Connecticut Hostels

Bursting of Victorian charm, the Hartford hostel is located in the historic West End section of Hartford, the capital city of Connecticut. Rich in romance, culture, and literary history, Hartford is home to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, the nation’s first public museum. First opened in 1842, the museum’s permanent collection includes more than 45,000 works of art, including contemporary art, costumes/textiles, European and American decorative arts, and European and American painting. Channeling the power of the written word? Visit the Mark Twain House and Museum, a 19-room Tiffany-decorated mansion in which the author and his family lived from 1874 to 1891. Twain wrote both The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn during his time in the house; be sure to visit the museum gallery filled with Twain manuscripts, photos, and artifacts. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, also made her home in Hartford. Tours of the Stowe house, a Victorian gothic built in 1871, guide visitors through rooms filled with her heirlooms and paintings, as well as her personal writing desk.

Hartford’s Elizabeth Park Rose Gardens cover more than 100 acres of gardens, greenhouses, lawns, picnic groves, and a pond. The centerpiece of the gardens is the two-and-a-half acre rose garden, where visitors can find more than 800 varieties of roses and 15,000 bushes. Peak bloom – and fragrance – season is in early to mid-June.

Hartford offers a typical mild New England climate. Hartford winters have highs in the 30s and lows in the teens from December to February. Summers are comfortable, with high temperatures averaging around 80 degrees from June through August.