hello there everyone<BR>Just wondering a good area to stay in a hostel ...<BR>For Brisbane and sydney.<BR>Could you help me out .<BR>Please and thankyou..<BR>Barbiegirl....Coming to visit Oct/Nov/02

In Brisbane stay at the Stamford Plaza ( used to be caled the Heritage Hotel) it has a lovely position, history and charm. <BR>I will leave the Sydney experts to suggest hotels there.

In Sydney, the best hostel, by a mile, would have to be the Central Station Youth hostel. It's big, it's right at the Sydney terminal Station AND the interstate coach station, and it is in a restored building which looks very inviting. If, when you get there, you find they can't give you the room you want at the price you want to pay, there are several other cheaper but less-inviting looking hostels within a 500-metre radius, so you will have no trouble finding a room.<BR>If you are looking for a hostel merely to save money, you should know that there are a couple of hotels around which charge hostel-type prices. A few months ago, the Duke of Cornwall, in Harris Street (near Chinatown, Darling Harbour, and the Powerhouse Museum) sported a sign out the front offering rooms for $200 a week. Don't expect it to be too fancy at that price, though... it is basically a drinkers' pub with about a dozen rooms upstairs. A little more expensive, but in a honey of a position within a block of just about everything you will need, is the Criterion, on the corner of Pitt and Park. A nice art-deco building, share bath, rooms $55 single, $66 double. It even has a website, so a google search would allow you to look before you buy. Since all these prices are Australian dollars, you will see that it's not hard to live cheaply in Sydney if you bring US dollars with you.

I am not having a good time reading posts this morning. I didn't read *hostel* and so my suggestion about Brisbane is out of order as its a hotel and not a hostel. Sorry I don't know about hostels in Brisbane.

You might be better served to go to the australian and new zealand message board at www.lonelyplanet.com<BR>LOts of talk about hostels there.