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3 week transportation options

Hi there,

I am planning to be in London for 3 weeks in August with my girlfriend. We will then take the train from London to Edinburgh and drive from there. My question is - what is the best option for train travel? I have got a bit overwhelmed but what I was thinking of purchasing the under 25 rail card and then purchasing the regular oyster card and using that.

Would this be the best option or should I look into the week long travel passes? Let me know if there's anything else I'm missing.

Thank you and sorry if this is a common question!

Posted by
27111 posts

The Oyster Card is for travel in and around London; it's not something you'll use to get to Edinburgh.

The under-25 rail card may help you, or not, depending on the mathematics. Rail fares in Great Britain are among the highest in Europe if you just waltz into a train station and say, "I want to go to Edinburgh today." If you buy your tickets way ahead of time and there are bargain-priced "Advance" tickets still available, you will pay much less--maybe so much less that the cost of your under-25 rail cards would be higher than the discount they provide. However, those "Advance"-fare tickets will be for a specific train (date and time), so you need to be sure the trip is going to come to fruition on the schedule you anticipate.

What you need to do is go to the website nationalrail.co.uk and check the fares to Edinburgh for today/tomorrow and again for as close to your travel date as you can get, which I think is going to be some date in June. It's best to choose the same day of the week as the day you hope to travel, if you already know it. I think you'll see a very wide range of fares extending almost to 200 GBP per person one way for travel today, whereas there will be Advance fares well under 100 GBP for travel in June.

I don't know what a week-long travel pass would cost, but its financial utility to you may depend on whether you'll be confident enough to buy a date- and time-specific ticket to Edinburgh when tickets for your travel date become available. Fares for tickets bought way in advance will nearly always beat the cost of a rail pass.

Do you anticipate taking just that one long trip, or will you also return from Edinburgh to London by train after the driving part of your journey?

Posted by
31 posts

I was just looking at the trains for London to Edinburgh and it looks like theyd be around 40 pounds. I was expecting it to be a bit more so you may be right that the discount is not worth buying the 30 pound rail card. Additionally, I should have been more clear, but I’ve seen that you can get 1/3 off non peak fares if you use an oyster card thats connected to a rail card and pay as you go in London.

Not sure what most people do for longer stays in London.

Additionally, we will be flying to Paris after driving from Edinburgh so wont need to train back. Thanks!

Posted by
119 posts

Have a look at the fares in London on the link below.

For longer stays in London many people like the convenience of a 7 day or monthly Travelcard
you pay up front for the zones you’ll use, unlimited use, nothing more to pay, don’t overbuy the zones though, most visitors will stay in zone 1-2, you can pay for an extension fare if needed.

If you decide PAYG the daily cap is on the fare chart below, remember using your contactless/wave pay debit/credit card instead of an Oystercard often gives the user a better fare calculation, the technology is newer, there are videos on YT that demonstrate this.

https://content.tfl.gov.uk/adult-fares.pdf