Where to Sleep Cheap This Year Down Under

Because of a great influx of young visitors arriving Down Under this year, what with Australia celebrating its bicentennial and World Expo 88, extra youth accommodations have been opened in Sydney.

The new Coogee holiday hostel is in an eastern suburb near the Maroubra and Coogee surfing beaches.

This hostel is more flexible than most in the international network. It has no evening curfew, you can be a guest for up to three weeks, it’s open to international travelers of any age, and single and twin rooms are available at $10 Australian (about $7.25 U.S.) per person a night, or $60 Australian ($44 U.S.) per person a week. Guests also have cooking facilities and free parking.

Wise to Call First

The hostel is at 102 Moverly Road, Coogee. To get there from downtown Sydney, take bus No. 376 or 377. It’s always wise to call ahead and check for space.

Alternative youth hostels in the Sydney area include:

Dulwich Hill Hostel at 407 Marrickville Road, six kilometers from Central Station. There is dormitory lodging for 130 people at $11 Australian per person a night.

Glebe Hostel at 262-264 Glebe Point Road, close to the city center. Twin rooms at $13 per person a night. Forest Lodge Hostel is near Sydney University at 28 Ross St. It’s near the main railway station and is $10 per person a night.

If you are heading to the other side of Australia you can find a new and unusual train hostel in Northam, Western Australia. The hostel association there has restored a 19th-Century railway carriage. The sleeper car hostel has four single beds in separate compartments, plus a kitchen, dining room and common areas.

You probably won’t find this in your guidebooks yet, but Australia also has new youth hostels in Kakadu National Park (that’s “Crocodile Dundee” country, up in the Northern Territory) and at Coolangatta on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

Offices Worldwide

In the 1960s the Australian Union of Students started its own travel agency, Student Travel Australia, to assist young Australians heading off on low-budget world tours. Over the years the agency evolved into STA Travel, with offices in North America, Britain, New Zealand and Asia.

If you need advice on budget travel Down Under, you can find STA offices in Melbourne, Brisbane, Townsville, Perth, Canberra, Adelaide, and in Sydney at 1-A Lee St., Railway Square.

STA offers an extensive network of fares between all major Asian cities. An advantage with these fares is that there is no minimum cancellation charge.

Examples of recent fares: Hong Kong to Tokyo, $230 U.S.; Hong Kong to Shanghai, $150; Hong Kong to Bangkok, $125; Bangkok to Rangoon, $90; Katmandu to Calcutta, $120; Katmandu to Rangoon, $190, and Denpasar to Singapore, $200.

In Bangkok you can find an STA office at the Thai Hotel, 78 Prachatipatai Road. In Singapore the STA is at 2-17 Ming Court Hotel, Tanglin Road. The STA in Tokyo is on the fifth floor of the Sanden Building, 3-5-5 Kojimachi, Chiyoda-ku.

In cities such as Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Manila, the STA does not have its own office, but instead works cooperatively with other student travel agencies. You can buy the tickets, but making changes can be difficult.

There are also 14 STA offices in the United States, including the Student Travel Network at 2500 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 507, Los Angeles 90057; (213) 380-2184.