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| Deidre Mathis |
Deidre Mathis, a 32-year-old, FAMU grad has opened the first black-owned hostel in the United States -- Wanderstay Hotels in Houston, Texas. Wanderstay opened this past August.
A hostel is similar to a hotel, but more communal in nature. Instead of renting a room, you rent a bed, usually a bunk bed and store your personal items in a locker.
To get her business off the ground, Mathis raised $5,000 in crowd based funding in 31 days from members of the Houston community, who bought into her idea.
"It’s been exciting to see my vision come to life," says Mathis, who is planning to expand Wanderstay to other locations.
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| The lobby of Wanderstay Houston. |
Inspired by an experience she had at a hostel in Greece. "I’m a big solo traveler," says Mathis. "I met these fabulous women and we formed this amazing bond and continued to travel together for a year and a half, doing nothing but staying in hostels."
According to Mathis, there are over 400 hostels in the U.S., and collectively they earned more than $17 million in 2016. "It’s a profitable industry," she says. "But that’s not why I’m getting into it. I’m getting into it because I have a passion for traveling and for putting people together. So the money’s just a bonus."
Mathis is also the author of the book, Wanderlust: For the Young, Broke Professional, which she wrote after taking a post-graduation gap year. "I only had about $12,000 and I had to budget that money the best way possible," she says. "And that money lasted me for about a year and a half."
Read more here.