ITH Hermosa Beach Surf Hostel LAX — Hotel in Hermosa Beach

Super great hostel! I took a gamble and the place is great, I was able to stay in a women’s room with 6 bunks & own bathroom which was nice, extremely small bathroom but still nice and easier to be able to get dressed. The staff and kitchen is great, they have some food they put out for breakfast and we made chocolate banana pancakes! I could smell them down the hall and they smelled amazing so wake up early for breakfast!! Meeting people is easy and fun here, they have a lot of events and there’s much to do around hostel also. There’s a lot of space inside which also features a kitchen, dining room, & lounge area with games.

Only negative about this place is cleaning service.. After my first night a woman came in the morning to clean, I was still getting dressed to leave for the day but before she came in she knocked on the door and announced herself. She told me she was going to start cleaning, vacuuming & such so I said okay I will be done soon and everything was fine. Problem is the next day a man came to clean and he didn’t even knock on the door or announce his presence, I was in the bathroom with the door open fixing my hair when I seen him behind me in the mirror. I wanted to get out the room so they can clean, so I went down the hall to speak to some people I met at the hostel but I had to use the bathroom so I was going to go back to my room but he still was cleaning so I went to use a different one. When I came back to the room midday, my brown paper grocery bag that was sitting next to my bed w my belongings and my wet washcloth that was drying on the rack was thrown out by the cleaner Shawn (muscular lightskin w locs)!!! I immediately felt sick and confused, I went to the front desk to tell her my stuff was thrown out and she said the cleaner must’ve thrown it out bc he thought it was trash, there’s nothing to do but she will ask the person who cleaned the room. She waited for his text and showed me his reply which was ‘idk thought it was garbage’. I even asked the woman at the desk to take me to the garbage bins to help retrieve my stuff. She did take me but didn’t know which one was the bun, she told me he would be back later in the day if I want to talk to him, so i waited in the hostel for a bit and he actually came but tried to ignore me so i went to the hall and told him ‘’you threw my stuff out, why would you do that’’. He obviously didn’t care and wanted me gone, I was obviously upset and wanted my stuff. He said ‘’it looked like garbage and why would you leave it on the floor’’ but being in a hostel you should know as a cleaner that people have bags near the bed on the floor!! I just left a hostel and did the same thing, everything was okay. I was the only one in the room and I don’t want to take locker space incase anyone else comes. I had everything I couldn’t fit inside my clothes bag inside my brown grocery bag, such as food and souvenirs from my time in California. I kept asking the cleaner Shawn and I asked him to help me go to the trash where it was, one of the woman managers came to help open the trash and she had to leave to attend to business. Shawn didn’t want to help me but I kept being persistent, eventually he did help me retrieve my stuff from the garbages behind the building. Thankfully he finally agreed to help because I was very sad from my stuff being thrown out from my room. What’s even weirder is I came back to a note on my bed which stated to not sit on the other bunk beds, I was stationed on the top and sat on the bottom when the cleaner was there so I could put my shoes on, so he must’ve had to dropped it off after he was done cleaning.

As a hostel, traveler come with a lot of stuff and random bags to keep traveling on their journeys. Please don’t throw stuff out from rooms especially if you don’t know if it’s trash or not, if it’s trash the guest will put it in the trash and if it’s not the guest will keep it away from the trash & next to the bed. EVEN IF IT LOOKS LIKE TRASH, it could be someone’s stuff !!!!!!!! I do recommend this place, I would stay...

Worst hostel experience of my life. Stayed one night to fly out of LAX at 4 pm the next day. I had food poisoning so I wasn't feeling good and stayed in bed 15 minutes after 11 AM check out. Cleaning staff told me check out of the room is 11 so I got out of bed so he could clean. The room is literally a closet so not sure what he really had to clean other then changing the sheets on my bed. The two other guests in the room we're staying another night so he didn't have to clean that bed. I laid down in the common area for 20 minutes where they have pillows but the lights were so bright in the room I put on an eye mask because they were making me nauseous. Then the cleaning guy comes in and sprays cheap industrial toxic smelling cleaning spray on all the surfaces which made me more nauseous and have to go to the restroom to throw up again. I then laid in the hammock for 15 minutes and I hear the cleaning guy start talking about me to another hostel staff member like "he stayed in his bed by 17 minutes keep an eye on him". So I asked the hostel staff member if anything was wrong and she immediately gives me all this attitude about not being able to rest in the hammock or common area. Saying they don't let guests hangout past checkout even though they have a baggage closet. So I'm like what's the point of a hammock if you can't close your eyes and rest. I tell her I have a flight at 4:00 p.m. and I'm hanging at the hostel until my flight like I've done at hundreds of hostels around the world including other ITH hostels. She's like we don't allow people to stay after their check out in this hostel if you don't have a reservation. But she's saying it in an extremely disrespectful and rude manner. Such a horrible experience after getting food poisoning and just trying to rest before my afternoon flight. The place gave off a halfway house or homeless shelter vibe so maybe they have gotten used to treating people like they are below them. If you just need a cheap bed to sleep in before a flight then this place could work for you but don't expect any type of warm friendly hostel experience. The hostel is pretty much laid out like a hole in the wall with multiple rooms with bunk beds and each room is literally the size of a closet. If you're a light sleeper this may not be the spot for you because it's right next to a really loud bar and it's in the same plaza with many other bars so the sound just reverberates when any window is open in the hostel. It was a very unexpected experience because I've stayed at quite a few ITHs in California and had an amazing experience at all of them but this place seems to not be run with the same type of warm homely customer experience like the other ITH hostels in Cali. They definitely need new management...

While traveling from out of town for a Spartan Race and other business matters I wanted to try out the Surf City Hostel.

I came to find that the Hostel itself is quite cute and quaint in such a busy area.

The staff on the other hand is where I have major concerns. The owner was in office a few times trying to ensure things were done the moment that they left it was if the staff had no regard to the Hostel.

I would say that majority of staff are in the age range of 18-23 whom just have no understanding that this is not there home that this is a place for tourist/travelers/professionals to come rest and enjoy their stay without having to search for staff, or overhear them conversing about sexual encounters' with eachother and thats why no one was available. As an avid traveler this was one of the worst experience at any Hostel I have stayed at and there is only one other Hostel I have stayed at that had worse staff. I have traveled all over the USA and Greece staying at Hostels and the attitude and professionalism that this hostel shared was just under par by far.

There is free wifi as well as complimentary breakfast in the mornings.

Breakfast includes: Pancakes' Bananas' Toast Coffee/Tea

There is a refrigerator that is for all to use yet it is not well maintained and quite overrun by expired food and items that are not even contained correctly. Ensuring that you label your items does not stop theft as someone stole not only my food that was labeled but my tupperware as well. There is a dry food storage as well, however they do have a rodent issue as there where bite marks in packages that where stowed away for cooking later.

The rooms are cleaned to the bare minimum, noting that the bathrooms are not cleaned often. This is due to the staff being young and not caring enough to ensure floors are vacuumed swept mopped and so forth.

There are plenty of options for shopping, food and tourism.There is the pier to the left of exiting the hostel about 100 yards away. This is also a great spot to catch some great waves and enjoy that California sun!

The "boardwalk" is 50 feet from the entrance as well as this is the main district of Surf City its...