L.A. Stories : Backpack Central : It’s eight to a room and amenities are few. But this youth hostel is the launching pad for the Los Angeles experience.

It’s 11 a.m.--check-out time at Hostelling International Santa Monica--and the sun-filled lobby is bustling with young men and women toting backpacks and guitars and cameras. While a receptionist fields overseas calls, guests from a dozen countries try to make themselves understood.

A young German man checking in requests “the first floor instead of the second floor” of a bunk bed. A girl from Ireland searches for signs of a companion lost in transit and a group of young men from Auckland, New Zealand, study an enormous bulletin board for signs of a cheap used car.

The New Zealanders have been in Santa Monica for two weeks. Planning a stay in the United States of six months to a year, they’ve decided wheels are a must. “We want to get a car and just drift around,” says Jason Doherty, 21.

In the adjoining atrium, Manchester, England, native Elizabeth Kuhn sits amid a heap of shopping bags. During her three days here, she went to Magic Mountain and hit the malls of Santa Monica. She’s leaving for Tobago this afternoon, and wishes she’d bought less. “I tried not to, but there are so many shops right around here,” she sighs, staring into a small fountain, a bucolic touch in a setting otherwise distinguished by linoleum floors, plastic chairs and a kiosk full of brochures for rental cars and tourist attractions.

Call it Holiday Inn meets dormitory.

Located on Second Street in one of the city’s oldest masonry buildings, Hostelling International Santa Monica is one of 200 hostels in the United States and 5,000 worldwide. Anyone may stay at the hostel by buying a membership, $25 a year for U.S. citizens, $18 for foreign visitors. Of the 65,000 guests who passed through the Santa Monica hostel in 1995, most were young--18 to 25--and primarily from Australia and New Zealand, with a smaller number from Europe, Japan and the United States. For $15 a night, they get a bed in an eight-person room, for $17, a room for four. The camaraderie comes gratis.

“It’s communal living,” says general manager Kevin Keown of the four-story, 200-bed facility. “We provide a safe, secure place so people from all over the world can understand Los Angeles by seeing it.

“People come here by themselves, meet other people, go out to dinner, go barhopping, maybe hook up for the rest of their trip. That’s what hosteling is all about.”

Conducting a tour of the hostel, Keown knocks and immediately enters Room 205. Doing so seems intrusive--but then, this door probably opens hundreds of times a day. The 5-year-old hostel bears no resemblance to its more mature European cousins, which run from quaint to squalid. In Room 205, the space is spare and utilitarian--two bunk beds, four plain wood armoires and a small table. It is incredibly tidy for a room occupied by twentysomethings on the road.

“Kids, away from home, here to have a good time--we need to pick up after them,” says Keown. “We have housekeepers come in every day. But no room service. No eating, no smoking, no drinking in the rooms.

“I’d anticipated there’d be issues, like alcohol,” says Keown, who has been here 18 months. “But it doesn’t happen. Of course we have someone on duty 24 hours a day. I’ve worked in hotels where you’re chasing people up and down the halls. It doesn’t happen here.”

The Santa Monica Police Department agrees. Sometimes the foreign visitors have problems with theft, but the hostel guests present no problems with drinking or bad behavior, says a department representative. “They’re very ‘ruly’ over there.”

“Every Tuesday night is ice cream night,” Keown says. “We have a screening room where we show two films a night, a piano, a place where you can lock up your bike.” There’s also a library, a busy laundry room and a commissary with a fridge stuffed with bags marked, “Do Not Eat--Buy Your Own!” There are communal loos on each floor.

Jimmy Lowry, a 28-year-old Canadian, stands beneath a hand-painted sign that reads, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness--Mark Twain.”

He’s traveling by himself--”so far,” he says--but has met a lot of people at the hostel, which he gives high marks. “It’s nicer than the other ones I’ve seen,” he says. “Sometimes it’s kind of hard to live with so many people in one room, but considering all that, it’s a good bang for the buck.”

About Los Angeles, he’s not so sure. “It’s not like Ottawa. There’s more than one bus line, more than one phone book, more than one area code. And you need a car or you’re screwed. It’s pretty overwhelming.”

To help out its overwhelmed guests, the hostel sponsors field trips to TV tapings, a city tour and side trips to Disneyland, Las Vegas and Mexico, among other places. Next door to the hostel is the Travel Center where backpacks and rail passes are for sale. The Third Street Promenade is a block away, the ocean two blocks.

Unlike most American college graduates, young adults from other countries may travel for months or years once out of school. Rachel Darling, 23, a London native, spent a week of her 18-month holiday in Los Angeles. “We hit a lot of the pubs, which made me feel at home,” she says. “I’ve stayed in hostels all the way through, and this has been the best so far. It’s a palace compared to the European hostels. It’s really clean and you can stay here during the day.” (Many European hostels are off limits from morning until evening.)

“It’s a lot of fun here,” says Darling. “I met loads of people.”

Asked if she felt safe in Los Angeles, Darling says, “My parents were worried about me being in New York, but I’d say this place is a bit more dangerous. Santa Monica’s not bad, but other parts, like Hollywood. You just don’t feel safe.”

Ulrich Mueller, 30, of Berlin has had an L.A. moment, but is philosophical. “They broke in the trunk of my car,” he says. “But it’s the same problem in every town.”

Most of the hostel’s visitors head for Disneyland and Magic Mountain. Mueller, a photographer, opted for the native customs. “I went roller-blading in Venice and ate a hot dog,” he says. “And I was on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood on Halloween. It was great . . . something I never saw before.”