Heyy! Your trip sounds great!
Contrary to what people may say, the USA has been my favourite place to travel so far. It is also home to my favourite hostel in the world!
Please google ‘USA Hostels’ this is a chain of hostels based in California. When I visited, I stayed in all 3 including Hollywood, San Diego and San Francisco. My favourite was Hollywood and still stands as my favourite hostel of all time! The places are great for meeting people so definitely check them out! They may have even branched out to having more than just 3 now and they have been voted best chain in the world last time I checked!
Not only those but try ‘Hostelling International’ these hostels are always safe and reliable for good locations. Whilst some of them aren’t as fun as smaller hostels you can rest assured that you know you’re going to have a bed to stay in somewhere central at a good price!
Definitely don’t let people talk you into thinking the USA isn’t a backpacking country because it definitely is! I miss it so much I’m planning to backpack the place again next year! I’ll be blogging about my journey from February 🙂
Hope this helps x