To want a female only dorm in a bunkhouse?

[Firefightress1]

Im doing a long walk next month in the highlands of scotland. Accomodation is limited to hostels and bunkhouses in some locations. Apparently they are no longer able to ask your gender so all rooms in the bunkhouse I am staying are unisex.

I've asked to be put in with another female and been told the other bunk is booked but because of gdpr they can't tell me if I am sharing with a male or female.

Is this not completely bonkers? Am I being unreasonable to want to know who is going to be in the same room as me while im sleeping or is this just normal and the risk you take?

I'm perplexed and a bit stressed about it.

It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that the bunkhouse won’t give our details to you about someone else without their permission.

And, if they don’t offer female only dormitories, then you’d have to find a place that does. I imagine those types of accommodation are limited in number, but they are very much still allowed to have ‘women only’ dorms etc. It’s just that you’ve either not chosen the right one, or there isn’t one on your route. Both unfortunate but that’s just what it is. So, YAB a bit U in my opinion.

Not fair is it.
But this is the direction of travel Scotland has taken on this issues.
Even if they decided to tell you that you were sharing with a woman, it might not be what you're expecting.
Write to your MP.

Fair enough, unfortunately it's the only option on my long hike.

I thought this was standard with hostels etc - it certainly was when I went travelling over a decade ago!

Some hostels do provide Female Only or Male Only Dorms. Hostels.com would be the best place to go to for this. I've just checked and this is still and option for many hostels.

However I do agree that the accommodation provider can't disclose the sex of the other customer if it's a designated mixed dorm.

Bunkhouses have been mixed sex for decades

As long as there are lots of people in the room it's ok

Just one other person would freak me out

It's a 2 bed bunk!

I agree, it seems ridiculous, they're not giving anyone's information away by telling you whether you're staying with male or females! Jeez.

I wouldn't stay if I was staying with males so not knowing would make me choose elsewhere.

I used to go youth hostelling when I was much younger. It was always single sex dorms and toilets. I would hate to have to share a 2 bunk room with a man, unless he was my DH or son. However, Scotland seems to have got rid of all single sex spaces.

Agree with porridgecake. Also used to hostel many years ago, and separate facilities.
to put a single female in a room with an unknown man is not on in my book.

This would make me incredibly uncomfortable. When I was 19, I went travelling with my boyfriend to Amsterdam. We stayed in a mixed room in a hostel, all single beds so we had a separate bed each. I woke up in the middle of the night with a random man in bed with me, trying to convince me to have sex with him for money. Because I was young and much less assertive than I am now, instead of screaming at him to get the fuck out of my bed and getting the cops round, I had a weird frantic whispered conversation where he was trying to convince me and I was saying no, get out, leave me alone. Eventually he did, and I got into my boyfriend's bed and stayed awake the rest of the night, completely scared and freaked out. I didn't want to tell my boyfriend at the time or make a big fuss because I knew he would go mental and the situation would get very nasty - I wanted to deal with it myself. But it was fucking horrible and that was in a 10-bed down - there's no way I'd sleep in a 2-bed potentially mixed room! I'm pretty sure if there hadn't been loads of other people there, I would have been raped that night.

If they have another room available, I would pay for both beds rather than do this.

Im another one who used to youth hostel many years ago in UK and elsewhere in Europe. Always single sex dorms