Venice Beach Hostel - Yale Avenue

Los Angeles (Venice Beach)

12 of 28

Address	2915 Yale Avenue, Los Angeles (Venice Beach), California, USA Map
Price	Dorm beds from US$23.00. Private rooms from US$30.00/person. Price may vary by season - Check Current Prices by Date Here

Location/Contact

Details

Their Description

Features

Free Breakfast
Kitchen
Lockers
Bar
Lounge / Common space
Pool Table
Washing Machine (laundry)
Travel information provided
Bike Rental
24 Hour Free Hot Showers

The Hostelz.com Review

We have stayed at hostels all over the world, and this may be one of the scariest one we have been to.

The hostel is in a decent neighborhood and from the outside looks nice, but inside it is very run down. There is no lock on the front door, so anyone (even people who are not guests) can enter at any time. We were promised a certain type of room, but when we arrived, this type of room was full and only available if we slept on a mattress on the floor. The room that we finally slept in had very dirty carpet and the sheets and blanket did not look like they had been washed. The blanket had a very large stain that looked fresh (we don't even want to know what it is from). Eventually we did get another blanket but still felt grossed out.

The bathrooms are shared by both males and females. Only the toilet has a lock on it. The sinks and mirrors are also in the open area and shared by males and females at the same time. There is no lock on the door so you do not have any opportunity for privacy. The bathrooms are mostly clean, apart from the carpet which looked dirty and stained.

The common areas looked mostly clean, but again the carpet needs to be replaced. Instead of hanging out in the common area, you may want to go to the beach instead.

Some travelers may be ok with this setup and you definitely can't beat the low price and the location close to the beach. We just want others to be fully aware of the condition of this hostel before they make a reservation.

Review by Wendy and Persy Deluca

— Exclusive Hostelz.com Review
June 2008

Ratings & Comments

2.5 Average from 14 Ratings

This is an open forum, and unlike other hostel guide websites we don't censor out the negative comments.
We can't validate the legitimacy of comments posted on this site—so take what you read here with a grain of salt.

Comment by Dermot + Julie, Irish + English

January 2009

The Greatest Days Of My Life
Wow, in 1987 i was eighteen and working in the Baja Cantina in Marina Del Ray (up the road, near the beach) and ended up staying at the Hostel for a couple of nights. I was there for eleven months. I met the greatest people from around the world and had the best craic i ever had in my life. It definitely was a bit grungy and yes the front door didnt have a lock and you never knew who was going to walk through the door but the people that did were some of the most incredible people i ever met. I think of them often and on and off am in touch with some. I even married one (the one and only), a beautiful English rose, Julie. so watch out this place really can change your life! At the very least it's cheap and not too far from the beach so that can't be too bad. If you've got a sense of adventure and aren't too fussy this is the place for you. That stain on the blanket was there back then too, it's an anti theft device that really works but who needs blankets in L.A. anyway. Your food will be shared by the guests who are hungry and broke but it's only ham and cheese from the 7-11.

Comment by Scott Furness, New Zealand

October 2008

False Advertising
Stayed here for a week in August. "Private room" was in a converted first-floor flat five hundred meters down the road from the main "hostel." Very dirty and in poor condition despite web advertisement we'd seen saying it had been recently renovated. Only one bathroom for two private rooms and a six-bed dorm, the toilet was not separate from the bathroom. Some guy seemed to be living there, out to work each morning and back smoking in the lounge with his feet up on the coffee table watching TV each night. Not a place worth the money, for an extra $10 a night a couple could probably get a much nicer motel room.

Comment by irish kev, ireland

March 2008

Cool out sham
i stayed there for a week just before christmas. it was more like student a house than a hostel. i had a good laugh here. the staff were cool as f***, really chilled out, and i would stay there again.

Comment by sossij

April 2007

I wouldn't really call this place a hostel, it's more like a big house that has been taken over by people with nowhere else to go. The majority of people there are just drop outs, one person has been living there for six years. That said, the location is brilliant, and the staff are friendly. Try it, it's not too bad, but don't expect anything.

Comment by Henry

November 2006

Stayed here in the last month. Unbelievable. Having lived in three major European capital cities (sometimes as a poor student) since the age of eighteen, I have never been scared and appalled to quite such an extent. Everything about this place screams dilapidation and slum. The owner has no regard for his guests having put us in a filthy, noisy, and insecure room -- picture a flat in the middle of L.A.'s Venice (a rather mixed area) with a front door permanently unlocked and a three-inch gap between the floor and the bottom of your bedroom door! Perverts paradise. As experienced travelers, we can sleep anywhere. Not here. The flat was inhabited by guys that chain smoked, ate greasy food, and watched TV, apparently twenty hours a day! I cannot recommend strongly enough that you do not stay here.

Comment by Louise & Karina

September 2006

We stayed in the Venice Beach Hostel on the 6 Sep and we were appalled and disgusted at the state the hostel was in. We paid extra for a private room but weren't informed at the time of booking that the private room is actually located a few streets away in a different building on a busy main road. On arrival at the hostel we were presented with a small room with a tiny window with no curtain or blind with a bright yellow neon sign outside and no air conditioning! We had to keep the window open all night as when the bedroom light was turned off, the fan also went off. Turning the light off was a hazard in itself as the wires were exposed and uncovered. We weren't supplied with any bath towels so we had to find a supermarket and buy a towel each. The bathroom was absolutely horrendous -- personally I wouldn't wash my dog in there given the choice. The floor was wet and filthy as were the cupboards, blinds and surfaces. There was mould and grime over every inch of the shower cubicle which had obviously not been cleaned for quite a while and the area around the toilet smelt of strongly of urine. It was stated that breakfast would be supplied but there was no milk or orange juice and only a quarter of a box of cereal so again we had to go to the supermarket to buy our own. Even if there had been supplies -- I would not have used anything in the kitchen area again due to lack of hygiene -- there was mouldy fruit and veg in the fridge which also needed to be cleaned. The oven was covered in an inch of grease with cooked on pieces of food! The other guests were also a problem -- we were told that there were two guys staying in the other room of the hostel but there turned out to be four guys who were smoking in the living room and had the TV turned up loud until the early hours despite us asking politely several times for them to turn it down. They were all up again with the TV on loud at 5:30 a.m. The hostel manager was definitely on some sort of drug and the whole place smelt of weed. We took photgraphs of the premisis to forward onto the Department of Health as this place violates every health regulation and should be closed down.

Comment by Anthony

July 2006

If you want to smoke crack, this is the place for you. Total drug hangout one of the workers is dealing from there. Scary place.

Comment by Anonymous

May 2005

I have stayed at hostels all over the world and this is the WORST I have ever been in. It is a total dump. We didn't even get beds, just a mattress on the floor. The whole place was filthy. There were mouse droppings in the "bathroom." The "en suite" is actually one open plan room with a mattress at one end and a "bathroom" at the other. No privacy. The kitchen was disgusting. You would be crazy to eat anything that came out of there. DON'T STAY HERE!!!

Comment by Daz,UK

February 2005

Friendly atmosphere. It's not the cleanest hostel I've stayed in but I stayed there twice in a month, eight nights in total and I guess I'll keep going back because it's local to of all the main LA tourist attractions. Hi Grant!

Comment by Anonymous

November 2004

Well, it could have been cleaner, I think, but it could have been worse. The whole place smelled of weed. I had another couple in my bed and the owner did nothing about it. The kitchen was scary — so dirty I was afraid to cook in there. The staff were very unhelpful. I don't think I'll go here again.