First started in January 1994 as the Grand Pacific Hostel in San Diego’s redeveloping Gaslamp Quarter, USA Hostels is now in its14th year of operation. Today we're running outstanding hostels in San Diego, Hollywood, Las Vegas and San Francisco.
Even though we’ve grown a lot there are some things that haven’t changed at all since things got started in San Diego. We all work here for the same reason – we love to travel. Since each hostel is run for travelers, by travelers, guests can expect to find the kind of excellent service that we know makes any trip easier and more enjoyable. We run some of the cleanest, safest hostel facilities in the USA with loads of activities, tours and parties!
We hope you’ll come visit us, maybe even work with us, during your travels. We put a lot of work into running what we hope are some of the best hostels in the USA and any input you can provide about how we’re doing is helpful. Don’t hesitate to contact any of the people listed below, we’re always excited to hear from guests, potential guests and other travelers!
David's goal is to climb the highest mountains on each continent. Just three more to go! David, fed up with wearing suits, decided to open a hostel after backpacking through Australia. These days, when David isn't climbing mountains or or surfing, he can be found running around one of the hostels, deciding to knock out walls, installing new equipment and generally keeping everyone on their toes.
Maria was considered a kindergarten prodigy because she could actually spell her last name by the age of 5. Unfortunately that early promise did not continue once she discovered boys and booze. A three-year memory black out hinted at a grand old time in high school and she decided to continue the party with decadent summer backpacking trips to Europe.
Eventually, Maria spent every dime she ever earned following her lifelong dream to backpack ‘round the world. Committed to chronicling the beers of the world, somewhere along the way she picked up a tattoo or three, plaits and an affinity for Carlton Cold. Luckily this time she had a camera to remind her of what a good time she had actually had along the way.
After failing miserably to return to the corporate life she had been previously pressured to live, she was stripped of her membership in white collar society, had her Williams Sonoma crock pot confiscated and was implanted with a device that would taser her if she even looked at suits or pantyhose.
Retreating to Thailand, where she discovered tantric hammock rocking, and the perverse thrill of being chased by cranky trigger fish, she decided to never work again. Unfortunately an addiction to fruit shakes, pad se-ew and Thai massage ensued and six months later she found herself couch surfing at her brother’s.
Realizing she never really wanted to grow up; she figured working in a hostel would be the perfect job for her. Ironically Maria was almost not hired for having too much corporate background. Luckily in some of her more sober moments, she managed to write online travel stories that were actually read by her interviewer and apparently they were either funny or pathetic enough to land her where she is today.
Forty countries and hundreds of hostels later, Maria is still convinced that USA Hostels staff and locations rock.
Nicolas comes to USA Hostels after a stint as a South American tour guide. He had to leave his previous position after he discovered an unknown band of hairless jungle-dwellers who, having never seen a mane of curls shining brighter than the morning sun, worshiped him as their deity. It sounded like a good gig at the time, but he soon found out that this particular tribe believed in eating what they worshiped. He luckily escaped before he became a delicious "mane" course but is still traumatized by the experience. As a result, he is now a devout vegetarian who has an odd fear of boiling water. Prior to Nicolas’ days in the sun, he lived in the spotlight, traveling around the world with a band of Elvis impersonators, swiveling his hips from Andalusia to Zimbabwe, delighting crowds of swooning females. To this day, whenever he hears a tune he automatically breaks out into dance. Usually a fun sight around the hostels, but he’s been banned from family funerals.
After failing out of dental hygienist school and divorcing her second husband at the age of 18, Erin moved out of the old Ford station wagon she had been living in and truly began her life on the road. Her goal: gather as many seedy stories as possible to scare the potential future grandchildren with. Her first stop? Washington, DC, of course, for a torrid affair with a high-ranking senator who seriously should have known better. After bribing him out of a “satisfactory” sum of money (sucker), she trotted up to New York where she married her third husband (a rich, young banker) and temporarily changed her name to <deleted for security reasons>. He “mysteriously” died four months later leaving her with enough money to travel the globe for a long time. Unfortunately, due to an unwise wager with a Venezuelan war lord on the 2005 Canadian Curling Trials, she found herself penniless after a few years and was forced to return to the United States.
She knew it was time to settle into a career, so she briefly tried shucking clams for the country’s third largest seafood catering company, selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door, and dealing arms—but all with little success. Then she stumbled upon a USA Hostels brochure at the Greyhound station she was living in. Choirs started singing out of nowhere and the sun burned brighter (check the newspaper—it happened). “I can ignore the mysterious choir,” she said. “I can ignore the unexplained sun-brightening thing, but I can’t ignore the magnetic pull of this hostel.” And that, my friends, is really how it happened.
