Well if it is your first time to Sydney, I’ve got a little bit of a hot tip. Now if you come into central station which is probably going to be one of your first stops in the day, find Foveaux Street. Walk straight up Foveaux and you’ll find this gem of a pub the Excelsior Hotel.

Now it’s one of my favorite places to come in Surrey Hills. But not only is it a pub with live music. It actually has some boutique hostel accommodations up the top. They call it Happy Chappy Travelers and it’s owned by three brothers and it’s boutique accommodations really cheap and a lot of travelers come here for long term or short term stay but I’m actually going to go and talk to Mark, one of the owners, and he is going to tell you all about it and show you through the accommodation. The Excelsior Hotel, perfect little spot, it’s got great outside drinks, great food and accommodation and it’s really central as well. Just a walk up from central station.

Okay. Let’s go talk to Jeff and find out all about Happy Chappy’s. okay. So what’s Happy Chappy’s in a nutshell. Happy Chappy’s in a nutshell is me and my brother mark, well more Mark, and Andrew. We are the Chapman’s. We bought the hotel two years ago. We had a hostel semi set up upstairs and we’ve also always wanted to have a name with our name in it and we’ve always wanted to go with Chappy or Chappo so we came up with Happy Chappy Travelers because we’ve always been called the Happy Chappy’s because we were always giggling and being stupid so we came up with Happy Chappy Travelers.

So it’s a good place to stop maybe when they are fist arriving in town because it is homely. It is a great stop over place and also a great sort of short to long term place. We have a lot that come here and stay a week. They’ll head up the coast and they’ll go can we book in; we’d really like to come back. We’re going to be working in Sydney and we get a lot of travelers staying 2-3 months at a time. They’ve got a full time job or they’re just working saving their cash to get traveling again.

Okay. So Happy Chappy Travelers, a bit of a mouthful but it sounds like a great place to stay. Let’s get a little bit more information on what can the travelers do once they’re here. They’ve set up base in Happy Chappy’s, what can you provide them? Which services? Well I’ve had a lot of years in the backpackers industry. I use to run a backpackers bar hence why we’re going with a hostel because I’ve been around the industry a fair while. I’ve got a lot of mates, a lot of contacts for the industry; just I can point you in the right direction. If you want to go up the coast, I can send you to the right person, book a trip, if you want to learn how to surf, some mates of mine own the best surf camp in Australia and they do 2 to 3 day surf camps and they’re good mates of mines. Actually one of the reps usually stays here when he is in town. So we’ve got that sort of facility as well and who doesn’t want to learn how to surf when you come to Australia. Exactly. It’s a must guys. There’s all that sort of stuff. You’ve got internet café down the street. You’ve got bars. You’ve got hostels. If you’re out looking for more of a party hostel, I can send you in the right direction. I’ve got friends that manage some of the bigger hostels. We all sort of work off of each other. When they fill up, they send me travelers and when I fill up, I send over to them. It’s a real tight community as far as the backpacking industry goes. If you tell me you want to get on the drink every night and meet 100 different Swedish girls, I can send you in the right direction. We’ve got that facility as well. It was almost like team Sweden here last year.

So who do you get staying? They’re probably a real broad demographic. We’ve had Swedish, English, American, Canadian, had a few Germans here, who else did I have? All over the place. Just from that a lot of their friends were traveling and there’s always the network of people traveling so we picked up a lot of people coming to stay where their friend is already checked in here and also people from up and down the coast from all different walks of life and part of the world.

What about working, I mean, do you take backpacks to work behind your bar? We do in the busier time. I had a few staff here. Well not actually staff, people that were staying upstairs, never worked in bars before and so I just said to them if you want I can teach you how to pour a beer. Which is great if you do want to work in bars up and down the coast I could imagine. You have to get a couple of certificates to work behind the bar in Australia. The responsive service of alcohol. So I would tell them where to go to get that and cost about - to get that. Once they’ve got that, I can put them behind the bar and show them how to pour a drink and if I’ve got work available, I can put them on as a staff member or at least get them started so they have some experience to go and find a job somewhere else.

How many people do you usually have staying or how many can you hold? We’ve got 35 beds. It’s quite a small hostel. That’s why we name it the home away from home because it’s a bit more intimate. Me and my brother are always here. We check everyone in and out. We look out for ourselves. It has a real feel of you guys actually looking after it not a massive hostel. Not a massive hostel. It’s small. It’s friendly. Like I said we know everyone that stays here. We don’t let anyone check in unless we’ve met them. If they have checked in and we haven’t met them, I’ll go knock on their door and say hi, how are you doing?

If they stay upstairs, is it loud or is it quiet? It’s a bit of both. A night the music can be a little louder upstairs but it’s finished at midnight every night, that’s usually just the weekends. During the week it’s pretty quiet around hill. Surrey Hills is a real eclectic part of Sydney. It’s a growing part of Sydney. You’ve got your trendy, alternative, all walks of life around here and it’s just on the city doorstep, like 5 minutes into town, 200 minutes from central station. It’s a bit of a hub of city now, Surrey Hills. There are bars, restaurants, cafes, hostels. Good place to start. Great place to start. You can get the train from the airport straight to Sydney and it is literally a 200 minute walk from central station.

Can they book on-line? You can book on-line. You can walk up, give us a call, shoot me an email. I take all the emails at Mchappy@HappyChappyTravelers. Bit of a tongue twister but it gets you here eventually. You can shoot me an email and I’ll send you a booking request form. You just send it back to me and I’ll lock you in.

How do we get to you? Where are you? What’s the address? We’re on Foveaux Street. 64 Foveaux Street. On our website there’s a little map there to get you here from central station and it’s literally the bottom of the hill. What is the website? www.happychappytravelers.com. It’s a bit long but if you go to Google and punch in Happy Chappy Travelers, it will pop up or the website for the Excelsior Hotel, we’ve got links for that as well. www.excelsiorhotel.com.au or www.happychappytravelers.com. So that’s basically Happy Chappy’s in a nutshell. Home away from home. I live upstairs amongst the backpackers as well so I operate the hotel and also the hostel.

What’s your favorite part of Sydney? As a local? As a local, well I’ve grown up here all my life and there’s never a dull moment in Sydney especially in the peak season. The nightlife just cranks and the weather is phenomenal for a long time. Good six months of summer. You can walk off the beach and walk into a bar. There are no dress regulations in every place you go to. You can walk in in your thongs and board shorts, thongs or flip flops, whichever you want to call it. Your thongs as well ladies. Don’t be shy to wear those.

This is the other Happy Chappy. Hi how are you doing? You’ll see the similarity on the caricature when you see it. But what’s your favorite part of Sydney? Pretty much Circular Key. It amazes me with all the lights and how the bridge lights up, the building lights, Opera bar, a great place to grab a drink or walk around and see the scenery. That’s probably one of my best places or Dying Harbor. Where’s your favorite bar? There’s too many. That’s the great thing about Sydney; you have so many great bars. What’s your favorite romantic thing to do? If you were a traveler and you’re looking to pick up some local. Probably Oyster Bar or Opera Bar. I’ve used that a couple of times. Good results. It’s good to like seafood so if you like seafood Opera Bar next to the opera house, looking at the bridge over the water. Guys you’d be doing well. Especially if you’re traveling on the pound, you’d be doing well.

We’re talking with Mark and Andrew of the Happy Chappy Travelers, owners and operators. Once you’ve checked in, this is your way in. This is the access for the hostel. As you know that’s me and Andrew, the Happy Chappy Travelers so you can’t miss the doorway. Electric code. Ignore that. We change it every week. We’re coming up. On the way up we’ve got some food specials every day. We have meals, dollar meals depending what’s on so you can get a nice steak or a curry or something depending on what your flavor is. Maybe not every night but we have got a full kitchen down there anyway so we’ve always got specials going for whatever it might be. Actually we’re due to start breakfast soon on the weekends so you can come in and have a brunch of all kinds of nice things. Another photo of us because we like to look at ourselves. There are two levels. There are three rooms down there. My room is down there so unless the place is burning down, you don’t knock on that one. We have bathrooms here. The next level goes up as well. Coming down is our common room. Our office which we are always usually around. A couple of photos of our last two Christmases here. You can see me and my brother and the drunken idiots that hand out with everyone. That was our first year, small group. To our second year, hostel and that was all the people who stayed here over Christmas Day. We had a big Christmas breakfast. Turkey, ham, croissants and all sorts of stuff. We always have a lot of fun.

Hey how are you? See all the homey things of Happy Chappy’s. Iron your shirt and get ready for a day’s work. We are just doing a little hi, how are you doing? Where are you from? Sweden. There you go. What did I say? Plenty of Swedish people. We’ve got plenty of stuff. Like I said the surf camp, learn to surf. Good mates of mine that run that. The package is there. It’s 2 to 3 day surf camps. If you grab one of those, it’s a toll free number when you get here give them a call. There are all sorts of other stuff. Blue Mountain trips. There’s a box of wine there as you can see. We all enjoy a drink. Plenty of books to read. Guides and just our common room full of DVDs and movies you can help yourself to. There are a few remnants of last night, the red bulls and spirit glasses, everyone enjoys a drink. This is generally the area where everyone hangs out, has dinner and does their thing, meets every one. We did have TVs in all the rooms but we took them out. So everyone comes in here and socializes. If you’re traveling alone or as two people, you’re guaranteed to meet someone else. That’s the idea at Happy Chappys. We don’t want anyone to be sitting around on your own at all. Once you’re here, you’re almost expected to meet everyone else and so we make sure that usually happens. I’ll show you around the rest of the place. I’ll show you upstairs. Hopefully the guys have cleaned up after themselves after breakfast this morning and I’ll show you the kitchen area. There are two levels. There are 35 beds. It’s a night or 0 a week, which is pretty cheap for the area. Got some more guests coming down now. This is Sandra from Sweden. She’s been here for quite a few months. She was here over Christmas. You’re from Sweden? Yeah. How long you been here for? 2 ½ months. What do you think of Happy Chappy Travelers? It’s awesome. I’ll buy you a beer later. So that’s two Swedish out of 35. Probably more still sleeping because they’ve been out at the pubs all night.

Five rooms up here. This is the corridor. There are four rooms along there. There’s also another one out here. There’s supposed to be 4 to a room. There’s one room with 6 beds in it. Most of the rooms have 4 beds in the room. Like I said it is a night or 0 a week. We don’t change those prices all year round. We keep a level price. A lot of hostels price are up 4 times the price over New Years and Christmas. We keep ours level. We’d rather have a lot of happy people here with plenty of money to spend on the good times in Sydney. We don’t want to fleece you too much. There are plenty of other facilities to spend your money on that way.

There are a few, some rules and regulations. If you use it, clean it. If you dirty it, clean it. If you break it, report it. If you’re happy, smile. Probably a few of our little things. Here we go another little part of the hostel some dirty washing but we’ve got washers and dryers. We got kitchen facilities here. Pretty basic but enough for you to cook your own food. Means you don’t have to blow your budget and eat out every night or you can just hang out, make your own dinner and sit down in the common room, have a chat and watch a movie.

Okay guys. We’re back outside. That was a little tour of the hostel. That’s Happy Chappy’s. Don’t forget you can find us on the web at www.excelsiorhotel.com.au or www.happychappytravelers.com. That’s me and my brother that you met before. We’re idiots. We have a good time. We love showing off our city and we love showing off our hostel and welcoming anybody through our doors and so if this is what you’re after, come along, give us a call or send us an email or if you’re after something different we can always point you in the right direction. We’d love to help you out. We’d love to meet you and hopefully we’ll see you in Sydney soon.

After all of my traveling, I could definitely say this is probably the best hostel I’ve ever been in. Welcome to Wake Up Sydney. Now this is a 6 story, 550 bed hostel located in the center of Sydney and it is nothing short of fantastic. It has every room you could possible want whether you’re traveling with a thousand friends or you’re just traveling with your boyfriend or girlfriend or you just want to sleep by yourself. It goes up to 10 bed dorms all of course ranging at different prices. Immaculately designed. Immaculately cleaned. Very bright and colorful. The best thing about this hostel, I think, is the fact that the security is fantastic. So each guest is given a landin with a key card on it. You can’t actually get to your room or floor without the key card so you absolutely feel 100% save and there’s lockers in the room for all of your valuables.

So Wake Up aims to be a one stop shop hostel and guys they’ve done a really good job of it. They’ve got a cash machine. They’ve got a travel desk so you can book all of your travel around the rest of Australia. They’ve got a hook up area which is where you can do your internet. They’ve also got wireless uncase you brought your laptop. There’s a bar downstairs. There’s a café outside. There’s a kitchen. There are laundries on every floor. There are bathrooms on every floor. There’s payphones on every floor. Anything you can think of, Wake Up has definitely thought of it first.

Another great thing about Wake Up apart from all the other stuff I just listed is their chill out areas. They have seriously designed chill out areas so you can just pass out at any time of the day or night. This one is down here in reception and they have DVDs playing until eleven o’clock at night. There’s also one on level one where you can play your own DVDs so if you’ve gone through Thailand and you have heaps that you want to watch, they’ll hook you up.

Wednesday mornings 10:00 they have an orientation walk through the city so meet here in reception and they’ll take you through Sydney city on an orientation walk which will help you familiarize yourself with the area you’re staying in. They’ve also got an activities desk so any activity you want to do surfing, rock climbing, bungee jumping, bridge walks, they’ll help you organize that as well.

Meet Emily. Emily is the Wake Up activities coordinator and I went down to have a chat with her and find out what it means to be the activities coordinator, why she loves Wake Up and why she thinks you guys will love Wake Up too. As the activities coordinator, I basically I do orientation walks which basically I walk around the city and I show them the main sites, tell them the history of the things. I also do, could you go on my walk? We meet in reception at 11:00, the city orientation walk; we head straight down the street to Chinatown first so we basically do Patty’s markets, on Dixon Street which is like Chinatown up there. We then move on to Dolly Harbor, look at Dolly Harbor a lot. The Piedmont Bridge and make our way up to the Queen Victoria building, go through there to Pitt Street wall, come down to Circular Key and basically head back. We have lunch there at Circular Key, which is a lot of fun overlooking the opera house and the bridge and then we head back up through Botanical Gardens. The walk is free. You do have to buy your lunch and on the Kudamangi walk you have to do your bus fare and lunch and anything else you might want but it’s a free tour.

I love Wake Up because it is just so much fun. The worse thing is I leave all the time. It gets kind of upsetting but just the people, the place; it’s a really good atmosphere. It’s a fun, friendly environment. You have the bar downstairs so a lot of people head down there. It’s easy going. It’s fresh, fun, modern.

It can help you with trips. Obviously domestic trips. So anywhere in Australia they can help you with. Sky diving, bungee jumping, all of those extreme sports that you want to do. They also do, Ellie is amazing, Ellie and Josh, they’re there at the moment. They can do a plan up. They actually have a kind of like calendar and they can sit down and plan your trick start to end. It’s really good.

You’re like headed on the point. The tip of Pitt and Judge Street. Right across from central station. The airport we actually run a shuttle bus service KST, Kingston Smith Transfers, it is each way for the transfer and you can get it to the hostel and you can actually get it from the hostel as well. It leaves as 20 pass the hour and 5 to the hour.

They can book over hostel well, hostel bookers, any travel agent; they can do it through STA. They can also do it through our website www.wakeup.com. They can also come in. They can book by the phone.

The staff is amazing. They should know that because they really are. Can’t get better staff. They are so much fun. The other day we got compared to conga bar and three best bars the conga, the ivy and side bar so we were like yes.

Alright so some of you guys might not know that finding a fully furnished apartment in Sydney really isn’t that easy. They just don’t come with furniture and you’re probably not wanting to outlay a lot of money to furnish an apartment because you don’t know how long you’re going to be here if you’re traveling, etc, etc. But don’t worry we have got the best solution for you. There’s a company called Furnished Property Group and guess what? They furnish property to be rented to you guys, travelers. So today I’m running around with Reese, one of the owners of the Furnished Property Group and he’s going to show the different properties he has fully furnished that he can offer travelers. Now he’s full of really handy hints for you guys coming over but we do have on our website a list of things you should look out for when you’re renting property in Sydney so absolute must that you check out what to do and what not to do and definitely what to watch out for but enjoy because there are some really awesome properties that we are going to go and see today.

The Furnished Property Group is a specialist real estate agency for working travelers, international students and young budge corporate people as well. The business started out in Bondi with one property and the real estate agency has grown now to manage properties in about 14 different suburbs, all within 10 kilometers of the CBD so there’s lots of furnished apartments, guest houses in Bondi Beach and we go as far as Annandale in the west and Sydney central, Surrey Hills, Dalinghurst as well.

Welcome to Bondi Beach. This is a specialized guest house for people from overseas on working holiday visas and it’s the only place that we know of in Bondi Beach that can be rented for periods of one month or longer in the guest house format. As you can see it is right across from the beach so you’ve got a great opportunity to wake up and go for a morning surf no matter what day or what time of the year. The property has got 17 guest rooms. There’s a manager in the place. There’s a common room with a flat screen TV, free internet, obviously an amazing balcony which I’m sitting on at the moment, kitchen facilities and women’s and men’s bathrooms as well. Burrito shop down underneath if you came for a burrito and there’s an outdoor gym also opposite the beach. So if you stay at this place, you’re very lucky. It’s one of a kind and we hope you have a great stay.

So another great thing that the Furnished Property Group does is take you guys around in their fans to show you the properties before you sign up. Like it’s pretty important to see where you guys are going to live and these guys do that in these fun looking vans. Now we obviously had a look at the Bondi property but they’ll take you wherever you want to go. You just have to go to their office and tell them what apartment you’re interested in.

So the real estate agency provides a whole range of apartments from small guest houses up to large guest houses. We provide all sorts of furnished apartments as well. One bedroom apartments, studio apartments, two, three, four bedroom, terrace houses as well and we’ve got facilities that are totally dedicated to our specialist market which are people from overseas coming to stay anywhere from one to twelve months and they’re looking for a furnished accommodation. Some of them might want to meet someone in one of our buildings or people can seek independent accommodation as well. So it’s a great opportunity through the company to meet people or find your own independent space for any period from one month up to twelve months and we’ll try to help you every step of the way.

Hi guys. This is one of our up market three bedroom apartments. Perfect for a group of three, four, five or six who know each other, who are looking for their own independent accommodation. It has three bedrooms, three bathrooms and nothing has been left out. There are paintings, lounges, rugs, DVDs, TVs, all the kitchen equipment that you could need as well so you can move straight in to this apartment and move out without any hassles. It is fully furnished. People have a great stay here. We are located in Edgecliff which is about 5 minutes on the train into the CBD and about 10 minutes from Bondi Beach. So it’s a perfect mix of the beach lifestyle and easy access into the CBD.

Hi guys. We are at Park Lodge guesthouse. This is a large guesthouse but we very much look at this one as independent accommodation. It’s got 23 bedrooms but each room has its own bathroom, with its own TV and small living space as well. This is a great place if you want independent accommodation but you also want to meet people in a social atmosphere. It’s got some really nice house managers. It’s got free internet in the common room as well, kitchen facilities, an outdoor area and laundry facilities as well. We are a k and ½, about 1 ½ kilometers from the middle of the city so you can walk basically into work or you can catch a bus up the street as well. We are about 20 minutes Bondi so easy if you want to go down to the beach on the weekend and go for a swim. It’s a really popular destination and this is one of the most popular buildings in our portfolio.

Hi guys. We are in the outdoor area of the Park Lodge guesthouse. It has been described as a bit of a garden oasis. It’s a great place for people to come down, meet other people living in the building from all over the world. There’s a barbecue down here as well. People come down here at night after work to unwind, enjoy their time, have a beer, meet some other people who have been out for the day, catch up on old times and just enjoy being in this beautiful surrounding.

So here we are in one of the guestrooms of the Park Lodge guesthouse. As you can see it’s a caricature guesthouse. Has a nice Victorian feel to it. Feels like you’re staying over at your mom and dads for the weekend. Nice bathroom in this bedroom, nice king size bed. Be great for a couple staying in Sydney for a couple of months and again it’s a great opportunity to enjoy your independent space in here and then go down and meet people in the common areas. Park Lodge guesthouse is always been a winner with our tenants.

So the Furnished Property Group was built purely for the working traveler and the student market and for the budge corporate market as well. So every step of the way, every move that we’ve made has been all about trying to help the customers and get the best possible accommodation. We offer free transfer vans to go around and look at accommodation. We give people flexible lease terms as well to make sure they’re happy in their accommodation building as well. All their furniture is provided in the apartments so there’s no need to go out and buy anything for the building. People can come in, they can move, they can enjoy the flexibility of a furnished apartment and they can transfer within the company as well.

Welcome to our Wentworth Park range of furnished apartments. These are our executive style apartments perfect for couples or groups of friends from all markets stay in Sydney. We’re in Wentworth Park which is about 10 minutes north of the center of Sydney so perfect for any of you guys working in the city looking for a nice top end apartment to enjoy their stay in Sydney.

When it comes to furnishing these apartments, no expense has been spared. Over ,000 has actually been spent on these one bedroom apartments on the lay out. There’s flat screen TVs, stainless steel appliances, commercial quality lounges, coffee tables, dining tables, chairs, and excellent quality beds. There’s 1 ½ bathrooms in the one bedroom apartments and 2 ½ bathrooms in the two bedroom apartments. There’s parking below the building as well and as I said it is only a short walk up to Glebe, where you’ve got shops, cafes, movie cinema and restaurants which is very popular for people visiting Sydney.

So the way it works is many people stay in a hostel or private hotel and then they decide they want to stay a longer period in Sydney so they find our company through word of mouth, finding out through friends or in print media on the internet and they come in and visit our office which is located on Pitt Street in Sydney central, book a private inspection with one of our leasing consultants and go around and see a large range of furnished apartments and shared accommodation options. So it’s a great service if you want to get out of paying for a hostel and staying in a short term place and get yourself a longer term apartment or guesthouse where you can do your own cooking, do your own cleaning and have a great time enjoying the side of Sydney that more of the locals get to see just as you can see down here on Bondi Beach.