One night last spring I was in a car with friends on the Pacific Coast Highway being driven from Los Angeles to San Francisco. I had fallen asleep but was woken by someone telling me we had arrived at our stopover.

When we got out, all of us fell silent, overwhelmed by the moment – the big waves crashing on to the shore and the sky packed with thousands of stars. Another peaceful source of light towered before us – the Pigeon Point lighthouse.

The lighthouse is on the southern approach to San Francisco Bay and was built in 1871. It is now a largely decorative part of a cheap, worn hostel, and if you saw the interiors only I doubt that you would make a reservation. But arriving in the dark and seeing only the beaming light, the beauty of it really hits you, as it does again in the morning when the Pacific Ocean welcomes you to a new day.

There’s a hot tub with a magnificent view that you can use for just a few dollars – though we enjoyed it for free because we’d arrived really late and no other guests had booked it.

Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to go inside the lighthouse. It has been closed to the public since 2001 because of structural concerns, though there are plans to restore and open it again.

The hostel doesn’t offer any restaurants or grocery stores, but guests can prepare their own food in a self-service kitchen, which is a nice way to get to know other guests.

I’ll keep this memory in my heart and I really recommend the place. Just make sure you fall asleep right before your arrival and it’s late at night.

• Dorm beds from $26 (children $13), private double rooms from $78, hot tub from $8pp, norcalhostels.org/pigeon. Frida Sundemo stars in the upcoming film Kill Your Friends. Her new single Heroes appears on the film’s soundtrack, released on 6 November