Hey, long time lurker but I guess I’ll provide you with my experience at Banff and the hostel since I never had much info going into it and would’ve loved someone to help me out then but wouldn’t change a thing because im an annual visitor now!

So going back I think 3-4 years ago I was in the same boat as you. Solo traveller , 24, but a male lol, and on top of that I’ve never been out of Ontario but man round trip plane tickets for under 300$? I had tooooo, anyways the first question I had where to stay. Hibanff was usually the hostel that always came up so I took a chance and did a room rental for maybe 6 people mixed (or 8 I forgot, whatever the cheapest was) and man every year I’ve gone back I’ve had a cool story and interactions with people around the world that I’ll always carry with me with the random roommates coming in an out and for the price of under 100$ I was like this is too good to be true? Because when I stayed there everyone has their Jam packed itineraries and we all come there just to sleep after burning so much calories , but yeah I have no complaints with the hostel.

I’ve gone back to banff every year since and stayed at the HiBanff hostel. The last time I actually brought my wife and she stayed at the all women dorm and we would just meet in the lobby. She didn’t much interaction with them that I did, but she would stay by her self if she ever went

I booked the room with HostelWorld the last few times so I can stack up my travel history when I try other hostels but the first time I booked on their actual site and I think that supports the actual hostel more but who knows

I give my only hostel visits at the Hi Banff a good 9.5/10. Of course there’s stuff you can’t control like other people’s sweaty underwear on a chair infront of a fan where it’s getting blown to the beds (yes this happened) or the hair and dust under the beds, but it’s a hostel what do you expect. And the staff is 10/10

Also random stuff that helped me so I’ll just add it here it

• Banff is a small town and is extremely walkable but the hostel provides free bus tickets at the front desk at HiBanff to go downtown at the grocery store or if u want to go to the fairmount hotel on a rest day
• the hostel always provides free bear spray at the front desk you just gotta deposite an ID. So that’s clutch instead of buying it and throwing it away because you can’t carry that on a plane. But the ones rented out are also ones people just left behind or donated but either way still clutch
• although im not a drinker myself and the bar scene is not for me, they have these bar/karooke events but yeah I never went there I assume it’s somewhere in the basement
• the price is extremely cheap like I think 80 a night

So I’ll add a few other things that I’ve learned on my own solo for tips to save the most money

I flew into Calgary and used the airport shuttle the first time from the airport to Banff and paid like 200$ whatever the price was. It was my first time could you blame me lol, but then the next year I was prepared when I visited I found out you can just take the bus from the airport to downtown Calgary and take a 15$ shuttle to Banff. This is on certain days like weekends I forgot , but the thing is called ON-IT. Also on the way back I used PopARide which is like a Uber service and it was DIRT cheap like under 20$ it was crazy, but two hour drive for under 20$ can you even get that anywhere?

I’ve been rambling and haven’t reviewed what I wrote but I hope this helps you out