It's fun to stay at the Y-H-A

As a teenager Harry Guitry learned he could kip down in cheap and warm beds in some of the country's top locations.
"People around me at the time knew about youth hostels and put me onto them. They were a level or two up from a tent," Mr Guitry says.
Decades later, now the new deputy chairman of the Youth Hostel Association NZ, he considers that description well and truly outdated. New Zealand hostels are recognised as among the best in the world, he says.
"I wouldn't travel any other way."
Years ago Mr Guitry took out life membership of the Whangarei YHA branch so he didn't have to rejoin every year. That was taken as a sign of great commitment which led to him being shoulder-tapped by the local committee desperately seeking younger members.
"I believe Whangarei is still unique in the North Island in that it has younger members than most. That is, one or two are under the age of 40," he says, straight-faced.
Northland has three YHA-owned hostels and several privately owned affiliated ones. Throughout the country, YHA and affiliated facilities are in 55 locations.
Images of backpacker hostels being city doss houses, or old schoolhouses in remote locations where a local volunteer rocks up with firewood and a stamp for the membership card, are outdated, Mr Guitry says.
"Although we still do have hostels in the most unbelievably beautiful places."
The popularity and huge proliferation of hostel accommodation has turned into one of the issues the national board needs to address. Current travel trends and New Zealand's high exchange rate means New Zealand is no longer the darling of the world's independent travellers.
"For the first time in our history, we have more beds available than people wanting them."
But the need to grow its membership at home is the board's biggest challenge: "Kids of today buy their membership, go and do their OE with cheap accommodation, come back home again, and then we lose them. We gain and then lose again about 9000 members a year."
The NZ association, one of the oldest in the world, will celebrate its 75th anniversary next year. The board wants to mark that milestone by creating an eco-style hostel on Stewart Island.