Why Families Keep Coming Back

Community · 8 January 2026

About 40 percent of our guests have been with us before. Some have been coming regularly for three or four years. We asked ourselves: what brings them back? So we asked directly — straight, without beating around the bush.

The most common answer may come as a surprise: it's not the mountains (though they certainly help). It's the people. 'We come for the other families,' says Thomas, father of two boys. 'My sons start asking in October when we're going to the hostel again.'

Sandra, a single mother, puts it differently: 'Here I don't feel like a single parent, I feel part of a group. The children are looked after, I can breathe. That's priceless.' She has been coming twice a year since 2024.

What returning guests say

Practical reasons also play a role. Value for money, the option to self-cater, flexibility on arrival and departure. But at its core it's something else: the feeling of being welcome. Not as a customer, but as part of a community.

We take this trust seriously. Every season we try to get a little better — without changing what our guests value. Because in the end it's not the renovations or new programmes that count. It's the atmosphere.

The friendships between the children are often the real driving force. Children who get to know each other on the first stay start asking in October when they'll see 'their hostel children' again. Parents who hadn't planned to return book anyway — because the children want it so much. And the second time everything is different, because you're not arriving any more, you're coming home.

What we've learned about loyalty

What we notice: returning families behave differently. They help put things away without being asked. They explain to newcomers where the best picnic spot is. They take responsibility for a community that isn't theirs — and through that it becomes theirs. That's social capital building up.

WhatsApp groups with twenty families from four countries. Birthday messages between children who only knew each other for a week. A father from Switzerland sending a regional speciality to a family in the Netherlands. These aren't marketing stories — these are real emails and screenshots that reach us.

Every season we try to get a little better. New kitchen knives, better hiking maps, a fresh coat of paint in the common room. But most of what brings our guests back isn't something we can buy: the atmosphere, the other families, the pace. That emerges by itself — when the setting is right.

What awaits you

If you've never been: just come. We promise nothing except the setting. The rest is made by the community. And if it goes well — which it usually does — you'll be asking in winter when you can book again.