum. Bed is not the most comfortable, but at least it’s manageable. Room can get really warm (they have the heater on), so be thankful there’s a ceiling fan and window especially during warmer times. Didn’t take a shower there because of the shared bathrooms, but from what I saw they seemed decent.
Vending machines downstairs for snacks and drinks were a plus, along with the 7 – 11 across the street. For $ 27 a person in a two-​bed room (I split it with a friend), you can’t ask for much more. I’d come here again if I just needed a bed on an overnight stay.

For a pretty pathetic hostel it’s actually not that bad. Seriously, it isn’t.
The good:
— They provide the cheapest option this close to downtown.
— Free popcorn. It’s a nice, slightly buttery popcorn.
— They have a movie theatre.
— They have 2 pool tables. Requires $ 5 refundable deposit. Available until 10pm.
— Free, decent wifi. No password.
— They have a vending machine that has cup ramen. So, yeah, cheap dinner, anyone?
— Next to the vending machine is a little kitchen, with a coffee machine, microwave, and hot water boiler.
— They serve the coffee until something like 5pm.
— They are right across the street from from a 7 Eleven. Big win. Love the coffee there.
— There’s a CVS a block down.
— They also have a small library for people to, uh, not sure what libraries are for. Anyone know? Har Har.
The bad:
— With the price, you sacrifice private bathrooms. No big deal, the stalls and showers have locks. No one is going to walk in on you naked, unless you want them to.
— No idea how sanitary the popcorn machine is.
— Okay, it’s not really a movie theatre. It’s like a big screen TV with lots of chairs in a really dark room.
— The pool tables are in pretty bad shape.
— They have 2 guest computers, but you have to pay to use them.
— The chairs in the lobby are 50 times more comfortable than the ones in your room.
— No breakfast. I wouldn’t eat here anyway.
The ugly:
— The room I stayed in had prison style twin beds. The mattress is probably as old as the building, and the stuffing from my pillow were falling out.
— There are popcorn crumbs everywhere in the lobby.
— It is hot as hell in the theater and I don’t recognize any of the movie titles.
— Okay, the pool tables are in really bad shape. The surface is ripped and the table is no longer flat. The balls constantly roll to the sides of the tables.
— They have towels if you request them but they’re really suspect. I’d bring my own.
— One really needs to bring shower slippers.
Why I wanted to give it only 3 stars:
One thing that baffled me was that the front desk had no idea how to get to their hostel from the Logan airport. Seriously? Anyway, it’s easy and free if you don’t mind public transport: Take the silver line bus to South Station. Hop off, switch to the red line train. At the next stop, hop off and switch to orange line at Dowtown Crossing. Get off at the third stop at Back Bay. You are now 0.2 miles from the hostel. I’ll upload a picture of the map.
Total time from getting off the airplane to arriving at the hostel: A little over an hour.
Why it really got 4 stars:
I love that it’s a 15 minute walk to Chinatown, 30 minute walk to Faneuil Hall/​Quincy Market/​Freedom Trail/​Boston Harbor, and 15 minutes from Boston Common/​Boston Public Gardens. It’s also a 20 minute walk from Copley Place if you’re into dropping some serious shopping cash at a Simon mall.
Anyway, if all you want to do is sleep, this is the right place for you.

For a hostel, 40 Berkeley deserves 5 stars. But because it is on a scale with 5 star hotels… I had to give it 3. The building is pretty much an old renovated dorm with a big lobby, mezzanine, and courtyard area. There are 7 floors with dorm-​like rooms. Mine even had dorm furniture! The bathrooms are shared on each floor but they are clean and well-​kept. As a young female traveling alone, I felt safe and accommodated. The location is great too as I was able to walk to Boston Common, multiple restaurants, and go for a 6mile jog around the Charles no problem. I highly recommend this hostel! It was less than $ 88 dollars total for a 24hr stay and they hold extra luggage at the front for free.

This is an interesting place. The people that is. Don’t know where they come from or how long they have been here. Time warp or half house. I don’t know.
Checking in was a breeze. Using the elevators were a bit scary. Slow and kinda smells.
The room. Very bare and simple. Just the basic bed and blanket. Room comes with a drawer and table and a towel. It felt like a rundown dorm room
Women restroom– thank goodness for my floor it was remodeled and very nice, modern, and clean. Very impressed. I heard different for the male restrooms…
Overall, this place did its job. Had to find a cheap place to stay for the few hours we had to sleep to catch our 6am flight. So it kept me warm and had a clean restroom.
* They have a computer and printer for a charge if you need it. Also a game room (pool, board games) and a TV/​movie room with theater seats (not the comfy ones lol) which is a nice

I initially thought I had found some kind of lucky deal. But the truth is that you’ll get what you pay for, maybe less. Beds are uncomfortable, like really uncomfortable. Like a sofa is more comfortable. But the bathrooms are clean. They did provide towels which was nice. If you’re on a budget and just need a bed to crash then I’d say do it.

It’s nice that you can have your own room, and just share bathrooms. There are plenty of things to do in the hostel such as pool tables, iPad, lots of couches and seats, as well as places to eat your food and get hot water and coffee. Service has been friendly so far, the rooms just aren’t consistent in terms of amenities provided.
The location is a short walk from the green line, which makes it perfect for getting around.

An okay hostel in Boston. We were a group of six travelling to the city for a weekend from CT, and we found this place for a decent price. I promise you, I don’t have exceptionally high standards when it comes to hostels– I am generally not fussy at all, as long as the place is clean and moderately comfortable.
40 Berkeley is fine– nothing special, nothing particularly bad. We had two rooms of three beds, so we didn’t share with any strangers. There was a ceiling fan in the room to keep us cool during the hot Boston summer. However, it broke down on the first night, and it quickly became unbearably hot. Combined with a hard mattress, I did not sleep well that weekend.
There are pool tables, cool rocking chairs, and popcorn in the lobby for guests. These were nice additions and provided a nice social space. Staff were generally helpful as well. However, overall, I still think the price was too high for what we got. Will probably stick to Airbnb next time.

This place is a complete rip off, do not stay here.
I have stayed in several hostels, airbnbs, room shares, and BnBs before, and am not generally a high maintenance traveler. But this place has pretty much nothing going for it.
For $ 80+ a night per person you’re getting an absolute bare bones «bed» and room. Amenities are non existent.
Unless you’re a sucker for location and wanna stay in the South End, you’d honestly be better off staying at some mediocre hotel in the burbs.
Echoing what some other reviewers said: do NOT bring bae here.

You get what you pay for. I’m giving this a 5 because the location and price. The neighborhood behind 40 is fun and quaint. 10 minute walk to subway or downtown. The walls are thin and the place is kind of dirty but it’s a hostel. Totally expected it. The hostel in Portland in the rose gardens is ideal.

If you enjoy staying in a place where the hallways smell like urine, and therefore your room does too, this is the place for you!

I loved this place for the $ 35 a night I paid in winter ’14, and at that time the price included breakfast! They have variable pricing depending on season, and now I think new owners that raised prices and eliminated the free breakfast. No freaking way this place is worth over $ 65 peak season. $ 130 for a one bed?! That’s just crazy talk! Boston is too expensive for me I guess. I’ll only be back if the price is reasonable again.

First time in Boston, first time in a hostel and it couldn’t be a better experience for me. Excellent view from 6^th Floor, provided everything from towels to laundry. Courteous staff and even fixed a small issue with fire alarm in seconds. Restrooms are well kept and most importantly, the place is safe. Will be coming back.

I give three stars mostly because of the prime location of this hostel. Here is my breakdown:
The good: The amazing location. Paper towels and soap in the relatively clean washroom.
The bad: the room does not look like the website pictures, old cabinets, very noisy due to old windows, cold during the night (I believe you may request an extra blanket at the reception, which I didn’t).
The ugly: We had to pay around $ 160 per night with tax for a double room — definitely there is a feeling of being ripped off for the service provided. Just one key per room; good luck with all the logistics required to get to the bathroom without locking yourself out in case you forgot the key. You may leave the key at the reception in case your buddy has different plans for the day.
The showers were the worst — the control of hot and cold was very difficult which means the water is either ice cold or scorching hot. The water flow was so little it took forever to wash the soap off. This is for the third floor washrooms.
By all means we’ve had an amazing time in the beautiful city of Boston and the conditions in this hostel did not affect at all our positive vibe, maybe because we used the place just to take a shower and sleep.
Probably will opt out for airbnb when next time in town.

Do you like getting woken up by multiple fire alarms in the night, running downstairs, and finding that no one is at the front desk? Do you like the only two forms of temperature control being either a blasting radiator or an open window to one of the noisiest streets in Boston? Do you like the color palette from the hotel in The Shining? Then you will LOVE IT AT 40 BERKELEY!
Wi-​Fi and bathrooms were pretty good.

Super noisy place, the walls, the door and the windows don’t block the noise outside at all. I was kept woking up by different ppl. Noisy no manner Chinese, noisy black ppl playing loud music without wearing headphones. That’s the place u r living.
U only got one room with a bed. That’s all. U have to share the bathroom and restroom with others in the public bathroom, public restroom. They don’t provide anything, no shampoo, no facial thing, just bring all daily care urself.
They don’t clean ur room at all, I came back yesterday thought it would have been cleaned, but no cleaner here, and no renew or exchange for the towels at all.
Enough said, I’m not coming back to this place.

Si mon séjour Bostonien s’est basé au 40 Berkeley, c’est avant tout pour le prix. S’il vous est déjà arrivé de chercher une chambre d’hôtel dans cette ville, vous comprenez tout à fait ce que je veux dire ($$$$$$$$).
Cet hôtel est bien situé, à moins de 20 minutes de marche du sympathique quartier Back bay et à moins de 30 min du coeur historique. Pour vous faciliter la vie, vous trouverez un parking public souterrain à proximité, une rue avec quelques resto et un 7 – 11 en face.
Donc rien à dire.
Sur l’hôtel en lui-​même, mon avis est mitigé. Je n’ai pas eu la chance d’obtenir une chambre avec salle de bain et j’ai donc retrouvé l’ambiance des clubs de sport et des campings: cabines de douche et de toilette séparées par une cloison qui né va pas au plafond (ni les portes jusqu’aux cloisons d’ailleurs) et lavage de dents en «public». Si les sanitaires sont propres et, pour certains, fraîchement rénovés, il manqué un bricoleur expérimenté pour réparer les petits problèmes qui gâchent la vie des résidents (pomme de douche qui fuit … vers la patère avec vos affaires par exemple).
La chambre était plutôt spartiate avec une literie hors d’âge et un ménage approximatif.
Le petit déjeuner est copieux mais l’ambiance sous-​sol/​foule me l’a bien vite fait fuir malgré les souvenirs de RU que cela m’évoquait. Comme il est compris dans le prix de la chambre, c’est toutefois une bonne façon de faire des économies.
Reste le mystère des personnes âgées … s’agit-il d’un nouveau concept de résidence intergénérationnel ?
Au final, pour moi, c’est un «si j’aurais su, j’aurais pas venu» mais cela reste une bonne solution pour maîtriser son budget vacances sans sacrifier sur la localisation.

The place does not have all the bells and whistles of a hotel but you get what you pay for.
The whole complex reminds me of a college dorm. Rooms are plain and I was holding my breath every time i went to the restroom hoping it was clean.
It would be nice if there were rooms with private bathrooms. For the most part, it was clean and bearable 90% of the time.
We really only used the place to sleep. There are some nice common areas downstairs but the room itself is VERY stuffy and smells like wet dog if you don’t leave the windows open throughout the day.
Boston in general is VERY expensive to live in and it’s hard to find someone who has space to crash with.
Breakfast is a big plus here but we were barely able to utilize this service as it started pretty late. They probably do that on purpose…
Given the circumstances, I got what I needed out of my stay. It’s still very expensive if you’re coming as 1 person. Prices are reasonable for 2 or more.

I would not recommend this place for those who are traveling in pair and would like to get their own room because comparing the price you pay all together you will be able to get a much better place with better service for about the same price. And if your a light sleeper this will not be the place to stay at. The walls and doors are anything but sounds proof, you can hear almost everything going on in the hallway.
The only thing I like about this place is their free breakfast.

This is set up very much like a college dorm room. Each room is spacious with plenty of space to put whatever you have. Everyone was very friendly. Breakfast (very good) and wifi are included. It’s close to the T. Everything is clean, it’s quiet, and there are a lot of places to get work done. It’s close to a lot of restaurants and night life.
I could go on but I was really surprised by how great it was and I would definitely recommend it.
(Oh and they offered me homemade cookies when I checked in lol)