If you’re planning a trip to Minas Gerais and are thinking about staying in a hostel in Belo Horizonte this post is for you.

A long time ago a friend of mine was passing through Belo Horizonte and he decided to stay at a hostel. He looked on a hostel booking website for hostels in Belo Horizonte and stayed at the cheapest one he found. Big mistake.

The hostel he booked was in a bad area of town, completely removed from anything else that he wanted to do with no nearby bus routes and a hill that had to be climbed in order to reach it. The hostel itself was uninvitingly small, beat down and unkept. The staff didn’t speak English and weren’t very good guides of the city. Unfortunately my friend had paid online and was stuck at the hostel for two days before he could switch to a better hostel.

I don’t want you to make the same mistake that my friend made and get stuck at a shitty hostel during your stay in Belo Horizonte, so I’ve gone out and visited the hostels in the city to see which ones are worth staying at.

The Best Hostels in Belo Horizonte

There aren’t that many hostels in Belo Horizonte so it was pretty easy for me to visit them. What wasn’t so easy was picking an absolute best hostel in BH, as I found three hostels that I thought were pretty cool. I think you can stay at any of these three and be certain that you made a good choice of hostel.

While I did go personally visit these hostels and talk with the staff, I didn’t actually stay at them so I dont have a complete vision of what these hostels are like. I do feel though that I got a good feel for each one based on the interactions I had with the owners and the staff at each place.

None of these hostels paid me or gave me any kickbacks for mentioning them, but I do receive an affiliate commission if you book through the hostelworld button. If you do plan on staying at one of these hostels please consider using the link and help support this site at no additional cost to you.

Ginga Hostel

Ginga Hostel is the newest hostel in Belo Horizonte, located at Rua Gabriel Santos 165 in Serra. The hostel is located close by to Praça do Papa which is one of the few tourist attractions in the city I think is worth seeing. Ginga is a short walk away from a big supermarket and is close to many of the city’s nightlife options.

What I like about this hostel is its comfortable and clean environment. You can watch the video to see what I mean. I was surprised by how many foreigners were staying at this hostel as I had thought that there weren’t that many foreign travelers in Belo Horizonte.

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La Em Casa Hostel

La Em Casa Hostel is a spacious hostel located in the bohemian Santa Tereza district at Rua Eurita 30. I think this hostel is the winner if you are staying in BH for a short time and don’t want to take taxis around the city in order to experience the local culture. It is ideally located in the heart of one of BH’s coolest neighborhoods that has frequent shows and lots of cool bars. Ask the hostel staff for recommendations on what to do.

The hostel itself is really big and you’ll have lots of space to spread out. While some hostels can give a feeling of claustrophobia and make you wish you had bought a private room, at La em Casa you will feel right at home as the name suggests.

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Laranja Mecânica

On the complete opposite side of the city is Laranja Mecânica hostel, located at Rua Rodrigues Caldas 703. The hostel is pretty new and they just completed renovations on a second building across the street from the first one. The hostel is painted black and orange to match the Clockwork Orange (Laranja Mecânica) theme. This hostel wins the award for best decorated, and if you look closely you can see the painstaking attention to detail that was put in to designing this hostel.

If you want to eat cheap, located nearby are several sem balança restaurants where you can load up a plate to the brim plus one piece of meat for only R$8. There are also several cheap juice bars within a few minutes walk from the hostel. Its a few minutes away from Villaggio, an outdoor food court with free wifi (the password is 0000000000). For the best options for cheap eats stay at this hostel.

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Other Hostels in Belo Horizonte

I feel confident that if you stay at one of the above three hostels you will be in good hands and will enjoy your stay in BH. There are still another 5 or so hostels in BH that should be included for this list to be complete. I didn’t visit the last three because I either got lost on the way or just got burnt out of trying to visit them all in the short time I allotted myself.

Sorriso do Lagarto Hostel

I actually stayed at this hostel when I first came to Belo Horizonte a few years ago. The dormitories are pretty cramped with triple bunk beds and overall its not a very comfortable place to stay. The hostel is mostly frequented by Brazilians and you’ll probably be the only foreigner staying here. This is good for learning Portuguese, but you can get this practice at any of the other hostels.

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Minas Hostel

I don’t think there is anything special about this hostel that would bring you here unless you for some reason can’t get into one of the other hostels. It doesn’t have a very good location, its at the bottom of a hill and its a really cramped and tight place. They try to fit a lot of people into a small space here, so unless you like having no privacy then you should go somewhere else.

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Taiua Hostel

Its a pretty big stretch to call this place a hostel. It has 10 beds and feels more like a prison than a hostel. When I arrived in the afternoon a man with rotten teeth answered the door and informed me that nobody is around during the day. How is a hostel supposed to function if you can’t even receive guests in the middle of the day? The hostel is poorly located and pretty much sucks all around. Don’t stay here. 

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Hostels in BH I didn’t visit

Hosteling International Belo Horizonte Hostel

I wanted to go to this hostel to include it on this list, but it was too hard for me to find and I gave up and went on to the next one.