Have you heard of The Pink Palace?
It’s a hostel on the island of Corfu in Greece and is popular in the European backpacker/study abroad hostel scene. And also in the world. CNN named it the number one party hostel on the planet. You may have heard about their infamous booze cruise which can turn into more or less a sex party!
Trust me, you will party if you stay at this hostel.
Let me tell you a little about how I landed at the Pink Palace. I had heard the stories. Threesomes, hot tub orgies, blowj*b lessons, just lots of nudity and sex. I’m going to be honest with you…that’s just not my thing. So I had crossed it off my list. Didn’t need to go there.
Then I met two California girls in Italy who told me they were going. These girls were extremely religious…virgins, saving themselves for marriage, weren’t big drinkers or partiers but were looking to ball on a budget. The Pink Palace is right on the beach and you get free breakfast and dinner, too, so they booked it without knowing anything about its reputation.
I had to watch these two girls experience the Pink Palace. It was something I did NOT want to miss. Oh and to make you keep reading…one of them saw her first penis ever at the Pink Palace!
So here’s how you can survive at the Pink Palace if you really just have to go and watch two virgins experience it.
1. Leave your fears at home.
The Pink Palace offers lots of tours and excursions for pretty cheap. Like full day trips for 25 euro! During our 6 day stay, I did a kayak tour, ATV tour (twice!) and went on a booze cruise. There are lots of places to go cliff jumping, too! So make sure your adventurous side is ready to go.
2.Bring a sorority sister.
No, seriously. Grab that Alpha Phi or Delta Gamma girl you know. She’ll be valuable come Toga Night.
Theme parties are huge at the Pink Palace and one of their biggest nights is Toga Night when everyone gets a pink toga at dinner. They retreat back to their rooms to tie it as best they can before heading to the night club for a party. Lots of Ouzo (local moonshine) will be poured and plates will be smashed. Including over your head! My girlfriend Chelsea got to be the demonstrated with 7 plates over her head.
3. Know your relationship status.
Get to know you games are huge at the Pink Palace. They’re all about people making friends or love connections which is great for solo travelers or shy people. Your “light color,” or relationship status, is always one of the questions. Red is for “in a relationship,” yellow is “it’s complicated” and green is “let’s get it on, I’m single!” Other questions in the get to know you game are usually “Favorite sex position,” “craziest place you’ve had sex,” “most unbelievable sex story.” Just sex all the time. But hey, you’re meeting people! It’s fun, right?
4. Be comfortable with nudity.
The Pink Palace employees really want to see your titt*es. Just kidding. Well, kind of. They really promote their guests being free and comfortable during their stay so they encourage nudity. If you feel like driving your ATV without a top on, go for it. If you want to kayak naked, do you dude! The hostel employees will be getting naked a lot (literally our three guides rode an ATV naked…together) and will be encouraging you to as well. One of the California girls I traveled with saw her first penis during our booze cruise when an Aussie named Ben showed us his “penis puppetry” while the employees cheered him on.
Also – like I said, sex is very prominent at the Pink Palace. With people wasted on Ouzu and dollar shots and ripping their clothes off every second, there’s bound to be people sleeping together. So be ready to either jump in on the fun or at least be OK with having it around. Like literally happening on the beach next to you or even right on the bar.
5. Have a go to pick up line
Like I said, the Pink Palace is all about you making friends. One of my favorite things about it is the free breakfast and dinner that encourages you to break bread with your fellow hostel mates. Both meals are served at massive tables and the employees decide where to seat you. Each night we would sit with a different mix of Aussies, Germans, South Africans, Russians, Italians and more. Literally the hot guy you’ve been staring at all day could be seated at your table that night. And you didn’t even have to beg him! This is seriously brilliant and an awesome way to make friends (and hook up partners). Be ready with your go to pick up line when the guy you’ve been eying grabs your fork by accident.
Oh and in case you’re wondering, breakfast was usually eggs and toast and dinner was some kind of pasta and meat. Honestly not horrible for being free!
6. Work on your quad muscles.
Seriously. There are so many stairs at the Pink Palace! The majority of the rooms are near the beach but dinner is served up almost 100 stairs in the dining hall and the lobby is even further than that! We dreaded having to make that trek every day. But there are 400 rooms at this hostel so it’s bound to be a massive compound.
7. Pack an extra bikini
You’ll be spending the entire trip in a bikini on the beach. Or naked. Of course.
8. Do not go in the hot tub.
If you want to come out of the Pink Palace clean (yes, I mean that kind of clean), do not go in the hot tub. Just don’t. Oh please for the love of god, don’t!
BONUS! Because I haven’t given you much actual knowledge about the rooming situation at the Pink Palace, here’s a photo of our room. We lucked out with a 4 bed room for our group of 4 so had a little bit of privacy! But our bathroom flooded every night. Oh well. Hostel living!
