Where to stay in Hamburg

In Hamburg you choose a quarter by two things: how loud it is under the window, and which line from the door runs to the port. A hostel bed is €11–21 a night, and the hostels cluster in exactly the two loudest parts of town — St Pauli and around the main station in St Georg.

Five quarters by line and by night

The decision — quiet, not distance

St Pauli at night

The Reeperbahn and the side streets around it work every night, and at weekends until morning. A room above a bar here means not music in the distance but sleep from four to nine. If you want to be close without that, take the Schanze: two stops further on the U3, with bars that are loud at weekends.

2 daysThe hour-by-hour plan that starts from the Landungsbrücken:Hamburg in 2 days →

The main station has the most hostels around it and every line in the city, so St Georg is the first choice for arriving by train. But the area between the station, Steindamm and Hansaplatz is the centre of the city's drug scene and the part of the quarter where most theft and robbery is recorded. If you take St Georg, look at where the front door is: towards the Alster is a different quarter from towards Steindamm, even at the same distance.

When you choose by the connection rather than the quarter

A single AB ticket is €4.10 and covers the whole city, so being close to the sights is worth less here than in cities without a metro: it is enough for the quarter to be on the U3 or on the S-Bahn through the Landungsbrücken. The one exception is Sunday morning: if you are going to the fish market early, being in St Pauli or Altona genuinely helps.

What not to choose

• A room in a Reeperbahn side street without checking the address. The difference between 'near the Reeperbahn' and 'on the Reeperbahn' is several hours of sleep.
• 'By the main station' without a map. The same words describe a hotel towards the Alster and a hotel on Steindamm, and those are two different nights.