Stayed 2 nights at the green tortoise hostel and it was a good experience overall
First off; the security here is very very very good. so my sister and I felt very safe. The location is amazing; lots of bars, restaurants and public transportation so you will never run out of things to do. Place isn't that clean; but then again you're staying at a hostel and not a hotel. You need to share bathrooms which is the downside since one morning I had to wait 10 minutes until a bathroom got freed up because people were taking their time in the shower.
We shared a bedroom with 3 other girls and our room was on the main street so at night if you left your windows open; you hear a lot of outside noise (and since its beside bars; you will hear people late at night or even all night)
there's lock safes inside the bedroom too which was nice to know that your luggage is safe at any time.

Overall; good experience; would definitely go back if ever i would visit San Francisco and stayed on a budget.
but remember its a hostel and not a hotel; so you get what you pay for~

The green tortoise hostel in deninately one of the best hostels that I have stayed in .

I finished up one the Green Tortoise road trips and I had previously hear that this place was a good hostel.

As with all hostels you are sharing rooms with other people. For me the bed were comfortable which you dont ofter get in hostels. I was staying in a dorm room with five others. If you are looking for a private room there are some available aswell. I would have no quams about going here with my girl friend as this is the kind of place that you will meet loads of like minded travelers.

The people who work in here are pretty helpful. They will help you get organised for any trip that you want and even suggest some places. They really found us a good deal for some bike hire. I cannot remember the name of the company they suggested but they were great value.

The hostel has a great lounge room which has fooz ball table and guitars dotted around the room for any Ben harper wanna be's.

The hostel organise some food trips to some resturants in the local area. All in all this is a cracking hostel and it is well worth the visit :-)

If you want to do the hostel a little favour, dont book through hostelworld as they take a very large cut. Email them directly.

The hostel is large and has plenty of rooms. We visited in a busy period in SF coinciding with a large conference. Consequently there were lots of people looking for places to stay and I found the hostel staff to be very accommodating. The facilities are good here with a big lounge area to meet up with people and eat. Breakfast is served here and it's good. Bagels, fruit, drinks and plenty of eggs to cook your own. The kitchen is well equipped and they have a chef that looks after things and cooks dinners 3 times a week. We had 2 of these and they were amazing...and free! We helped the chef cook on one of these days and he's such a nice guy and pretty talented in the kitchen too. Definitely recommend the dinners! Wifi was available in most parts of the hostel along with free terminals for accessing the internet. They have a tour desk, although we didn't use it, lots of people did whilst we were there. We had an 8 bed dorm which was big enough and had large lockers under each bunk bed for your large and small bags. This kept the floor space free and made the room feel bigger. Plug sockets and personal lights on each bunk too which is always good for charging your phone at night for example. The only downside I felt was that there weren't enough toilets and showers for the number of people staying there. On our floor we had 4 toilet/showers so in the morning there was a queue outside each one. The fact that the toilet and shower are together means you get larger queues too because some people just want to nip to the toilet but have to wait for someone who's showering. That's a minor thing though and it certainly wouldn't stop me staying there again!

Location: perfect! We stayed four night, never used a taxi or bus to get to all the SF highlights. Private room is small but if you want more space go to the common room which is called the ballroom, its huge. Never had to wait to take a shower, everything clean. Great value for money!