NANAIMO, B.C. -- My daughter and I are curled up in our room at the Painted Turtle Guesthouse, she on the top bunk of her bunkbed, reading a Christopher Moore book, and me with my laptop on the queen-size bed that completes our "family room" in this 20-room inn.

It's called a guesthouse, and while it's still a hostel -- and a member of Hostelling International, the worldwide standard-bearer of the hostel world -- it's definitely on the cutting edge of a genre that's worth a fresh look in this era of tightened belts.

The Painted Turtle, a two-minute walk from the
Nanaimo waterfront, caters to an older crowd as
well as the backpacker set.

Innkeeper Bruce Barnard, 45, a friendly Australian with a quick smile, came here six years ago with his Canadian wife, Angie, after spending a year traveling the world and staying in countless low-cost accommodations. They fell in love with Nanaimo and decided that their own travels had made them experts in how to run a guesthouse for budget travelers.

They found the Commercial Hotel in downtown Nanaimo, built in 1875 to house coal miners but fallen on hard times in the 21st century. Before they took it over, Barnard told me, it housed a small-scale brothel, with a strip joint on the ground floor.

A massive cleanup and renovation created one of the most comfortable, yet low-frills (and low-cost), little inns around. It opened five years ago this summer.

Barnard said he had come to have definite likes and dislikes about each of three genres: boutique hotels, urban B&Bs and international hostels. "And I set out to create a place with the best of each," he said.

Half of the rooms are private rooms for couples (with one queen-size bed), two are family rooms, and the rest are more-traditional hostel rooms with two bunkbeds each. That follows the trend of hostels adding more private rooms as they cater more to an older demographic -- in many cases, the same people who traveled the world with backpacks 40 years ago.

"A lot of younger people who were doing this in the 1960s and '70s are doing it still, and many are encouraging their children to," suggested Tom Eberhardt, assistant manager of the Victoria hostel we visited.

"We're debunking the myth that these are strictly 'youth hostels' anymore," Barnard said. Some of his reliable repeat customers are 60-something cycling groups, and birders and wildlife watchers.

What keeps it a hostel, and low in cost: bathrooms and showers down the hall (but each with locking doors), no maid service, minimal furnishings. But still there's a comfortable shared kitchen and living area, to promote camaraderie among guests.

"We emphasize interaction, and travel experiences," Barnard said.

And the cheap stay for the backpacker crowd is not a thing of the past. Painted Turtle still offers a bunk on a summer night for $26 Canadian ($22 for hostel members). For a family room, we're paying $80 (discounted to $72 with our hostel membership) -- still less than half what we'd pay a block away at the Best Western for a room with two beds.

Here's a video tour of the Painted Turtle, with Barnard showing me around. I have to apologize for channeling John Curley here; this looks a lot like a scripted commercial for the place (though you'll have no trouble believing that it's amateur video, taken with my Canon PowerShot). Barnard is such a charming character, I'm going to post it here anyway, so you can see the place for yourself. I swear it was unrehearsed, the guy is just a natural promoter.