Berri Backpackers - Berri, South Australia

Erdi A. D.

The Aussie Hostels are the best places to grow, facing the true beauty of a multicultural country.
With the support of the local community, they make you feel like all your dreams can be accomplished through an hardworking lifestyle and teamwork.
Berri Backpackers has a huge lacking potential I really hope, with the help of the two owners and future generations of travelers, that will find the way to come alive.
With its strategical position, soaked inside Berri’s city centre, in the heart of the Riverland, the place is only 14 minutes away from the closest mall by feet and 6 minutes away from the petrol station. The bus stops twice a day in front of it.

Fabio P.

Amazing location, even better conditions and atmosphere! People really made something special here!

A place vibrates with good energy, art, and sports! perfect for your 88 days !

Thank you guys!

Byulman P.

Good overall, but it could be much better if the place was more clean and renovated.
Even though there are some improvements to make, I really enjoyed staying there, and the owner (Scott) was really helpful to find work.

Scott K. (.

Tried to phone at least 8 times and no answer. Went there and still nobody was there so a person couldn't even enquire about the prices. There site say nothing

Nico I.

For my opinion the best place to calm down, meet friendly people and find work if you like.
At this place you find everything, chill out places. You can do sports and a lot of other stuff.
When I was in Berri now 12 years ago I had the best 3 month ever. I've met good people and I'm still in touch with a few. We meet once a year.
For me it is a good place to go when you are travelling South Australia.

Yusuke

Amazing place to stay on working holiday visa. We all were like big family and many unforgettable moments we made. I miss you all.

40alistairr

The best place I came across during my travels in Australia so far. A little gem of a place. This really is a place like no other Backpackers hostel. I got a job sorted in no time had a fabulous time at Berri Backpackers. Met a lot of great individuals. Staff is great and overall an experience I well never forget, the memories I will cherish for life. Totally recommended. If you simply respect the place and stick to there rules you won't have to badmouth anything. It is fairly dated but that's where the character comes from. You see the effort it took, still takes to run a special place like that.

Jet717398

I spent 11 months in total during the last 20 months in this working backpackers hostel and this place was special for me. I lived lot of beautiful moments over there.|All the guests are here to do their farm days (88 days minimum) to be eligible for the 2d year visa, and they stay generally between 2 and 5 months. So, it gives us the time to know everyone and create strong relationships. This place is like a friendly community and we all constitute a big "family". I met heaps of amazing people. |There is something special between those walls, a nice fraternity mood, created by all backpackers living inside.||During my time spent here, different managers worked for the owner and they did a good job. The manager in place at the moment is a good one. ||But if this place is a good one, and it's a perfect area to do his farm days and meet incredible persons, it's absolutely not thanks to the owner.|Unfortunately, he lets this place fall into disrepair and become outmoded. |- He's never buying something new to ameliorate the quality of the hostel, and try to fix it by himself without talent. This place never changed at all the last 10 years.. He refuses to spend money on updating his place.|- He's leaving on site and wants a very quiet life... but he totally forgets he owns a busy popular working backpackers hostel, with people living inside and needing to relax and enjoy their free time after work and during the weekends.|An example: we celebrated the birthday of 3 people on a Saturday night (the manager was one of them) and played music thanks to a portable UE boom speaker (not a big sound system) in the community room. The owner came at 9.50pm screaming on us, arguing against the "loud" music and taking abusively the speaker. The only possibility to take it back was to leave the hostel immediately... This is an example amongst lot of others.|- Berri is a very hot place during the summer time (35-45°C) and very cold during the night in winter time (0-5°C). Obviously, it's every year like this. But apparently not for him, because there is no air-conditioned at all in all rooms, just 1 fan/room moving the hot air without to refresh nothing. The buildings have a bad isolation and it's really cold in winter. But he doesn't care at all; he just gives 1 small and unworking heater for few rooms, and even not for all of them. Every guest has to buy one for his room to be enough warm to sleep correctly.|- The community room is very bad isolated and has not heater inside, so it's very difficult to spend time all together in it during the winter time. |- He furnishes all cutleries, pots and pans but half of them are broken and there are not enough for the number of guests living inside. Even if some are stolen, he musts invest on it more often or find another way to provide all things we need (give an assortment of each cutlery against a deposit..).|- The fridges in the main building are old and there is not enough space for everybody. The oven in the summer houses are not working since a year now.|- The washing machine created brown stains everytime on all white clothes. It's really annoying when it costs you 3$ to damage your clothes, isn't it? There is a new one now, but the owner took too much time to buy it (almost a year as well).|- The soccer and tennis pitches, the gym and yoga rooms exist but are in a very bad conditions. Same things for the ping-pong and pool tables.|- There are different places to sleep: couple rooms, 4 bedrooms, 6 bedrooms, 8 bedrooms, a 4 beds yourte, a 3 beds tepee, caravans.. The confort and conditions are not equals but everybody has to pay the same price, that's not fair.|- The wifi is terrible and never working correctly. That's a big problem when we're all leaving far from our families and looking for jobs around.|- It's a working hostel but the owner is doing nothing to offer jobs for his customers. We have to find by ourselves and only by ourselves our jobs. I worked for more than 10 different farmers/companies during my time in Berri and never found something thanks to him. He just offer few cashing hand jobs for few days. Nothing else.||I keep lot of incredible memories from this place. It's a nice one to stay and do your farm days, when you can close your eyes on all inconvinience you could meet over there. |The hostel has a strong potential and could be exceptional with another owner, who will be friendly, not stingy and more caring about his customers than his own tranquility.