Last week, I went down to LA for a writing/publishing conference and my friend and I found the cheapest possible place to stay: A hostel with extremely low dorm rates and lots of free amenities. I’d never stayed in a hostel before, so this was a completely new experience. Granted, a hostel experience in LA is surely very different from a hostel experience somewhere in Europe, so this perspective is obviously not universal. Hopefully, if you have any prior experiences with hostels, some of this will resonate with you! For me, it was definitely a test of my independence and patience, but I think it was ultimately rewarding in its challenges (and, of course, because it saved me a ton of money).

1. You arrive to check in, tired from walking on the street with your increasingly heavy backpack but relieved to find your hostel and excited to experience this rite of passage for youth.

(I know I've used this gif before, but it's so applicable!)

It seems like a rite of passage, right? I’d always heard my parents and older friends talk about their stays in cheap hostels while backpacking through places, so I was genuinely excited to have this experience myself.

2. You appreciate how chill and down-for-a-good-time everyone is—there are even people playing ping-pong and shooting hoops in the courtyard.

This hostel advertised itself as fun and hip, and I realized when I got there how much it did actually live up to this—at times too much so for me (see later points...).

3. Each time you enter the communal kitchen, you find yourself within the random conversations of complete strangers, often in other languages.

There were several different groups of young foreigners staying at this hostel, so I frequently made my dinner while other people around me made huge tins of lasagna and chatted with each other in Danish or British English (it’s basically another language, okay).

4. The first night you stay there, you realize that it’s their karaoke night and you won’t be getting any sleep.

I did bring earplugs. Earplugs, as it happens, do not entirely block out terrible karaoke.

5. Loud men keep barging into the bathroom and asking where the soap is (there is no soap).

Also, in the dorm room that I was sleeping in, people had to keep turning on the lights to get to the bathroom, so I would repeatedly fall into surface-level sleep only to get jerked awake again.

6. The pillow is significantly smaller and lumpier than you’d anticipated.

We’re talking ears-feeling-squashed-upon-waking lumpy.

7. When you tell people you’re staying at a hostel, they look at you with concern and say, “Stay safe.”

This is definitely most applicable to females, and although I almost rolled my eyes when some lady told me this, her words stuck in my mind and I ended up digging out my rape whistle when I went back. Just, you know, standard procedure.

8. You meet people from all over the world staying in your dorm.

In the same day, a guy from Chile and a guy from Germany came to stay in my dorm room.

9. But the nice people only stay for one night and then a new guy comes with an extreme snoring problem, so you move to a female dorm and bond with totally unique women over the availability of a TV and a clean bathroom.

This was a temporarily stressful situation, but it actually became a wonderful experience to bond with the five other women I ended up staying with. We were all in such different stages in our lives, coming from such different backgrounds, but we could all laugh together while watching "Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure" (that’s when you know real bonding is happening).

10. On the weekend, you resort to listening to Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” blast outside on repeat in the party courtyard.

Really, though—it was like people kept forgetting that they had just played that song literally five minutes before.

11. You wake up at 2 a.m. to a guy yelling outside and then you wake up to the same thing four hours later.

Yeah, I still have no idea what this was about.

12. In the end, you leave feeling extreme anticipation for your cozy, private bed with a large, smooth pillow.

I did return home with a much greater appreciation for my current living situation, which is always a plus.