Hostel In the Forest

My husband and I Love this place, in fact we’re planning our 2^nd trip. if your not open minded hippie sprited and want all the cushy amenities of a hotel, then this place is not for you. if you love nature and free spirt then this place is awesome. Love love we’ll be back

Amazing place!!! I would stay there forever if I could!!! Bring some kind of padding for the mattress if you can… it’s hard and not great for peeps with bad backs. The environment is divine… the lake, the glass house, the great room… and the dinners they serve are very good!!! If you plan to stay for a few days, bring food to cook for breakfast and lunch!!! :) I’m already missing it.

I’ve had a different hostel experience everywhere I go. This is the only hostel in Georgia so kudos to the owner for making it happen!
Here there are outdoor showers complete with eco friendly soap (Dr.Bronners) so it will break down, the water is if I am not mistaken artesian, as in it flows up under pressure, I could be wrong, maybe it’s a well.
I would have felt more comfortable if there were doors on the shower area or a curtain (I’m not as free hippie as I’d like to think). There are composing toilets as well so you are encouraged to «water a tree».
Staff is warm and friendly and gives you the lay of the land. Free communal, vegetarian meal every night, if you have food to add or give it’s welcome. As thier website states, BRING BUG SPRAY, it is necessary.
It wasn’t my scene, but there are others that would LOVE it, you have to know what you want and what you’re are getting. I think what turned me off is watering a tree, I’m a girl and while I love backpacking, I’m not a fan of paying to pee on the ground. Maybe if I had brought friends with me it would have been more comfortable.

This place has a lot of potential, but no one seems to have their heart in this project. The land is beautiful, but if seems that whoever is running it is not taking care or caring about the land. First off, they praise the garden so much… but when we walked back there it was in horrible shape. Looked like no one has tended to it in months! Rotten plants, diseased, yellow leaves, horrible shape. It could be such a wonderful garden if every employee dedicated an hour a day. Second, the place is a disgusting mess! You would think for $ 25 per person + $ 5 fee that they would take good care of the facilities and the rooms. Our room looked like no one had even tended to it or even just a simple wipe down. We had roaches all under the bed all over, if you’re charging so much money at least use that money to keep rooms in good shape! Also, the pool is disgusting. The water is dark green/​brown brackish like it’s never cleaned with all kinda of bugs in there. All you need is a $ 50 pump and you can have a nice clear pool: where is all this money going to? For an «organization» that strives on the whole «hippy» way of life… they should have solar powered electricity, not cable lines through the hostels. Rain water can be recycled and used to water the garden. They aren’t true to what they «believe» in. Lastly, the worst of it all is the STAFF is SO CLICKY. We were there in august 2014, and the staff just checks you in and then just hangs out amongst themselves: all the guests were hanging together talking and sharing and the staff was stand off ish, hanging on there own like they were better than the rest of us. It was pathetic. I suggest whoever owns this joint to look more into using natural resources and caring/​tending more to the buildings. Also, maybe no one cares because they hire new staff every 3 – 6 months. They’re just working there to be CLICKY in there groups. Stay away, I’ve stayed in several other hostels throughout the world and they are real, this isn’t. Also, it should be 5 – 10 $ not 30 $!!! And no hostel should ever turn away a camper or a passer by who wants to camp in their tent or van! A hostel would never turn someone away!!! Bad bad bad bad bad!!! Probably was an epic place when it first opened, not anymore

This place is great for open minded individuals who enjoy nature and aren’t afraid of hugs. My boyfriend and I just spent a wonderful weekend there. It was very relaxing, quiet and quite romantic. This is not a fancy place by any means. The tree houses do not have any electricity and are pretty much open (if it weren’t for the screens). They use compost bathrooms (which were not as bad as I thought they would be) and the showers are outdoors. It is very hippy and the people are very friendly. It’s all hugs and openness here. If you enjoy nature, you will love the trails and waking up to the birds, sleeping to the sounds of rain, etc. My bf and I enjoyed our stay there very much and will more than likely return.

Idea is fantastic but reality is that I didn’t stay more that 12 hrs and could have left earlier. The people were moderately friendly though only really nice to those who were return visitors. It was very cliché’. I was excited about having people who know vegetarian preparing dinner, but it was by far the worst meal I’ve had. I often eat w my vegetarian friend who is a wonderful cook, the hostels was awful. Following my terrible food I went to lay for a bit and found the bed was awful. A mat on the floor would have been better. The outhouses are a whole other awful subject, and I learned that the dishes I ate off of were dried w dirty rags (I had to go wash my hands after «helping» w dishes they smelled so bad). The pool and lake are clothing optional, which was more amusing than anything and also a bit cliché’ .They get points for originality of facility, and the actual tree house. I also learned that the man who created and owns the whole thing lives at the beach and has his own secluded treehouse with very nice amenities including a hot tub.

love the hostel !!! great vegan food, great setting, great treehouses !! if you are a ‘hostel’ type, you will love it here

My favorite place in Brunswick! …well, my only reason to go to Brunswick…
My first time there, I was 18 and on a solo road trip through the South-​East. This was my first stop out of Florida, and I thought I would only spend a night or two. Once I got there, I loved it so much that I didn’t want to leave! I stayed a week, and wanted to stay longer, but dwindling funds encouraged me to move along.
The place is cheap and interesting. All of the rooms are scattered throughout the forest, and they’re treehouses! The rooms have mesh windows so you get an unobstructed view of the forest; but so far from one another that people don’t really get a view of you. There are some ground-​level rooms, but they often have another room upstairs. Accommodations are very simple, but pretty much everything you need. There are clean sheets to sleep on, natural and chemical bug spray (the mosquitoes are monstrous), vegetarian food every day, a library, a glass yoga studio, instruments, swimming ponds, forest, serenity, community…
I grew very close to the people there. Everyone fell in to a time-​warp, and 4 other people who had also only intended to stay a few nights ended up staying longer because we didn’t want to say good-​bye. I had many firsts in this wonderful place =)
Oh, and their outdoor shower is incredible! It’s a really nice bamboo design, with a great view. Unfortunately, I developed a funk before I grew the ovaries to shower out in the open (1 wall is missing, and it faces the forest area away from the cabins & gathering spaces)…but once I took my first outdoor shower, I didn’t want to stop! The view and the feeling of hot water running on you as you look at sunlight dancing through the forest canopy is INCREDIBLE. I was taking like 2 showers a day! (it was summer, and quite muggy)
I’ve done a good bit of hostelling and retreating. This is a retreat for the price of a hostel.

YOU MUST GO!
this place was simply remarkable. driving up 95 from florida we stumbled upon it late at night by searching on our phones. it was a magical find. nestled in the woods it felt like you had entered a hobbit village worlds away from the scary strip mall motel-8’s just 10 miles away. everyone was exceedingly kind, chill, interesting. the buildings were beautiful. the surroundings stunning. swam in the lake and ate eggs from their chicken. we had to hit the road again, but i would drive down to georgia just to stay there for a 3 day vacation.
if you are into a little crunch-​granola, composting-​toilet, no-​heating, pee-​in the woods, clothing optional swimming this is a must stay.
to people freaked out by the above things: give it a try anyway, stay for a night and i bet you’ll like it, it seems like the place that if you are open to it you will adore or at least see something different by going. but if you don’t think you can be open to it, then its not for you.

A different vacation from the norm. Recommend it if you’re not a germaphobe and aren’t terrified of bugs. The hippies were weird… and saw a few chicks that really needed to shave their legs. I didn’t think hippies still did that, but here we are. We were waken up at 1am by the sounds of drums and howling. They offer a free vegan meal, which was good unless you like meat. Jokes aside, it was really relaxing and would definitely go again.

I recently embarked on a much-​needed mini-​vacation and ended up at The Hostel in the Forest with one of my oldest friends. I knew the establishment would be… interesting…and that it was.
The hostel property spans a piece of beautiful forested land in Brunswick, not too far off the highway. However, to access the campus, you have to drive on a bumping, wooded road. A night’s stay in a treehouse costs $ 25 – and that includes all of the natural amenities the hostel offers, including dinner, a lake with canoes, hiking trails, a glass yoga house, boardwalks, a pool and probably some other stuff I didn’t have time to discover.
My friend and I stayed in the bamboo hut for two nights – it overlooks the labyrinth and sits high off the ground. The treehouses do have electricity (much to my surprise) as well as ceiling fans.
Because the hostel is run by hippies, the entire office and bed linens (that are provided) smell like mildew. While the staff does a great job of carrying out new projects (such as building a new library), hostel maintenance and taking care of current visitors seem to be a problem. However, the dinner I ate there was delicious: a pomegranate vinaigrette salad, miso soup, creamy polenta with roasted red peppers and tomatoes, zucchini patties and watermelon. Note that this produce is grown on the hostel property. In addition, the chickens who roam the woods provide eggs for breakfast.
I also was glad to find a couple showers: one indoor hut and another outdoor facility.
The hostel’s vibrance depends on the current staff and visitors, I think. During my stay, the group was rather incoherent and spacey, but that’s all right. I had fun wandering around in the sun anyway.