Concept 1
“Hostel Days”
Two women, two backpacks - a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
Gaze into the lives of Lila and Christiana, two beautiful young women with an awakening appetite for adventure, as they wind their way through Southeast Asia on a series of encounters with locals and travelers from every corner of the world.
Each episode presents the girls with a unique opportunity to live side by side with people in faraway places like bustling Bangkok, the pristine islands of Southern Thailand, and the remote interior of Malaysia. These encounters provide the girls with a chance to develop relationships with fascinating people and give them access to an international youth culture that most of us never get the chance to see.
The show begins when the girls receive an e-mail revealing their next destination, the people they'll meet, and a date and time of arrival. With a limited budget, the girls are expected to find a route, book their trip, and show up at the assigned meeting place on time. Lila and Christiana's full itinerary becomes clear to them only after they arrive. Their adventures will include helping a Thai rock band put on a concert, planning a Vietnamese lunar festival, and volunteering in a Malaysian work camp.
Immersed in a land of tropical island beaches, delicious food, and Buddhist temples, Lila and Christiana experience what makes Southeast Asia one of the most diverse and stimulating travel destinations in the world. But dispel any notions of a five-star vacation: Lila and Christiana's home away from home is the local hostel. These accommodations offer an abundance of new friends, but a serious lack of amenities, and navigating from place to place on a tight budget presents its own set of challenges. As we chronicle Lila and Christiana's journey from the crowded streets of Bangkok through the humid jungles of Malaysia, we'll find out if they are the kind of travelers who make up for cramped conditions and small budgets with an uncompromising spirit, or if they'll lose faith and pine for home.
The Pilot - Bangkok, Thailand
Sunday
The girls make arrangements to meet at Lila's apartment in Orange County to receive their first e-mail from abroad. When they get together, they learn that Bangkok, Thailand will be the first stop. They'll be meeting with a Thai rock band on Tuesday morning at Nipa, a restaurant in the Thanon Sukhumvit section of the city. Lila and Christiana pack their bags, ready their passports, and talk about what it will be like to be away from their friends and families before finally going to bed.
Monday
The morning starts with a drive to LAX, where they'll board the 12-hour flight to Bangkok International. After a long day of traveling and some tense moments on the plane, the girls finally arrive in Thailand. Their first major task: finding the Siam Oriental hostel in Khao San, the section of town where low-budget travelers flock for cheap rooms and excitement. After catching up on some sleep, the girls head out to explore the city and meet some fellow travelers.
Tuesday
Rush-hour traffic awakens the girls early. After a disappointing encounter with the hostel's showers, they head out for breakfast from a street vendor, then hop on a bus for a cross-town ride to meet the band. When they arrive, they meet the four-person group and learn a bit about what Thai garage rock sounds like. They also find out what they'll be doing in Bangkok: helping the band promote its next show in a 1,000-person venue on Saturday night. The girls’ job will be recruiting concertgoers from the backpacker scene. After the meeting, the band members take Lila and Christiana out for dinner at local restaurant, where they dine on seafood curries and sip fresh fruit cocktails. Then it's off for dancing at a local club.
Wednesday
The girls meet up with the band in the morning to present the plan: They're going to hit the big traveler bars and nightclubs - like Banana Bar, Buddy Beer, Peppermint and Icon - in search of an audience for the show. The band is pleased with the idea. Lila and Christiana eat lunch in a small cafe, then relax at the hostel before striking out at night for a bar crawl. They end up pitching the concert to dozens of Australians, Germans, Israelis, South Africans, Irish, and Canadians before the night is over.
Thursday
The girls sleep late, and then head off for a day that combines sightseeing and promotion at some of the major tourist attractions. First, the girls stop by the Floating Market for a late seafood lunch from a street vendor, then they hit the Rose Garden and Siam Square. After a rest at the hostel for a few hours, they head out for a home-cooked meal at the home of one of the band member’s parents, where they sample home-cooked Thai specialties like sea urchin for the first time.
Friday
With just one day left before the show, the girls go from hostel to hostel in the Khao San area, meeting a slew of travelers and leaving a trail of flyers all over Bangkok. When Lila and Christiana stop for a lunch of noodle soup, it's clear that they're getting a little weary of the hustle and bustle of the big city and are already anticipating their next destination: the mountains of Northern Thailand? The pristine beaches in the south? Or maybe a beach bungalow on a remote island? They'll have to wait for their next e-mail to find out.
Saturday
The girls meet up with the band and their crew in the early afternoon and head to the venue for a dress rehearsal. Everything looks and sounds great, but the big question looms: will the crowds show? The group splits up and arranges to meet back at the club at 9 o'clock. As the venue fills up, the girls and everyone else start to relax. The house sound system plays Goa trance to a growing crowd of dancing Thais and travelers, and by 10:30 the place is totally packed. The band takes the stage at 10:45, thanks their guest promoters, and plays a raucous show that lasts until 2 in the morning.
Sunday
Exhausted after a long night but excited to find out where they'll be going next, the girls struggle out of bed and head down to the Hello Internet Cafe in Khao San for their e-mail instructions. The next adventure awaits.
Future Episodes
• Northern Thailand - Volunteers for Peace
• Southern Thailand - Phuket Surfing Competition
• Thai Islands - Koh Phangan Full Moon Party
• Malaysia - Weeklong Trek and Wildlife Excursion
• Hong Kong - Intensive Kung Fu
• Vietnam (Rural) - Habitat for Humanity International Global Village
• Vietnam (Urban) - Forgotten Souls of the Dead Festival
• Singapore - Preparing a Boat for the Singapore River Regatta
Lila Metzger – Kauai, Hawaii, USA
This 21-year-old grew up immersed in the outdoors, and her love of natural beauty and an active lifestyle have remained constants in her life. Oblivious to her otherworldly good looks, Lila prefers to go about her day as one of the guys, preferably rock climbing or surfing. Her desire to explore her “hippy side” makes international travel the number one item on her list of things to do.
Christiana Jensen – La Jolla, California, USA
Growing up with her American parents in Costa Rica, 23-year-old Christiana established her unique outlook as a citizen of the world at an early age. Finally settling in La Jolla, California allowed Christiana to establish roots in the States, but she’s never wanted to stay put for long. This charismatic, bilingual wanderer is once again itching to break out, explore new places, and meet new people from all over the globe.
Concept 2
Hostel Days
When a television audience picks an international cast to live, work and compete in a youth hostel, will boundaries continue to divide them or will love breakdown the walls?
A New Subculture
Right now, thousands of young people from all over the world are sharing the adventure of a lifetime. Inhabiting a suspended reality that exists somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, they wander the globe searching for clues about who they are and their place in the world. They stay in youth hostels: cheap accommodations with shared bedrooms, common areas and communal kitchens. They may arrive alone or with a friend, but after checking in they become part of a unique group – an international youth culture made up of young people from every corner of the globe.
It’s a group who leave their inhibitions at home. These travelers make their own rules and live life at an accelerated pace. In just one night, strangers can become best friends, and best friends can become lovers – relationships developing at a fiery pace. Tempers are quick to flare as well, especially when conversations turn toward the hot topics of the day: the war in Iraq, music, and movies. The things they see and the people they meet will have a profound effect on the direction of their lives and the direction of their next adventure.
Hostel Days takes you along for the ride.
Building a Cast
At first there are many, but in the end only nine travelers can go on this adventure. Dozens of English-speaking, 21-25-year-old travelers from all over the world are assembled, each eligible for the chance to represent their region of the world as a cast member on Hostel Days – a show that throws nine people into the backpacker subculture and explores what it’s like to live, work, and compete with people from all over the world. Initial episodes of the series showcase the eclectic group. The candidates introduce themselves and tell the audience why they deserve to represent their countries as cast members on the show. Telephone and Internet voting systems are set up to allow viewers to vote for the candidates they like best, and anticipation builds as the pool narrows and the audience ultimately selects nine cast members.
The Journey
How different is it growing up in England or Australia or Brazil than it is in the States? We’ll find out in the next series of episodes as cast members are filmed in their hometowns as they make preparations to embark on their journeys to our European hostel. These episodes will give the audience a chance to see what life is like in different parts of the world, introduce the unique group of personalities who make up the cast, and open a window onto international youth culture.
Live, Work, Compete
Once the cast treks to the hostel and assembles for the first time, the hostel’s General Manager lays down rules for the summer. These rules establish how the rest of the show works.
1) The cast lives together in communal rooms.
2) They are split up into three teams of three.
3) Each week, two teams work in the hostel, taking on the jobs that make the hostel operate: running the bar, the kitchen, and the front desk. Job performance is assessed at the end of each week and points are awarded to teams that perform their jobs well.
4) A third team leaves the hostel each week to complete video scavenger hunts that take place all over Europe. Teams are given hand-held DV cameras and they have one week to complete as many tasks on the list as possible. Their videos are used to verify how much of the scavenger hunt they are able to complete. The scavenger hunt takes our teams to destinations across Europe. Traveling like backpackers on a limited budget, teams must strategize to complete as many tasks on their list as possible, and points are awarded for each item on the list.
Sample Scavenger Hunt – Spain
a. Learn to cook tapas in a Spanish restaurant (1 point)
b. Serve your personal Sangria mix at a local bar (1 point)
c. Take a Flamenco dance class in Andalusia (1 point)
d. Eat Sangres (congealed blood & garlic), a traditional delicacy (1 point)
e. Drape yourself under a Matador’s red cape in a bull ring (2 points)
f. Hold a live Spanish Mackerel overhead (2 points)
g. Take a picture with the Buste de Femme, a Picasso held in a private collection (3 points)
h. Have a meal in the Royal Palace’s banquet hall, Madrid (3 points)
i. Paraglide off the Pyrenees Mountains (3 points)
j. Run with the bulls in Pamplona (4 points)
k. Take a picture with Paul Oakenfold behind his decks in Ibiza (5 points)
l. Score a goal on Iker Casillas, Real Madrid’s goalie (5 points)
5) At the end of the summer, the team with the most points wins a substantial cash prize.
Travelogues
Teams are encouraged to shoot video of their scavenger hunt experience. These travelogues will be posted online, and the most illuminating will be incorporated into the show.
Travelers
New travelers check in and out of the hostel daily, and the central cast will interact with them as part of their daily routine. The most compelling characters from this group of travelers will also be incorporated into the show.
Hostel Days (blast from the past)
Busting out the old treatments for Claire and Lara to see.
Concept 1
“Hostel Days”
Two women, two backpacks - a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
Gaze into the lives of Lila and Christiana, two beautiful young women with an awakening appetite for adventure, as they wind their way through Southeast Asia on a series of encounters with locals and travelers from every corner of the world.
Each episode presents the girls with a unique opportunity to live side by side with people in faraway places like bustling Bangkok, the pristine islands of Southern Thailand, and the remote interior of Malaysia. These encounters provide the girls with a chance to develop relationships with fascinating people and give them access to an international youth culture that most of us never get the chance to see.
The show begins when the girls receive an e-mail revealing their next destination, the people they'll meet, and a date and time of arrival. With a limited budget, the girls are expected to find a route, book their trip, and show up at the assigned meeting place on time. Lila and Christiana's full itinerary becomes clear to them only after they arrive. Their adventures will include helping a Thai rock band put on a concert, planning a Vietnamese lunar festival, and volunteering in a Malaysian work camp.
Immersed in a land of tropical island beaches, delicious food, and Buddhist temples, Lila and Christiana experience what makes Southeast Asia one of the most diverse and stimulating travel destinations in the world. But dispel any notions of a five-star vacation: Lila and Christiana's home away from home is the local hostel. These accommodations offer an abundance of new friends, but a serious lack of amenities, and navigating from place to place on a tight budget presents its own set of challenges. As we chronicle Lila and Christiana's journey from the crowded streets of Bangkok through the humid jungles of Malaysia, we'll find out if they are the kind of travelers who make up for cramped conditions and small budgets with an uncompromising spirit, or if they'll lose faith and pine for home.
The Pilot - Bangkok, Thailand
Sunday
The girls make arrangements to meet at Lila's apartment in Orange County to receive their first e-mail from abroad. When they get together, they learn that Bangkok, Thailand will be the first stop. They'll be meeting with a Thai rock band on Tuesday morning at Nipa, a restaurant in the Thanon Sukhumvit section of the city. Lila and Christiana pack their bags, ready their passports, and talk about what it will be like to be away from their friends and families before finally going to bed.
Monday
The morning starts with a drive to LAX, where they'll board the 12-hour flight to Bangkok International. After a long day of traveling and some tense moments on the plane, the girls finally arrive in Thailand. Their first major task: finding the Siam Oriental hostel in Khao San, the section of town where low-budget travelers flock for cheap rooms and excitement. After catching up on some sleep, the girls head out to explore the city and meet some fellow travelers.
Tuesday
Rush-hour traffic awakens the girls early. After a disappointing encounter with the hostel's showers, they head out for breakfast from a street vendor, then hop on a bus for a cross-town ride to meet the band. When they arrive, they meet the four-person group and learn a bit about what Thai garage rock sounds like. They also find out what they'll be doing in Bangkok: helping the band promote its next show in a 1,000-person venue on Saturday night. The girls’ job will be recruiting concertgoers from the backpacker scene. After the meeting, the band members take Lila and Christiana out for dinner at local restaurant, where they dine on seafood curries and sip fresh fruit cocktails. Then it's off for dancing at a local club.
Wednesday
The girls meet up with the band in the morning to present the plan: They're going to hit the big traveler bars and nightclubs - like Banana Bar, Buddy Beer, Peppermint and Icon - in search of an audience for the show. The band is pleased with the idea. Lila and Christiana eat lunch in a small cafe, then relax at the hostel before striking out at night for a bar crawl. They end up pitching the concert to dozens of Australians, Germans, Israelis, South Africans, Irish, and Canadians before the night is over.
Thursday
The girls sleep late, and then head off for a day that combines sightseeing and promotion at some of the major tourist attractions. First, the girls stop by the Floating Market for a late seafood lunch from a street vendor, then they hit the Rose Garden and Siam Square. After a rest at the hostel for a few hours, they head out for a home-cooked meal at the home of one of the band member’s parents, where they sample home-cooked Thai specialties like sea urchin for the first time.
Friday
With just one day left before the show, the girls go from hostel to hostel in the Khao San area, meeting a slew of travelers and leaving a trail of flyers all over Bangkok. When Lila and Christiana stop for a lunch of noodle soup, it's clear that they're getting a little weary of the hustle and bustle of the big city and are already anticipating their next destination: the mountains of Northern Thailand? The pristine beaches in the south? Or maybe a beach bungalow on a remote island? They'll have to wait for their next e-mail to find out.
Saturday
The girls meet up with the band and their crew in the early afternoon and head to the venue for a dress rehearsal. Everything looks and sounds great, but the big question looms: will the crowds show? The group splits up and arranges to meet back at the club at 9 o'clock. As the venue fills up, the girls and everyone else start to relax. The house sound system plays Goa trance to a growing crowd of dancing Thais and travelers, and by 10:30 the place is totally packed. The band takes the stage at 10:45, thanks their guest promoters, and plays a raucous show that lasts until 2 in the morning.
Sunday
Exhausted after a long night but excited to find out where they'll be going next, the girls struggle out of bed and head down to the Hello Internet Cafe in Khao San for their e-mail instructions. The next adventure awaits.
Future Episodes
• Northern Thailand - Volunteers for Peace
• Southern Thailand - Phuket Surfing Competition
• Thai Islands - Koh Phangan Full Moon Party
• Malaysia - Weeklong Trek and Wildlife Excursion
• Hong Kong - Intensive Kung Fu
• Vietnam (Rural) - Habitat for Humanity International Global Village
• Vietnam (Urban) - Forgotten Souls of the Dead Festival
• Singapore - Preparing a Boat for the Singapore River Regatta
Lila Metzger – Kauai, Hawaii, USA
This 21-year-old grew up immersed in the outdoors, and her love of natural beauty and an active lifestyle have remained constants in her life. Oblivious to her otherworldly good looks, Lila prefers to go about her day as one of the guys, preferably rock climbing or surfing. Her desire to explore her “hippy side” makes international travel the number one item on her list of things to do.
Christiana Jensen – La Jolla, California, USA
Growing up with her American parents in Costa Rica, 23-year-old Christiana established her unique outlook as a citizen of the world at an early age. Finally settling in La Jolla, California allowed Christiana to establish roots in the States, but she’s never wanted to stay put for long. This charismatic, bilingual wanderer is once again itching to break out, explore new places, and meet new people from all over the globe.
Concept 2
Hostel Days
When a television audience picks an international cast to live, work and compete in a youth hostel, will boundaries continue to divide them or will love breakdown the walls?
A New Subculture
Right now, thousands of young people from all over the world are sharing the adventure of a lifetime. Inhabiting a suspended reality that exists somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, they wander the globe searching for clues about who they are and their place in the world. They stay in youth hostels: cheap accommodations with shared bedrooms, common areas and communal kitchens. They may arrive alone or with a friend, but after checking in they become part of a unique group – an international youth culture made up of young people from every corner of the globe.
It’s a group who leave their inhibitions at home. These travelers make their own rules and live life at an accelerated pace. In just one night, strangers can become best friends, and best friends can become lovers – relationships developing at a fiery pace. Tempers are quick to flare as well, especially when conversations turn toward the hot topics of the day: the war in Iraq, music, and movies. The things they see and the people they meet will have a profound effect on the direction of their lives and the direction of their next adventure.
Hostel Days takes you along for the ride.
Building a Cast
At first there are many, but in the end only nine travelers can go on this adventure. Dozens of English-speaking, 21-25-year-old travelers from all over the world are assembled, each eligible for the chance to represent their region of the world as a cast member on Hostel Days – a show that throws nine people into the backpacker subculture and explores what it’s like to live, work, and compete with people from all over the world. Initial episodes of the series showcase the eclectic group. The candidates introduce themselves and tell the audience why they deserve to represent their countries as cast members on the show. Telephone and Internet voting systems are set up to allow viewers to vote for the candidates they like best, and anticipation builds as the pool narrows and the audience ultimately selects nine cast members.
The Journey
How different is it growing up in England or Australia or Brazil than it is in the States? We’ll find out in the next series of episodes as cast members are filmed in their hometowns as they make preparations to embark on their journeys to our European hostel. These episodes will give the audience a chance to see what life is like in different parts of the world, introduce the unique group of personalities who make up the cast, and open a window onto international youth culture.
Live, Work, Compete
Once the cast treks to the hostel and assembles for the first time, the hostel’s General Manager lays down rules for the summer. These rules establish how the rest of the show works.
1) The cast lives together in communal rooms.
2) They are split up into three teams of three.
3) Each week, two teams work in the hostel, taking on the jobs that make the hostel operate: running the bar, the kitchen, and the front desk. Job performance is assessed at the end of each week and points are awarded to teams that perform their jobs well.
4) A third team leaves the hostel each week to complete video scavenger hunts that take place all over Europe. Teams are given hand-held DV cameras and they have one week to complete as many tasks on the list as possible. Their videos are used to verify how much of the scavenger hunt they are able to complete. The scavenger hunt takes our teams to destinations across Europe. Traveling like backpackers on a limited budget, teams must strategize to complete as many tasks on their list as possible, and points are awarded for each item on the list.
Sample Scavenger Hunt – Spain
a. Learn to cook tapas in a Spanish restaurant (1 point)
b. Serve your personal Sangria mix at a local bar (1 point)
c. Take a Flamenco dance class in Andalusia (1 point)
d. Eat Sangres (congealed blood & garlic), a traditional delicacy (1 point)
e. Drape yourself under a Matador’s red cape in a bull ring (2 points)
f. Hold a live Spanish Mackerel overhead (2 points)
g. Take a picture with the Buste de Femme, a Picasso held in a private collection (3 points)
h. Have a meal in the Royal Palace’s banquet hall, Madrid (3 points)
i. Paraglide off the Pyrenees Mountains (3 points)
j. Run with the bulls in Pamplona (4 points)
k. Take a picture with Paul Oakenfold behind his decks in Ibiza (5 points)
l. Score a goal on Iker Casillas, Real Madrid’s goalie (5 points)
5) At the end of the summer, the team with the most points wins a substantial cash prize.
Travelogues
Teams are encouraged to shoot video of their scavenger hunt experience. These travelogues will be posted online, and the most illuminating will be incorporated into the show.
Travelers
New travelers check in and out of the hostel daily, and the central cast will interact with them as part of their daily routine. The most compelling characters from this group of travelers will also be incorporated into the show.
Concept 1
“Hostel Days”
Two women, two backpacks - a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
Gaze into the lives of Lila and Christiana, two beautiful young women with an awakening appetite for adventure, as they wind their way through Southeast Asia on a series of encounters with locals and travelers from every corner of the world.
Each episode presents the girls with a unique opportunity to live side by side with people in faraway places like bustling Bangkok, the pristine islands of Southern Thailand, and the remote interior of Malaysia. These encounters provide the girls with a chance to develop relationships with fascinating people and give them access to an international youth culture that most of us never get the chance to see.
The show begins when the girls receive an e-mail revealing their next destination, the people they'll meet, and a date and time of arrival. With a limited budget, the girls are expected to find a route, book their trip, and show up at the assigned meeting place on time. Lila and Christiana's full itinerary becomes clear to them only after they arrive. Their adventures will include helping a Thai rock band put on a concert, planning a Vietnamese lunar festival, and volunteering in a Malaysian work camp.
Immersed in a land of tropical island beaches, delicious food, and Buddhist temples, Lila and Christiana experience what makes Southeast Asia one of the most diverse and stimulating travel destinations in the world. But dispel any notions of a five-star vacation: Lila and Christiana's home away from home is the local hostel. These accommodations offer an abundance of new friends, but a serious lack of amenities, and navigating from place to place on a tight budget presents its own set of challenges. As we chronicle Lila and Christiana's journey from the crowded streets of Bangkok through the humid jungles of Malaysia, we'll find out if they are the kind of travelers who make up for cramped conditions and small budgets with an uncompromising spirit, or if they'll lose faith and pine for home.
The Pilot - Bangkok, Thailand
Sunday
The girls make arrangements to meet at Lila's apartment in Orange County to receive their first e-mail from abroad. When they get together, they learn that Bangkok, Thailand will be the first stop. They'll be meeting with a Thai rock band on Tuesday morning at Nipa, a restaurant in the Thanon Sukhumvit section of the city. Lila and Christiana pack their bags, ready their passports, and talk about what it will be like to be away from their friends and families before finally going to bed.
Monday
The morning starts with a drive to LAX, where they'll board the 12-hour flight to Bangkok International. After a long day of traveling and some tense moments on the plane, the girls finally arrive in Thailand. Their first major task: finding the Siam Oriental hostel in Khao San, the section of town where low-budget travelers flock for cheap rooms and excitement. After catching up on some sleep, the girls head out to explore the city and meet some fellow travelers.
Tuesday
Rush-hour traffic awakens the girls early. After a disappointing encounter with the hostel's showers, they head out for breakfast from a street vendor, then hop on a bus for a cross-town ride to meet the band. When they arrive, they meet the four-person group and learn a bit about what Thai garage rock sounds like. They also find out what they'll be doing in Bangkok: helping the band promote its next show in a 1,000-person venue on Saturday night. The girls’ job will be recruiting concertgoers from the backpacker scene. After the meeting, the band members take Lila and Christiana out for dinner at local restaurant, where they dine on seafood curries and sip fresh fruit cocktails. Then it's off for dancing at a local club.
Wednesday
The girls meet up with the band in the morning to present the plan: They're going to hit the big traveler bars and nightclubs - like Banana Bar, Buddy Beer, Peppermint and Icon - in search of an audience for the show. The band is pleased with the idea. Lila and Christiana eat lunch in a small cafe, then relax at the hostel before striking out at night for a bar crawl. They end up pitching the concert to dozens of Australians, Germans, Israelis, South Africans, Irish, and Canadians before the night is over.
Thursday
The girls sleep late, and then head off for a day that combines sightseeing and promotion at some of the major tourist attractions. First, the girls stop by the Floating Market for a late seafood lunch from a street vendor, then they hit the Rose Garden and Siam Square. After a rest at the hostel for a few hours, they head out for a home-cooked meal at the home of one of the band member’s parents, where they sample home-cooked Thai specialties like sea urchin for the first time.
Friday
With just one day left before the show, the girls go from hostel to hostel in the Khao San area, meeting a slew of travelers and leaving a trail of flyers all over Bangkok. When Lila and Christiana stop for a lunch of noodle soup, it's clear that they're getting a little weary of the hustle and bustle of the big city and are already anticipating their next destination: the mountains of Northern Thailand? The pristine beaches in the south? Or maybe a beach bungalow on a remote island? They'll have to wait for their next e-mail to find out.
Saturday
The girls meet up with the band and their crew in the early afternoon and head to the venue for a dress rehearsal. Everything looks and sounds great, but the big question looms: will the crowds show? The group splits up and arranges to meet back at the club at 9 o'clock. As the venue fills up, the girls and everyone else start to relax. The house sound system plays Goa trance to a growing crowd of dancing Thais and travelers, and by 10:30 the place is totally packed. The band takes the stage at 10:45, thanks their guest promoters, and plays a raucous show that lasts until 2 in the morning.
Sunday
Exhausted after a long night but excited to find out where they'll be going next, the girls struggle out of bed and head down to the Hello Internet Cafe in Khao San for their e-mail instructions. The next adventure awaits.
Future Episodes
• Northern Thailand - Volunteers for Peace
• Southern Thailand - Phuket Surfing Competition
• Thai Islands - Koh Phangan Full Moon Party
• Malaysia - Weeklong Trek and Wildlife Excursion
• Hong Kong - Intensive Kung Fu
• Vietnam (Rural) - Habitat for Humanity International Global Village
• Vietnam (Urban) - Forgotten Souls of the Dead Festival
• Singapore - Preparing a Boat for the Singapore River Regatta
Lila Metzger – Kauai, Hawaii, USA
This 21-year-old grew up immersed in the outdoors, and her love of natural beauty and an active lifestyle have remained constants in her life. Oblivious to her otherworldly good looks, Lila prefers to go about her day as one of the guys, preferably rock climbing or surfing. Her desire to explore her “hippy side” makes international travel the number one item on her list of things to do.
Christiana Jensen – La Jolla, California, USA
Growing up with her American parents in Costa Rica, 23-year-old Christiana established her unique outlook as a citizen of the world at an early age. Finally settling in La Jolla, California allowed Christiana to establish roots in the States, but she’s never wanted to stay put for long. This charismatic, bilingual wanderer is once again itching to break out, explore new places, and meet new people from all over the globe.
Concept 2
Hostel Days
When a television audience picks an international cast to live, work and compete in a youth hostel, will boundaries continue to divide them or will love breakdown the walls?
A New Subculture
Right now, thousands of young people from all over the world are sharing the adventure of a lifetime. Inhabiting a suspended reality that exists somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, they wander the globe searching for clues about who they are and their place in the world. They stay in youth hostels: cheap accommodations with shared bedrooms, common areas and communal kitchens. They may arrive alone or with a friend, but after checking in they become part of a unique group – an international youth culture made up of young people from every corner of the globe.
It’s a group who leave their inhibitions at home. These travelers make their own rules and live life at an accelerated pace. In just one night, strangers can become best friends, and best friends can become lovers – relationships developing at a fiery pace. Tempers are quick to flare as well, especially when conversations turn toward the hot topics of the day: the war in Iraq, music, and movies. The things they see and the people they meet will have a profound effect on the direction of their lives and the direction of their next adventure.
Hostel Days takes you along for the ride.
Building a Cast
At first there are many, but in the end only nine travelers can go on this adventure. Dozens of English-speaking, 21-25-year-old travelers from all over the world are assembled, each eligible for the chance to represent their region of the world as a cast member on Hostel Days – a show that throws nine people into the backpacker subculture and explores what it’s like to live, work, and compete with people from all over the world. Initial episodes of the series showcase the eclectic group. The candidates introduce themselves and tell the audience why they deserve to represent their countries as cast members on the show. Telephone and Internet voting systems are set up to allow viewers to vote for the candidates they like best, and anticipation builds as the pool narrows and the audience ultimately selects nine cast members.
The Journey
How different is it growing up in England or Australia or Brazil than it is in the States? We’ll find out in the next series of episodes as cast members are filmed in their hometowns as they make preparations to embark on their journeys to our European hostel. These episodes will give the audience a chance to see what life is like in different parts of the world, introduce the unique group of personalities who make up the cast, and open a window onto international youth culture.
Live, Work, Compete
Once the cast treks to the hostel and assembles for the first time, the hostel’s General Manager lays down rules for the summer. These rules establish how the rest of the show works.
1) The cast lives together in communal rooms.
2) They are split up into three teams of three.
3) Each week, two teams work in the hostel, taking on the jobs that make the hostel operate: running the bar, the kitchen, and the front desk. Job performance is assessed at the end of each week and points are awarded to teams that perform their jobs well.
4) A third team leaves the hostel each week to complete video scavenger hunts that take place all over Europe. Teams are given hand-held DV cameras and they have one week to complete as many tasks on the list as possible. Their videos are used to verify how much of the scavenger hunt they are able to complete. The scavenger hunt takes our teams to destinations across Europe. Traveling like backpackers on a limited budget, teams must strategize to complete as many tasks on their list as possible, and points are awarded for each item on the list.
Sample Scavenger Hunt – Spain
a. Learn to cook tapas in a Spanish restaurant (1 point)
b. Serve your personal Sangria mix at a local bar (1 point)
c. Take a Flamenco dance class in Andalusia (1 point)
d. Eat Sangres (congealed blood & garlic), a traditional delicacy (1 point)
e. Drape yourself under a Matador’s red cape in a bull ring (2 points)
f. Hold a live Spanish Mackerel overhead (2 points)
g. Take a picture with the Buste de Femme, a Picasso held in a private collection (3 points)
h. Have a meal in the Royal Palace’s banquet hall, Madrid (3 points)
i. Paraglide off the Pyrenees Mountains (3 points)
j. Run with the bulls in Pamplona (4 points)
k. Take a picture with Paul Oakenfold behind his decks in Ibiza (5 points)
l. Score a goal on Iker Casillas, Real Madrid’s goalie (5 points)
5) At the end of the summer, the team with the most points wins a substantial cash prize.
Travelogues
Teams are encouraged to shoot video of their scavenger hunt experience. These travelogues will be posted online, and the most illuminating will be incorporated into the show.
Travelers
New travelers check in and out of the hostel daily, and the central cast will interact with them as part of their daily routine. The most compelling characters from this group of travelers will also be incorporated into the show.