The Unexpected Journey into Hostel Life
Even though hostels are usually the gateway lodging to budding new travelers, I had never stayed in one. Mostly out of fear. In fact, my hesitation towards staying at a hostel was tied to my two biggest fears in my everyday life: people and grime. But 2025 was supposed to be the year of becoming a more confident and empowered version of myself. So, in the loudest act of bravery I could muster, I booked an overnight stay at a hostel in Los Angeles, California. Little did I know I would check out of that hostel with a secret third fear newly unlocked: bed bugs.
Walking into the hostel that fateful July afternoon, I was hopeful. Housed in a historic building from the 1920s, warm wood provided a cozy backdrop against the leather chairs and loungers arranged to prompt conversations over Moscow Mules, but with diet ginger beer because Los Angeles.
“Do you have a lock?” The receptionist asked once I revealed it was my first hostel experience. I did not have a lock, but thankfully the hostel offered to conveniently sell me a simple padlock for $20.
Insider Tip
Most hostels sell their own locks if needed, but the price is usually double its retail value. Save yourself some time and money and bring one from home or head to the nearest CVS.
The room was equally inviting, with large windows that let the bright summer sun in. All four beds were empty, so I opted for one of the two bottom bunks. That way, I wouldn’t have to disturb anyone when I got in or out of bed. With my first fear handled, it was the moment of truth for my second fear. I took a deep breath and pulled back the bedding. It was clean. I exhaled, relieved, flipping the pillow over. Also, clean.
Insider Tip
Bed bugs are often not readily visible, especially during the day. You’ll want to pull back the bedding down to the mattress and check the seams for signs. Check the inside of the pillowcases as well.
With my belongings stored, I frolicked the day away in Los Angeles, excited to finally be thriving in this new affordable solo travel girl personality that I stepped into. I was literally unstoppable. That is, until approximately 10:35 p.m.
I cautiously unlocked the door to my dormitory back at the hostel. The main lamp was off, but a small sliver of light peaked out from under the bathroom door, along with soft and off-key singing. Tip-toeing to my bunk, I noticed the second bunkbed had identical lumps in the assumed shape of a human body. My palms started to sweat thinking about accidentally waking one of them.
Since I had to wait to freshen up for bed anyway, I decided to head down to the lobby to get some homework done in the meantime. At 11 p.m., I checked back on the bathroom situation. It was still occupied and still off-key.
It was getting late, but there was a restroom downstairs. I opened my locker and quietly pulled my toiletry bag out of my suitcase. I went back downstairs to wash my face in the single stall lobby bathroom with no sink counter, so I had to squeeze my bag between my thighs while I dried my face with rough paper towels.
Insider Tip
Looking back, I could have politely knocked on the bathroom door to ask for a general time estimate. They might not have known anyone was waiting to use it after them.
The sitting area at the lobby closed at midnight, but surely the bathroom would be free by now. It was not. Again, I took a whole four minutes to quietly open my suitcase back up and fish out my sleepwear.
I slipped under the covers of my bed to wait it out. About fifteen minutes of Duolingo later, a figure in a towel scuttled past and hurriedly climbed to the open bed atop mine. Before I even had time to take my headphones out, one of the other bed lumps jumped up and claimed the restroom.
Thankfully, the woman only took about fifteen minutes. With the other three tucked back into their bunks, I was finally able to finish getting ready for bed at nearly 1 a.m. I turned off the lamp at the side of my bunk and proceeded to sit in the darkness as I listened to everyone else drift into slumber. I was usually able to fall asleep immediately, regardless of the circumstances, but something was tugging at me. I sat up and switched my lamp back on. Maybe I just needed the cooler side of my pillow to lull me to sleep. I flipped my pillow over.
Staring back at me were three rust-colored spots blemishing the white pillowcase.
I blinked, and they were still there. I took my phone off the charger and turned the flashlight on, shining it on the mystery blob. Well, it was blood and, much to my horror, the translucent exoskeleton of a tiny insect.
Insider Tip
This is when I should have collected my belongings, exited the room, and immediately reported it to the receptionist.
I sat there with my mouth hanging open in lieu of screaming, since I was still terrified of waking someone up. I quietly rolled my sheets off my body, shining the flashlight down at my legs. To my relief, I was not in the process of being eaten alive by a swarm of bugs, but I did sit on top of the sheets all the same.
Remembering my zillenial roots, I took pictures and a video before slinking out of my bunk. After pacing back and forth in the bathroom for twenty minutes, repeatedly checking my body for bites, I packed my bags, left the room, and frantically walked down to the front desk.
“Hello,” I meekly approached the desk. The night employee stopped scrolling and looked up at me. “I have a problem with my, uh, room?”
“What kind of problem?”
“Um…” What was the nicest way to put this? I didn’t want to spread any false claims on accident. “My bedding was not clean. Could I perhaps get transferred to another dormitory?”
“Ooo, sorry, everything is booked,” the receptionist announced after click-clacking on their keyboard. “But we have one private room available.”
“Oh great,” I almost smiled, “I’ll take that one.” I was checking out in the morning, so I just needed a clean room to get through the night.
“Perfect, it’ll be $250, plus taxes and fees.” They insisted I had to pay since it was a different type of room.
Insider Tip
Now would have been a good time to use the word “bed bugs” and show the receptionist the picture on my phone instead of being afraid of making them “feel bad” for the inconvenience.
Since it was 2 a.m., I coughed up my credit card and hung my head on the way to my new room. I could clear it up in the morning after sleeping.
I spent the next six hours in my private room googling bed bugs and getting a positive match for the pictures I had taken of my pillowcase. I didn’t sleep in that hostel bed, but I had been laying under the covers for some time, at least long enough for the ones on the pillowcase to emerge. I’d never been so happy to wear a bonnet in my life, because at least my hair wasn’t splayed all over the bed with a vulnerable scalp.
Still, I checked over my entire body with the full-length body mirror and my phone’s flashlight to scan every inch of my skin, contorting my body with a fervor I hadn’t possessed since my days of taking nudes. Bed bug bites typically appear in a row of three, but aside from my usual keratosis pilaris spots, I seemed to be bite-free. That said, bed bug bites can take up to two weeks to appear, so I wasn’t in the clear yet.
I moved my luggage to the bathroom, reasoning there would probably be a less likely chance of bed bugs hanging out in a fabric-less environment. I may have had a private room now, but bed bugs do not discriminate by room type. They can be found in hostels, hotels, rental properties, and even non-lodging public spaces.
One by one, I pulled the items from my suitcase, inspecting them for any signs of intruders. Then I checked the seams of the bag with the flashlight of my phone on full blast. Adult bed bugs are only about ¼ of an inch, and nymphs can be only millimeters. I didn’t see any live bugs, which can look like flat seeds, nor small brown dots that could be either eggs or fecal matter. I didn’t want to take any chances, though. I sprayed the seams with my hand sanitizer, stuffing everything back in and stashing the suitcase in the tub where it would hopefully be safe.
I didn’t sleep that night. Instead, I put hair ties around my loose legging bottoms and sat on the toilet lid with my feet pulled up, scrolling through countless bed bug discussion posts online until the sun came up and the hostel manager would hopefully be in for the day.
They were not. The morning receptionist tucked away the piece of paper with my phone number, promising the manager would be in touch once a pest investigation was concluded. In the meantime, I was expected to go home as if I hadn’t spent the entire night scratching with anxiety. I chewed down to my nail beds as I watched the flight attendant load my potentially contaminated luggage onto the conveyor belt, ominously disappearing behind the curtain to nestle against three hundred other bags in a dark cargo hold for hours.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I murmured.
“What was that?” The flight attendant quirked her head, then must’ve decided it didn’t matter because she smiled and waved forward the next passenger. “Have a nice flight!”
“You too!” I replied automatically, then cringed from the only mortification that could momentarily make me forget about my bed bug problem. Emphasis on temporarily because the entire flight back, I was hyper-conscious about my surroundings. The airline seat just had to be fabric. What if my clothes were infested and burrowed into the seat and every single passenger went home with an unexpected carry-on?
What if someone else was infested and their bed bugs were crawling up my leg at that very moment? What if it was the person right next to me? I looked down at my covered ankle, then up to the sleeping passenger next to me. It could be any one of us. The paranoia, unfortunately, didn’t stop in the air. I winced watching the rideshare driver blissfully plop my suitcase into their trunk. I tipped extra, just in case.
As soon as I got home, I immediately stripped down and bagged all of my belongings in separate trash bags, dousing everything in a water/rubbing alcohol solution. I gave it a few days to marinate before washing and drying all of the clothes on the hottest setting, cheap polyester be darned. During that time, I slept in an old sleeping bag on my hard vinyl floor, not wanting to potentially contaminate my mattress that I was still in the process of paying off.
Insider Tip
For things that cannot be washed, freeze them if possible, or leave them tied in a bag to sit in the sun.
After two weeks, the hostel finally called me back with the results of the investigation. “Inconclusive,” they said flatly.
“What does that mean? What was on the pillowcase?”
“Not conclusively a bed bug.” I could feel the shrug over the phone.
My brows furrowed. Had I been wrong this whole time? Had the thirty-eight people who responded to my discussion post also been wrong? “Well…” my thoughts trailed off as I rubbed the kink in my neck. “About the refund on my second room–”
“–since there was no conclusive evidence, a refund unfortunately cannot be issued.” I simply blinked. “If there’s nothing else, thank you, and we welcome you back anytime.” They hung up.
I stared down at my phone until the screen went black, scratching a phantom itch more out of habit now than anything else. Surely, I had finally lost my last marble. I checked my camera roll one last time to verify this was not all a nightmare on Elm Street. If my hostel bed hadn’t been infected, allegedly, then…did it come from someone else’s bed? Had someone else switched my pillow when I was getting ready in the bathroom? Even if it wasn’t a bed bug, is another bug perfectly acceptable?
I unlocked my phone, angrily punching numbers into the phone’s keypad. “Hello,” I chirped into the receiver with a forced smile. “I’d like to refute a charge on my card.”
