nolo

About Us

Nolo Hub Pai is a social, activity-led pod hostel in Pai, designed and built from the ground up and open since 2019. It’s for solo travellers and small groups aged 18 to 34 who want to meet people, explore Pai, have a great night out and still sleep well.

Our story

In 2017, a small group of friends decided to build a hostel in Pai. At the time, the local scene ran mostly on second-hand bunk beds, tents, and hammocks. We wanted to build something completely different: shipping containers.

That’s where our name comes from. Nolo is an Italian word for freight. We spent months on YouTube teaching ourselves 3D design, eventually planning, drawing and rendering more than two hundred container hostel concepts. Seven times we got close to securing a property, and seven times it fell through. Each time, we scrapped the plans and started over.

When we finally secured land and finalised a design we decided it was time to truck a shipping container from Bangkok up to Pai to live in for a month and test the design. It never arrived. We found out the hard way that a 40-foot shipping container cannot physically navigate the 762 curves between Chiang Mai and Pai. We were named after freight, and our freight couldn’t be freighted to us.

Back to the drawing board.

We pivoted to custom-built, oversized pods. Each one has its own window and enough headroom to comfortably sit up in, giving you a place to completely disappear when you want to — which is not something a standard bunk in a room of twelve gives you.

We broke ground in May 2018 and quietly opened our doors in May 2019. We had no trucks, no drivers, and an electric system so weak that we could only run two air conditioners. To keep from blowing out the power, we started with a hard cap of 12 guests. Because it was such a small group, whenever we wanted to go to the canyon or a waterfall, we just asked everyone if they wanted to join so we could lock up the building and go together. Anyone who could ride a scooter followed us; anyone who couldn’t jumped on the back. We’d finish the day watching the sunset, grab food on Walking Street, and end up back here playing games and watching films.

Nobody planned it. It just happened organically, and it happened often enough that it became our daily rhythm. It still is. Every afternoon we group up, head out, catch the sunset, and hang out at night.

Then came Covid. We closed in early 2020 and didn’t reopen until 2022. We spent those years here in Pai with our dogs, going over what had worked and what hadn’t, and we’ve been open every day since the doors finally went back on.

The hostel we run isn’t the one we drew two hundred times. It’s the one that survived everything on this crazy journey that brings us joy to this very day!

The Nolo Hub Pai team and the four dogs on the lawn, with the hostel building behind
  • A drawing of shipping containers as dorms and bathrooms arranged around a lawn, with palm treesA 3D render of a blue shipping container with NOLO on its side, a roof garden on top and a Cowork Colive sign beside itA labelled 3D model of stacked shipping containers: dorms and bathrooms on two floors either side, a bar and a pool container in the middleA 3D model from above of coloured shipping containers stacked in a U, with roof gardens, decking and two pool containers

    2017: the first plan, a place to cowork and colive made of shipping containers around a garden. It’s where the name comes from.

  • A render of a three-storey white building with the hostel’s name across the top, palm trees and a garden in frontA render of a three-storey red brick building with a Nolo Hub Pai sign, steel stairs up the side, a roof garden and palm trees in frontA 3D model of the building from the street: three floors, a Nolo Hub Pai sign by the gate, and a garden of shaded tables and palm trees in frontA design board of hand-annotated drawings: bathrooms, a brick wall, a wooden door and polished cement floors

    The design that was built: renders of one building on three floors, and the drawings for its bathrooms and brick walls.

  • A bare plot of grass with a footpath across it, trees and a wooden house behindRows of square pits dug into the earth for the foundationsBuilders guiding concrete from a mixer truck down a blue chute into the foundation pits

    The land, the foundations dug, and the first concrete poured.

  • A bare concrete frame of columns and the first floor, with gravel and mud in frontA concrete mixer truck and a crane pouring the upper floor of the concrete frameThe three-storey concrete frame with brick walls part built, bamboo scaffolding and a ladderThe brick building wrapped in bamboo scaffolding, the sun behind it

    The concrete frame goes up floor by floor, then the brick goes in.

  • The front of the building in red brick with open window frames, looking up from the groundThe building rendered grey, still in bamboo scaffoldingThe finished building, rendered in a sandy colour, with a pile of gravel on the bare ground in frontLooking out from an unfinished upper floor across fields to the mountains

    The brick front, rendered, then finished, and the view from the top floor across the fields.

  • Steel frames for two levels of pods inside the building, in front of tall windowsA hand-annotated drawing of the pods in two rows, showing the steel structure, the sound block in the walls, ladders, blinds and a lockThe pods with their wood-pattern walls in, steel ladders and wiring for the lights

    The pods: built in steel from the drawing, with its sound blocking, roller blinds and locks, then panelled.

  • A group of people on the roof of the finished building with their arms in the airThe finished building with the round Nolo Hub Pai sign beside itNew grass, potted plants and palm fronds laid out against a bamboo fence

    The sign goes up, the garden goes in, and a group on the roof in April 2019, the month before we opened.

The team

  • Zeen smiling and holding a white and lilac bulldog puppy

    Zeen

  • Ya, Wan and Korn together at the bar under coloured lights, two of them giving a thumbs up

    Ya, Wan and Korn

  • Jeen at the reception desk with a white French bulldog in heart-shaped sunglasses on her lap

    Jeen

  • Sunny in a white cap and sunglasses by the drinks fridge, holding a bucket with a bulldog drawn on it

    Sunny

  • Wan in a grey jumper beside Jordin in a white beanie giving a thumbs up, in the common area

    Wan and Jordin

  • Jordin in a white cap, sitting on a rock by the road with a phone

    Jordin

The dogs

As avid dog lovers, we have a furry family of four different types of dogs — a staffy mix, a mini American bulldog, an English bulldog and a French bulldog.

They love their pats as much as they love their naps. You can find them running zoomies around the garden for around 5 minutes per day and sleeping/lazing around for the rest. All of them are happy to be stroked and welcome you to their home.

  • Tarzan, the red-brown staffy mix, sitting on a metal deck and looking up at the camera

    Tarzan

    A rescue and the gentle giant of the group, Sophie’s boyfriend

  • Sophie, the white and lilac mini American bulldog, standing on a concrete floor

    Sophie

    Zeen’s BFF and Tarzan’s girlfriend

  • Samantha, the tri-colour English bulldog, sitting on a grey chair with tongue out

    Samantha

    Jordin’s shadow

  • Pablo, the brindle French bulldog, lying in a pile of coloured tinsel and looking up

    Pablo

    The quiet gentleman