Europe's lodging words, from refuge to hostel

Europe's words for a bed name a tradition and a purpose. They don't grade the comfort. A refuge exists to get people into the mountains. A gîte d'étape puts walkers up for one night on a route, an albergue shelters pilgrims, and an agriturismo keeps a farm farming. Several of them mean a bunk and a set dinner, and none of them is trying to be a cheap hotel. The word tells you what the night will be like.

The rules below come from official pages: national law, the Alpine clubs' own rules, regional governments. Rules and prices change by season and by region, so check the hut's or the host's own page before you count on one.

At a glance

Word	What it is
Refuge (France)	A mountain hut in an isolated spot, staffed in season, with dorms and half board
Rifugio (Italy)	A mountain hut for walkers and climbers, "not a hotel" in the Italian Alpine Club's own words
Hütte (Austria, Germany, South Tyrol)	An Alpine club hut, in one of three categories by how remote it is
Cabane (French-speaking Switzerland)	A Swiss Alpine Club hut
Refugio (Spain)	A mountain refuge, with a warden (guardado) or without one (libre)
Gîte d'étape (France)	An overnight stop for people walking a route
Albergue (Spain)	A pilgrim hostel on the Camino, and elsewhere any hostel
Chambre d'hôtes (France)	A bed and breakfast in the host's own home, five rooms at most
Gîte (France)	A self-catering house or apartment, usually by the week
Agriturismo (Italy)	Rooms or campsites on a working farm, run by the farmer
Auberge (France)	An inn: rooms and meals, usually in a village
Auberge de jeunesse (France)	A youth hostel, open to every age
Hostel (everywhere)	Dorms, a shared kitchen and lounge, often private rooms too

Mountain huts

Refuge (France)

In French law a refuge stands at altitude in an isolated spot: no public road or lift reaches it, emergency vehicles can't get to it for part of the year, and it lies in the legal mountain zone. It sleeps 150 people at most and may serve food. While it's staffed it keeps a room where walkers can eat their own food. While it isn't, that room is also a basic place to sleep.
At the French Alpine Club's refuges you book online, pay a deposit, and choose half board or not. Half board means dinner, the bed and breakfast: €58 at the Refuge du Mont Pourri in 2026, or €47 for a club member. The Refuge Bayssellance has six dormitories and 58 beds, with pillows and blankets supplied, and a sheet or a liner of your own is compulsory.
Out of season part of a refuge stays open, unstaffed. The French hiking federation calls booking essential, if not compulsory.

Rifugio (Italy)

The Italian Alpine Club (CAI) describes a rifugio as lodging for climbing and hiking, run by a manager (the gestore) or a volunteer keeper, with a winter room, and "not a hotel". It grades its rifugi A to E by how hard they are to reach and supply.
Under the CAI's rules booking is recommended, and compulsory for a group of more than ten. A booked bed is held until 6 PM on the day. Nobody has to eat there. Your own sheet sleeping bag (sacco lenzuolo) is compulsory.
Half board (mezza pensione) is priced hut by hut: each CAI section sets it with the hut's manager and posts it at the hut, and CAI members get at least 20% off.
A bivacco is not a rifugio. It's a small fixed shelter, usually for 6 to 12 people, always open and never staffed.
In Trentino a rifugio must open at least from June 20 to September 20, and half of each hut's beds are in rooms of more than four.

Hütte (Austria, Germany and South Tyrol)

The German Alpine Club sorts its huts into three categories. A Category I hut is a simple base, usually at least an hour's climb on foot. A Category II hut may be reachable by lift and is usually open all year. Category III huts are club houses you can reach by lift or road.
Under the German and Austrian clubs' hut rules from 2027, members pay at least €12 less a night in Categories I and II and at least 10% less in Category III, and get the mountaineer's meal (Bergsteigeressen) at least 10% cheaper. A hut may not make half board a condition of a booking, and a hut sleeping bag is compulsory in every bed.
The Austrian club's own page only recommends bringing a sleeping bag. Bring one anyway.

Cabane (Switzerland)

The Swiss Alpine Club calls its huts cabanes in French, and it has 151 of them. Half board (dinner, the bed and breakfast) costs CHF 70 to 100 in 2026, you sleep in dormitories, and a silk or cotton liner is required. Most of its huts book through the club's Hut Reservation system.

Refugio (Spain)

Spain has no national definition. Each region sets its own rules. The national mountain federation (FEDME) says a refuge with a warden gives a paying guest a guarantee of quality, and calls one without a warden "no guardado" or "libre".
In Aragón the regional federation's rules treat its refuges as sports facilities for mountaineering: booking is recommended, the stay is three nights in a row at most, and nobody sleeps without a sleeping bag or a sheet.

On the route

Gîte d'étape (France)

No law defines it. It's an overnight stop on a recognized walking route, or within 2 km of one, where one-night stays come first (the Ardèche tourism board's guidance).
Expect a bed and meals. Some supply sheets, and in principle every one has somewhere to cook and a common room (the French hiking federation). In the Hautes-Alpes, Gîtes de France lists them for 15 to 100 people, for one night too, with a kitchen or meals at the host's table.
For the French government's tourism directorate it is one of the "auberges collectives", with group gîtes, refuges and youth hostels.

Albergue (Spain)

On the Camino de Santiago an albergue is a pilgrim hostel with shared rooms. Galicia's public network has 76 of them, at €10 a person a night in 2026. They take no bookings and fill in order of arrival: pilgrims with physical limitations first, then those on foot, on horseback and by bicycle, and last those with a support car. A pilgrim stays one night, unless ill, and needs the pilgrim credential.
The credential is what lets you use the pilgrim hostels, and it gives no right to a bed (the Pilgrim's Office in Santiago).
Private albergues in Galicia are licensed as tourist hostels or, when a nonprofit runs one within 3 km of the Camino, as pilgrim albergues. They sell beds one at a time, mostly in shared rooms.
Off the Camino albergue also means an ordinary hostel: Spain's youth hostel network (albergues juveniles) is part of Hostelling International.
Check before you count on a bed in a public albergue. Galicia's government opened online booking for its public albergues in July 2020, during COVID. Its Camino page now says no booking is possible. If you need a sure bed, book a private albergue.

Villages and farms

Chambre d'hôtes (France)

In French law a chambre d'hôtes is a furnished room in the host's own home, sold with breakfast. It has five rooms and 15 guests at most, the host is there to welcome you, each room has access to a shower room and a toilet, and linen is supplied.
A table d'hôtes dinner is for the guests staying there. It isn't a restaurant.

Gîte (France)

In law a gîte is a meublé de tourisme, a furnished house, apartment or studio for your sole use, rented to people passing through, usually by the week.
It can carry two ratings. The state's optional classification gives 1 to 5 stars, valid for five years. Gîtes de France's own label gives 1 to 5 épis (ears of wheat), judged on the setting, the comfort and the services, and re-rated at least every five years.

Agriturismo (Italy)

In Italian law an agriturismo is hospitality given by farmers, tied to farming their land, in rooms or on campsites, and the farming must stay the main activity. It's a farm stay first.

Auberge (France)

An auberge is an inn, a house, usually in a village or a small town, where you can sleep and eat (the Larousse dictionary), or a small hotel in the country or a small town (the CNRTL dictionary). Larousse also gives an upmarket hotel or restaurant sense, so the word promises nothing about the standard.
Auberge on its own isn't a legal category. An "auberge collective" is: beds by the night in shared and single rooms, which is a hostel.

In the cities

Auberge de jeunesse and hostel

An auberge de jeunesse is a youth hostel, and in French law an auberge collective.
Hostelling International defines a hostel as shared accommodation: dorms with several beds, shared kitchens and lounges. Most of its hostels also have private rooms, every age is welcome, and some countries require membership. A sleeping bag or a sleep sheet isn't allowed in any of them, because of bedbugs.
In France HI France requires every guest to be a member (an HI card from any country counts), and membership isn't in the price. Under-16s traveling alone are refused, 16- and 17-year-olds need a parent's consent, sheets are included, and you can ask for a private room.

One building, two names

The words name a tradition, so one building can carry two of them, and a sign can use a word another country wouldn't.

Rifugio Firenze, above Santa Cristina in Val Gardena, is also the Regensburger Hütte, and Ncisles in Ladin. The Regensburg section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club built it in 1888, CAI Florence ran it from 1921, and the Province of Bolzano has owned it since 2010.
Rifugio Federico Chabod, in the Gran Paradiso, is also Refuge Chabod. I slept there the night before a Gran Paradiso summit attempt.
On the Tour du Mont Blanc, my own notes list a chalet, a gîte, a refuge (Refuge du Fioux) and an auberge (Auberge du Truc, with a 28-bed dormitory and the hikers' dinner), all as the route's refuges.
In Chamonix the Hostelling International hostel at Les Pèlerins goes by its French name, Auberge de Jeunesse HI Chamonix. It was my bed at the start of my own Tour du Mont Blanc.

What it means for your trip

A liner for the hut, never for the hostel. Refuges, rifugi, Alpine club huts and Swiss cabanes require your own sheet sleeping bag or liner. Hostelling International forbids any bedding of your own.
Half board means dinner, the bed and breakfast, and it's how most huts work. A German or Austrian club hut may not insist on it, and nobody has to eat at a CAI rifugio.
On a long hut walk, an Alpine club card can pay for itself, with half price on the night at French Alpine Club refuges, at least €12 a night off at the German and Austrian clubs' huts from 2027, and at least 20% off half board at CAI rifugi.
Book the huts. A CAI rifugio holds a booked bed only until 6 PM.
By law, a chambre d'hôtes has five rooms at most and the host on site, so it suits a couple or a family who want a host. A gîte is a whole house with a kitchen, usually by the week, with no breakfast.

How hotel stars, MICHELIN Keys and hotel tiers work is the next page: hotel ratings.