Where does the time go? We can hardly believe it but we’re celebrating Saddle Mountain Hostel’s 10th birthday today! When we arrived in 2015 we naively thought that we had a good idea about how to run a hostel. That turned out not to be entirely correct but we definitely know what we’re doing now and we have built up the business so that we offer exactly the service and facilities we want to provide. We also know our guests in terms of who stays here, at what times of year, and what they are visiting Invergarry to do.
The basic layout of the hostel remains as it was when we took over back in 2015, with 5 bedrooms, but we have spent a lot of time and money to make it how we want it. We added our drying room/laundry at the start of 2017 and since then we have upgraded the rest of our facilities, particularly the kitchen, toilets and showers. We have also reduced the hostel capacity so that there’s more room for everyone.
During our 10 years we have hosted over 20,600 overnight stays, which adds up to a lot of check ins and bed making! Whilst the majority of our guests are from the UK (68%) there’s an international feel to the rest, with a further 70 nationalities represented. After the UK, our top 5 in order are German, French, Dutch, Spanish and American but we’re always excited to welcome someone with a new nationality as you’ll know if you were our only guest from Nepal, Azerbaijan or Namibia!
Why do they come? Just over 50% of our guests are here to go hillwalking. Another 30% are tourists visiting the Scottish Highlands. The remainder are long distance walkers, cyclists or doing water sports. Whatever the reason, we are very grateful that all of them have chosen to stay at Saddle Mountain Hostel rather than somewhere else. We have a large number of repeat guests, not all of them from the UK, and if they choose to keep coming back here it shows that we must be doing something right. Knowing that we are providing a service and making people happy is what makes the job worthwhile for us.
We very much hope that both old and new friends will keep coming between now and our 11th anniversary. Here’s hoping for a busy and fun 2025 season.