Looking for a hostel? Don't want to spend the night in a noisy room that smells of old socks? Hostelworld.com is designed to help you find the perfect hostel within your budget.

Enjoy your stay

The Hostelworld.com iPad app lets you search for hostels in thousands of cities across the planet. It includes photos, information and location details for all the accommodation it lists, allowing you to book online through the app once you've found the room you want.

Perhaps the most useful feature of the Hostelworld.com app is its user comments and ratings. Much like with TripAdvisor, you can find out what people who have stayed in the hostels think of them, and leave comments yourself after you've been there. Hostels can be rated for factors such as value for money, atmosphere, cleanliness, and facilities, and you can view a breakdown of the averages of these for each hostel.

Simple to use

The design and layout of the Hostelworld.com app makes it simple to get around and it's easy on the eye. The interface is designed as such that information (e.g. map location, prices, ratings) is layered on screen in an elegant way. You can tap between different hostels and all of the same kind of information is instantly displayed while the map jumps to the new location, making it great for quickly comparing hostels in the same area.

There's a handy account/booking management section, and you can tweak options for currency, distance unit, and language. Unfortunately, the app doesn't appear to have an option for signing up to Hostelworld.com, only to log into an existing account.

Have a good trip

If you don't want to get stuck in a crappy hostel, I can recommend Hostelworld.com. It allows you to find and compare hostels quickly, and is packed with information and user comments so you know what to expect of a place when you get there.