Hostels and Budget Accommodation

Specialist Reports Holiday by Accommodation Hostels and Budget Accommodation Booking Services 

In addition to those run by the youth hostel organisations (see sections on Britain and Beyond Britain):

Hostelworld

47 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin 2 Ireland
+ 353 851 0150
hostelworld
On-line budget accommodation booking agency, started in 1999 and reporting more than 30,000 on-line bookings each month. The site offers more than 1,000 hostels in 80 countries and 300 destinations, ranging from Tipperary in Ireland to Tobago in the Caribbean and including more than 80 hostel and budget accommodation options in the UK. New ones reported added monthly.

The site does not provide any information on facilities but families but does offer ideas of tours and additional activities, for example a sheep station experience in new South Wales in Australia shoeing a horse, drenching a sheep, marking lambs and developing bush skills. Booking through the site costs the visitor the same as booking direct. The site is funded by commissions paid by the hostels.
For slightly more comfortable accommodation the same company runs Discount Hotels discounthotels-world, although again this is aimed principally at young adult travellers.