Over a big mahogany table in the open kitchen, five young Brazilians in green and yellow soccer jerseys and sweats scarfed packaged blueberry muffins while perusing their e-mail on a laptop.

In the adjoining living room, a sleepy-eyed Aussie curls up in bare feet on a slumpy old sofa while getting the latest dish on Hillary and Barack from CNN.

Jenni Girtman/AJC (ENLARGE)

Xavier University students Colette Ryan (clockwise from top), Sarah Virkler and Molly O'Malley, who came down from Cincinnati for a spring-break service project, relax in their dorm-style room last Monday. The hostel is also popular with young foreign travelers.

Jenni Girtman/AJC (ENLARGE)

Vanessa Funfsinn (from left), Annah Feinberg and Huiyuan Qiu have dinner in the hostel's common living room. Manager Joseph Jones describes hostelers as 'big-eyed kids, being open to the world,' and paying about $23 a night for the experience.

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Over at the front desk, a couple of Japanese strapped to their backpacks are checking out, heading off to who knows where.

An older American expat visiting from Germany takes in the scene at the Atlanta International Hostel and smiles approvingly.

"It's really an extension of America," says Dennis Taylor, 63, digging into his bowl of yogurt and fruit. "After all, we're a country of immigrants, aren't we?"

Since it opened in 1991, the family-owned 50-bed retreat on Ponce de Leon Avenue, metro Atlanta's only hostel, has been the melting pot of Midtown, a gathering spot for travelers from nations around the world.

The hostel is housed in an architectural grand dame that was built in 1906 and served as a bordello through the 1950s. More recently known as the Woodruff Inn, the three-story structure features a grand stairway, fireplaces and porches overlooking Ponce.

It exudes a worn but welcoming spirit to the weariest of wanderers.

"In the course of a month you'll have somebody from every continent here, easily," said Joseph Jones, who manages the business, started and owned by his father, Doug.

On this day, some Italians, a South Korean and an African are among the guests. At other times of the year, American travelers, in town to do volunteer work, take a college class or look for a job, fill most of the beds.

The hostel, Joseph Jones said, is a place for people who don't want to stay in a hotel, or can't afford to. But the hostel experience is about more than its $22.95-a-bed nightly rate.

"True hostelers are always really good spirits," Jones said. "They're big-eyed kids, having fun, being open to the world. You don't have any negativity in the house."

Hosteling has always been a special experience, one that emphasizes camaraderie over pure commerce, the good of the group over the solitude of the self. Hostels are a fixture abroad, particularly in Europe, but while they've become more popular in the United States, they've never had mass acceptance in America. For no good reason, hostelers say.

At the Atlanta International, the setting is as homey as can be, given the public nature of its mostly dorm room accommodations (a few private rooms are available) and the unfamiliarity of travelers with each other.

Then again, that unfamiliarity is a pretty good starting point for conversation which, at a hostel, naturally is all about the journey.

"Where've you been, where are you going — that's what people want to know," said Leila Taylor, the 23-year-old Australian with her toes in the couch.

"What's your name, what do you do ... that's irrelevant," she added. "Status doesn't matter when you're traveling."

On a recent rainy weekday morning, the talk wound back to America and Americans, as it invariably does: the size of our sodas, the way men call out to women on the street here, our government.

"They love to talk about our politics, the president," Jones observed. Usually, he said, the discussion is friendly, or at least civil, although sometimes he must step in to make sure things don't get unpleasant.

Usually, that's not the case. Good feeling and a live-and-let-live ethos pervade.

Too, there are better things to do. So even the most jet-lagged hostelers tend to get an early start to the day.

The exit their bunks (typically six to a room, coed or single-sex, take your pick), spiff up in the communal bath, stuff the MP3, laptop and iPod in a locker, then grab their packs and head downstairs for the free muffins and coffee.

On the way out, they pick up an Atlanta map that Jones has highlighted. From there, they might walk the eight blocks to Piedmont Park where they'll rent a bike and share lunch with fellow hostelers, or take in a tourist attraction such as the World of Coca-Cola. Jones clues them in to spots like Little Five Points and Virginia-Highland, figuring the mostly younger crowd will find those of more interest.

After a day in the city, hostelers return, possibly for some pasta that they buy at the Publix and prepare in the community kitchen. Then they head out for a beer or two at one of the neighborhood taverns. Later, there might be a game of pool, some more conversation and a little TV watching.

And then it's time for bed.

Tom Van De Waterbeemd, a 26-year-old high school teacher from Australia who was in the middle of a three-month, cross-country tour, called his Atlanta sightseeing "basically stereotypical: World of Coke, [Georgia] Aquarium, the Martin Luther King exhibit.

"It's taken me a long time to get over here," he said, "but it's hard to get the feel of a city when you're only in it for three or four days."

Some visitors veer off into the slightly more adventurous. The Brazilians, for example, were going to an Atlanta Hawks basketball game.

"In America you should do something American," reasoned Fausto Curade.

He and his mates were taking a brief break in Atlanta from their temporary jobs working at a Cherokee Indian reservation casino in North Carolina. Their work/travel trip, arranged through the university they attend in Brazil, will last two months, after which they head back home and to school.

As they sat with their muffins and coffee, fellow hostelers were coming from and going to somewhere else: from Niagara Falls, New York and Memphis; to Orlando, Las Vegas and California.

And at the Atlanta International, others take their place.