Ok, so you’re all a little bit broke, otherwise you’d hop a plane to Las Vegas or New York and relive Sex in the City with your three best friends.  That doesn’t mean you can’t have loads of girlie time and thrill in the fun of hanging out with your posse.  Here’s the secret – go to a local hostel!

Remember sleepovers when you were little?  Remember how you’d stay up all night, sleep in late, make breakfast and giggle all the time?  Remember how much fun they were?  Local hostels are GREAT places for grownup sleepovers.

Yes, you used hostels when you backpacked EuropWritee after you graduated college.  Perhaps you even used them when you studied abroad in South America during grad school.  You may have thought you out-grew such bohemian places once you got a steady paycheck and learned to enjoy the privacy of a hotel room.  It’s time to take another look at them.

Hostels have seen a revitalization recently, including more and more springing up right here in the United States as tourism to the US becomes more popular with foreign students.  So, choose a nice place, such as Huntington Beach, where there are good restaurants, things to do, and miles of beach and book one of the local hostels for you and your friends.  The benefit of hostelling with the girls is that its not only cheap, but it is also just fine to squabble over bunk beds, cook your own breakfast and walk around the entire establishment in your PJs.  It’s a chance to return to your younger days and enjoy giggling with your best buds.

* Thanks to jetzenpolis for the great photo of a Chicago hostel!

From guest blogger Marsha Takeda-Morrison of Sweatpantsmom

When I was asked to write about ideas for a three-day weekend, I panicked since we are a notoriously last-minute kind of family; planning ahead means calling the hotel from the parking lot to see if they have any vacancies.

So I decided to check the paper to see what everyone else was doing, and judging by the endless ads and inserts it was obvious how 99% of America would be spending their holiday – shopping. This was a great idea that involved minimum forethought, and another excellent way to help our economy! My husband wouldn’t be too thrilled, but neither was I when he made me camp in the rain that time, either. Besides, I get just as much joy from bringing home a new purse as I would from lugging back a piece of driftwood.

We’ll start off our weekend by heading out to the mother of all shopping malls, the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. Supposedly they have something like five million stores in there – I’ve heard that the owners don’t even know how many and when they’re done counting their bags of money at night they just go right back and build another store in the morning.

But first we’d have to eat, so we’ll stop at Coco Noche in Manhattan Beach, a wine and chocolate restaurant that serves excellent tapas dishes. We’d order the Korean beef served with lettuce leaves and their chicken sandwiches. My husband would still be fuming over the whole shopping thing, and would just down a couple of beers. Afterwards we would sample some chocolate – they have exotic ones like chili pepper and cinnamon.

When we got to the mall we’d first have to appease our two tween girls so our first stop would be Hot Topic. I would limit them to 30 minutes because to be perfectly honest that place scares the hell out of me – I’m always afraid I’ll come out of there and realize I’d gotten my tongue pierced and a skull tattooed on my stomach.

Next I would go to Bloomingdales and not come out for three hours.

After hours of spending my husband’s hard-earned cash we’d need to eat again and luckily food was nearby. I truly believe that next to stretch jeans, man’s greatest invention has got to be the Mall Food Court, where a family of four can eat tacos, baguettes and pizza all at the same meal. Next we’d head to our hotel, which I had just reserved three minutes earlier.

The next morning I’d be feeling sorry for my husband, so we’d head across the street to one of our favorite places in the city, Isamu Noguchi’s California Scenario. You wouldn’t expect to find a sculpture garden created by a world-class artist wedged between a Chili’s and FedEx office, but there it is. We’d wander around the cactuses and rocks and listen to the amazing silence in the middle of the city. I’d try to enjoy it and not think too much about that fajita pan I put on hold at Crate and Barrel.

On our way home we’d stop by Huntington Beach and sit out on the sand for awhile to count our receipts enjoy the sound of the waves. We’d all agree that it had been a great weekend – and while we were coming home poorer, we could all rest in easy in the thought that we looked stunning in our new clothes.

What are some ways you spend a three-day weekend? Are you a plan-ahead or a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of person?