My daughter and I are going on a trip to Great Britain Fall 2015. I've been before but I stayed with friends in the Lakes District and they drove everywhere. We will not be driving but taking the trains. Which rail ticket is the best to purchase? How do I plan?
Thanks;
Posted by
Basel, Switzerland
8889 posts
"How do I plan?": Go to http://nationalrail.co.uk/ this will give you times and prices. You need to know the stations you are going to and from, but outside London and other cities with multiple stations, 95% of the time there is one station with the same name as the town.
"Which rail ticket is the best to purchase?". Usually you buy a ticket for each trip you take, same as with airlines. the ticket prices are shown on http://nationalrail.co.uk/ and are cheaper if you book in advance and travel off-peak. There are passes available covering unlimited trips for a certain number of days in a specific geographical area; but unless you are doing a lot of travelling, it is usually cheaper to buy cheap tiokets in advance for each trip.
P.S., in Britain the 4 seasons are Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. 'Fall' is what you do if you trip up!
Posted by
2081 posts
marie,
congrats on going to the UK.
what i usually do is:
- figure out what i want to do and where i need to go.
2 look for closest available train station. If there aren't any, then still look for available train station and then look for bus stations. Usually they will be close together.
- if you know what attraction you want to see/do/visit, check out their web site and usually they will have the logistics on the HOW TO VISIT them. after all, they want your $$$ so they try to make it easy for visitors.
I would like to really emphasize what Chris pointed out about the "off peak" hours. Just check out the prices and you will see.
as a personal statement, i have only done "point to point" tickets so far. but i have always got to where i needed to be.
happy trails.
Posted by
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, USA
14818 posts
I will just add to the sound advice you've been given to look at the point to point prices and purchase your tickets as soon as they become available. Two years ago I just went to Bath for a few days and purchased well ahead. My fare each way was something like 13-15£ whereas if I had waited to walk up and buy the ticket it would have been in the range of 60-80£! You can really save some money if you are able to plan ahead. I have no idea what the current fares are, just using that as an example.