This is another one of those ideas that I’ll never actually pursue, but I enjoy dreaming about it.
A few years ago, on a trip through the Amazon, I spent a night at a scout headquarters. Hammocks, rain hammering the roof all night, and a couple of local scouts, barely taller than my backpack, who shared their arroz e feijão with me and tried to teach me some knots. I woke up with more mosquito bites than knots learned hehehe…
Still, that night taught me more than any hotel ever did, and that’s where Scoutel comes from. Scout halls working as hostels, where travelers pay a little and help with some chore, and in exchange get a bed and learn something useful, a knot or two, or the scout rule of always leaving a place cleaner than you found it.
The scouts get some extra money and new stories for the next campfire. The travelers get a bed that comes with stories instead of a laminated list of checkout rules.
Imagine every scout hall in the world turned into the most relaxed hostel chain on the planet, all you need is a sleeping bag.
Who’s in?