Hostels are everywhere and are a great a way to experience local vibe and other travelers (and we don't necessarily mean that way). A hostel is more than a place to lay your head. It's an entire culture, a temporary home, and a temporary family all rolled into one jumbled, often beautiful, sometimes hectic hub for travelers.

"We offer a safe, clean, cheap accommodation," said Floyd Creamer, owner of Floyd's Hostel and Crew House in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. "We don't nickel and dime our guests to get every bit of profit possible. And we don't cater to rowdy, immature assholes looking to write their own ticket. We try to run a respectable joint where safety and comfort are emphasized."

Last spring I sat at a window of the Festung Hostelling International (HI) hostel looking over the Rhine River valley. It was a wonderful view, but when the sun set and the stone of the castle began to glow like a medieval blacksmith's iron, all I could think of was: "I only paid twelve bucks for this room?"

The hostel sits high on a hill in Koblenz, Germany. The front entrance is a single-lane cobblestone road hugging a stone wall that juts 1000 feet from the Rhine River up to the castle. I had taken this winding road, flying past rusted guard posts, cob-webbed cannon holders and finally through a huge, tic-tac-toe iron gate, and realized that inside this stunning castle was my bed for the night. The hostel itself is not barbaric in the least. It is impeccably clean, breakfast is served hot, and the staff is cordial. On the other hand, there is a 10 p.m. curfew, no drinking is allowed, and everyone is required to do chores in the morning. That's the catch, of course, for being able to toss your backpack down in a castle.

Hostelling International (hiayh.org), a non profit organization that oversees affiliated hostels in over 70 countries, will accept donated structures and transform them into cool hostels. In addition, Hostelling International has international quality standards for all their hostels. The result is a network of hostels that offer clean, safe, and affordable accommodations worldwide. However, in order to maintain these standards, HI hostels often have rule sheets a kilometer long posted in the common areas. Visitors often must comply with rules such as curfews and lockouts from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Make sure to grab your day pack and plan to spend some time in a museum.) Of course, each place is different, but with the oversight of HI and all the benefits it brings, they can still sometimes cramp your style. That may make independent hostels a better catch for you.

Independent hostels offer a more casual approach. They are usually open 24 hours, standards of cleanliness aren't necessarily guaranteed as in HI hostels, and I've spent nights in rooms not much more luxurious than a prison cell. (What can you expect for $1.35 per night?) But there's so much personality in these little gems! From dinner and dancing with the family who ran Jennie's Forest Home on Samosir Island, Sumatra, to an impromptu cooking class at the MCA Hostel outside of Dali, China, you never know what you'll find in these hostels.

Possibly more important than a clean bed or an included breakfast, at both HI and independent hostels the backpacker culture drives these bastions of cheap beds. That aspect keeps me checking in for more. You are never really alone when you have thirty or more travelers cooking in the provided kitchen; sitting on the back porch planning which site to check out tomorrow; or a group heading to a local club, comparing guidebooks, warning against and recommending previous stops in their world journeys, and trying to translate jokes between the dozen different languages of the backpackers sitting around. It is very common to see travelers hanging out and traveling on together.

In my favorite hostel-fortress, I shared a room equipped with two bunk beds, a sink, four lockers, and a closet. My two roommates were Stephen and Paul, both from Australia and traveling Europe the past four months. They chatted about their adventures in Turkey, Eastern Europe, and wrapping around the Mediterranean. I added my two cents on seeing the world and writing about it. (We had nothing else in common except that we loved to wander, and that's all that mattered. And that neither of them snored at night.)

So how do you find that gem of a hostel where Mamma Rossa is cooking homemade spaghetti and your new best friend is scribbling in her journal in the dorm bed next to you? One site is Hostels.com, which offers articles related to hostels and cheap travel, plus an extensive directory. Another favorite is HostelsEurope.com, detailing inside information and reviews of hostels throughout the continent.