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Choosing the
best hostel for you

Los Angeles hostel locations, including Santa Monica and Venice Beach:
1. Hollywood hostels: pros and cons
2. Beach hostels: pros and cons
3. Beach hostels: directions

Vancouver hostels: best locations

Santa Monica, Hermosa Beach, and Venice Beach offer more of a resort atmosphere, with wide public beaches and a mellower, but nevertheless lively nightlife.

Santa Monica Hostel advantages

I love Santa Monica.

Unless your focus is on the best clubs in Los Angeles, you won’t find a more uplifting hostel location in southern California than at HI-Los Angeles - Santa Monica.

Santa Monica has a fine beach (just below the hostel) and you can also walk to other beaches. Views from the palisades above the main beach extend all the way to Malibu.

Safety is not generally an issue in Santa Monica, except for unlighted portions of the beach after dark and for areas adjacent to inland Venice Beach. As in any urban area, avoid streets at night that have few people.

UCLA students flood into the area on evenings and weekends to fill the lively pubs. You’ll find a wide variety of meal types and prices near the hostel.

Santa Monica public transit

Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus provides some of the best public transit in the western U.S.

Express Big Blue Bus service links Santa Monica with LAX Airport and Amtrak Union Station. Also, check out Big Blue's "Mini Blue" services, such as its Tide route that moves you around the hostel area and to Venice Beach.

Metro buses also serve Santa Monica. One route, Metro 534, takes you from the hostel to Malibu and Zuma beaches, including the famed Surfriders Beach (Malibu Lagoon State Beach) at Malibu Pier and very popular Zuma County Beach.

Santa Monica Hostel

HI-Los Angeles - Santa Monica: exceptionally well run hostel with lots of activities.

You’ll be right above the beach where Baywatch was filmed and the Santa Monica Pier. A block away is the Third Street Promenade shopping area, where portions of films such as “Terminator 2” were filmed. You can easily walk to the Main Street pub area.

On the other hand, Santa Monica Hostel is too large and stays too busy to provide a family feeling. A party hard hostel it's not. (If that's your preference, see the Venice Beach Cotel or Hermosa Beach Surf City hostels below.) Getting a reservation can be difficult. You can’t stay more than 14 days per year.

Hermosa Beach pros and cons

Not far from LAX, Hermosa Beach is a great southern California beach town, filled with LAX Airport flight crews and USC students who commute to class. Very mellow area. Super beach.

However, even with a car, you’re isolated from Los Angeles sightseeing. Choose this area if you want to relax for a few days, have fun with others staying at the hostel, and not move around too much.

Hermosa Beach Surf City Hostel

Los Angeles Surf City Hostel: very highly recommended if you're ready to enjoy its very lively and fun party atmosphere. Nearly on the beach.

Venice Beach hostels

While the commercial heart of Los Angeles developed inland, many areas along the shore, such as Venice Beach, became primarily residential in character.

However, unlike most beach communities that steadily increased in appeal and price over the years, Venice Beach actually significantly deteriorated, with its canals becoming filled in or little more than swamps, and wide areas declining to just one step above a slum.

That meant lower estate prices and that meant hostels.

Venice Beach hostel advantages

Other than in Hermosa Beach, you won’t find better hostels for chilling out anywhere in Los Angeles.

The Venice Beach Boardwalk is fascinating, with probably the most interesting collection of harmless eccentrics found anywhere. People come from all over southern California to enjoy this scene. There’s always something fun going on.

You’re reasonably close to LAX Airport and Malibu and adjacent to Santa Monica.

Venice Beach hostel disadvantages

Venice Beach has significant safety issues, especially at night and especially inland from the busy Boardwalk and beach area.

Although it’s wonderfully wide, Venice's beach is the least clean of Los Angeles area beaches, sometimes with groups of homeless people clustered and dogs running loose.

Parking, especially on warm days, can be a major problem and the quality of public transportation does not compare to nearby Santa Monica.

Venice Beach hostel choices

These are the best hostels:

Venice Beach Cotel: great location and lively atmosphere, if you can book this popular spot.

Venice Beach Hostel: the one on Pacific, just off the beach, not to be confused with other Venice Beach hostel with same name.

Real estate prices have increased profoundly in Venice Beach, with new development threatening the availability of inexpensive hostels adjacent or near to the beach. The next several years may be your last chance to stay in Venice Beach so inexpensively.

In fact, the Cadillac Hotel, once a fine combo hostel and hotel, now books hotel rooms only. Excellent location overlooking beach. Parking $10.00.

LAX Airport hostels and motels

If at all possible, avoid this area. Although LAX runways end at a beach, it’s an absolutely terrible neighbourhood once you move into areas with real estate prices cheap enough for low priced accommodation.

If you feel that you must stay near LAX because you have a 7:00 A.M. flight or you’re arriving in the middle of the night, don’t walk or use public transit. Arrange for pick up or take a taxi. Or, better yet, take a van shuttle to or from a hostel located in a better area, such as Hermosa Beach, Santa Monica, Venice, or even Hollywood.

Directions to Los Angeles beach hostels from Amtrak, Greyhound, and LAX Airport

Los Angeles hostel tips: Hollywood hostels locations and pros and cons

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