Hotels

Although it's unlikely you'll find the city's hotels completely booked if you turn up looking for a bed for the night, it's probably wise to reserve rooms in advance.

Deciding Where to Stay

The best location for lodging in Sydney is in The Rocks and around Circular Quay -- a short stroll from the Sydney Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the Royal Botanic Gardens, and the ferry terminals.

Hotels around Darling Harbour offer good access to the local facilities, including museums, the Sydney Aquarium, and the Star City casino. Most Darling Harbour hotels are a 10- to 15-minute walk, or a short monorail or light rail trip, from Town Hall and the central shopping district in and around Sydney Tower and Pitt Street Mall.

Another way to hunt for discounted hotel rooms is through an independent hotel search site. The two most popular are www.lastminute.com.au and www.wotif.com. Lastminute allows you to check prices of various room categories at least a month in advance. Wotif allows you to search for a room up to 14 days in the future. Hotels also provide both sites with special deals for rooms for the next couple of days.

More hotels are grouped around Kings Cross, Sydney's red-light district. Some of the hotels here are among the city's best, and you'll also find a range of cheaper lodgings, including several backpacker hostels. Kings Cross can be unnerving at any time, but especially on Friday and Saturday nights when the area's strip joints and nightclubs are jumping. Staying here does have its advantages: You get a real inner-city feel, and it's close to excellent restaurants and cafes around the Kings Cross, Darlinghurst, and Oxford Street areas.

Glebe, with its ethnic restaurants, is another inner-city suburb popular with tourists. It's well served by local buses.

If you want to stay near the beach, check out the options in Manly and Bondi, though you should consider their distance from the city center and the lack of CityRail trains to these areas. A taxi to Manly from the city will cost around A$37 (US$29/UK£15) and to Bondi around A$28 (US$22/UK£11).

Homes Away from Home -- Medina, the company behind the Medina Grand, Harbourside, operates several other serviced-apartment complexes in Sydney. They include the Medina Executive, Sydney Central (tel. 02/8396 9800), in a historic building near Central Station; the pleasant Medina Classic in Martin Place (tel. 02/9224 6400); coastal Medina Executive, near Coogee Beach (tel. 02/9578 6000); and the AAA-rated five-star Medina Grand, Sydney (tel. 02/9274 0000), between Town Hall and Darling Harbour. Check the website (www.medinaapartments.com.au) for prices and details about these highly recommended properties. Rates range from A$165 to A$488 (US$132-US$390/UK£66-UK£195), with many prices and combinations in between.

Making a Deal

The prices given for very expensive and expensive hotels are mostly the rack rates, the recommended retail price, which guests can pay at the busiest periods if they book at short notice or walk in off the street. Always ask about discounts, package deals, and any other special offerings when booking a hotel, especially if you are traveling in winter when hotels are less likely to be full. Ask about weekend discounts, corporate rates, and family plans.

Booking direct through a hotel's website can also yield savings. For instance, a search of the website for Accor, a company that manages 31 quality hotels in and around Sydney, shows that you could save up to 50% of the rack rate. A double room at the four-star Mercure Hotel Sydney on Broadway, for example, can cost A$157 (US$125/UK£62), including breakfast. The rack rate is A$220 (US$176/UK£88) a night. A night at the four-star All Seasons Premier Menzies Hotel, near Wynyard, costs A$148 (US$118/UK£60) for a double room, including breakfast. The rack rate is A$300 (US$240/UK£120). On the Accor website (www.accorhotels.com.au), you can check rates months in advance.

Serviced apartments are also well worth considering because you can save a bundle by cooking your own meals; many also have free laundry facilities. We offer a couple of choices. Almost all hotels offer nonsmoking rooms; inquire when you make a reservation if it's important to you. Most moderately priced to very expensive rooms will have tea- and coffee-making facilities and an iron. Like hotels elsewhere, some of Sydney's lodgings are in on the increasing trend to rip off guests with pay-per-view movie channels (around A$16/US$13/UK£6.40 per movie), rather than to provide full access to a range of free cable TV channels.

By the way, coffeemakers as such are rare in Australian hotels, and where listed they generally refer to tea- and coffee-making facilities (such as tea bags, instant coffee, small plastic milk cartons, and a kettle).

The price categories used are as follows: Very Expensive, A$300 (US$240/UK£120) and up; Expensive, A$200 to A$300 (US$160-US$240/UK£80-UK£120); Moderate, A$100 to A$200 (US$80-US$160/UK£40-UK£80); Inexpensive, below A$100 (US$80/UK£40). Prices are for a double. In Australia, a "double" room means you get one double, queen-size, or king-size bed in a room.

Last-Minute Room Deals -- If you turn up in town without a reservation, you should definitely use the Sydney Visitors Centre bookings desk (tel. 02/9667 6050), in the arrivals hall of the airport's International Terminal. It negotiates deals with many of Sydney's hotels (but not hostels) and offers exceptional discounts on rooms that haven't been filled that day. You can save up to 50%. The desk is open from 6am to the last flight of the day. It also offers discounts on tours (to the Blue Mountains, for example) and cheap tickets for flights within Australia.

Neighborhoods

In Bondi -- Bondi Beach is a good place to stay if you want to be close to the surf and sand, though if you're getting around by public transport you'll need to catch a bus to Bondi Junction, then a train to the city center. (You can stay on the bus all the way, but it takes forever.)

There are two good backpacker hostels. Surfside Backpackers, 35a Hall St. (tel. 02/9365 4900; www.surfsidebackpackers.com.au), offers four- to eight-person dorm rooms for A$18 (US$14/UK£7) in winter and A$22 (US$18/UK£9) in summer, and double rooms in a separate building opposite North Bondi Surf Club for the same price per person. Noah's, 2 Campbell Parade (tel. 02/9365 7100), has a great ambience and offers modern four- to eight-person dorm rooms for A$24 to A$25 (US$19-US$20/UK£9.50-UK£10) as well as doubles for A$55 (US$44/UK£22) and beach doubles for A$65 (US$52/UK£26). Weekly rates range from A$144 to A$330 (US$115-US$264/UK£57-UK£132).

In Manly -- If you decide to stay in my favorite beachside suburb, be aware that ferries from the city stop running at midnight. If you get stranded, you'll be facing an expensive taxi ride (around A$40/US$32/UK£16), or you'll need to make your way to the bus stand behind Wynyard CityRail station to catch a night bus. Consider buying a multiple-ride ticket, which will save you a bit of money if you're staying in Manly for a few days.

Manly has several backpacker places that are worth checking out. The best is Manly Backpackers Beachside, 28 Ragland St. (tel. 02/9977 3411; fax 02/9977 4379; www.manlybackpackers.com.au), which offers dorm beds from A$22 to A$27 (US$18-US$21/UK£9-UK£11), double from A$52 to A$62 (US$42-US$49/UK£21-UK£25). The hostel charges a A$30 (US$24/UK£12) key deposit.