is renting a car at Heathrow a good idea?

If your flight is overnight and crosses a few time zones, it really isn't a good idea to drive anyway, due to fatigue and jet lag.

I agree with the others about it being a bad idea if you’ve flown across multiple time zones. If it was somewhere with less traffic and you were staying on the same side of the road I might say it was doable, but since that’s not the case you really should find an alternate plan. You don’t want to be loopy and cause an accident.

Where are you looking for public transportation to Brighton? It looks like you would need to take a train or bus (very frequent) from the airport to Paddington Station, and then a train (also very frequent) to Brighton. I hope one of the British participants in the Forum will weigh in.

Our British contributors are probably sleeping right now but I wouldn't be surprised if you have some input from them tomorrow.

We did this, although driving to Portsmouth via Stonehenge as opposed to Brighton. For us, it was no problem, we had driven in Ireland and England before, so basic rules of the road were known, as well as operating a manual transmission with the left hand. It is much easier with a "Navigator", someone to keep an eye on the road and get through turns and roundabouts.

Heathrow can be a bit of a rough introduction, just trying to get out of the complex, but you figure it out. Best if you have an operating cell phone for maps and navigation, or opt for rental GPS.

Yes, depending how you react to an overnight flight, you should take that into consideration; not an issue for me, but for some it certainly is.

The other option might be to find a destination away from Heathrow on a train or Bus line to either stay the night, or rent from there, then move on. (Though of course avoid central London)

I’ve done red eye flights from Los Angeles to Orlando and rented a car and didn’t enjoy this. I wouldn’t suggest renting on day one. Maybe get a Heathrow hotel, go to Windsor for a bit, or even to central London on arrival day to kill jet lag and then do the car the next day.

This can give you some alternatives to a rental car

https://www.rome2rio.com/map/London-Heathrow-Airport-LHR/Brighton

Simplest is a national express coach direct from Heathrow to Brighton.

https://www.nationalexpress.com/en

They also call at Gatwick airport if you need to hire a car.

You can take National Express coach from Heathrow bus station to Brighton, takes about 4 hours. Cost varies depending on time of day but seems to range from £10-£35. Coaches run every hour and you can reserve ahead or buy tickets at the coach station (located close to Terminals 2 and 3). Have a look at the Heathrow Coach Station and National Express websites for more info, schedules and fares.

Here's what we did at LHR last September - not the cheapest solution, but very stress free:

Arrived at LHR early morning. Checked into the Sofitel connected to Terminal 5. They are very accommodating about giving you early check-in if you ask ahead of time. Stashed bags in room, relaxed a bit, then took the Picadilly tube from LHR to Green Park. Walked around a few hours, had a nice lunch, headed back to hotel where we had a decent dinner and early bedtime. Left early next morning. We had a flight to Geneva, but you could just as easily return to the airport and pick up your rental car.

On a previous trip we picked up a rental car at LHR and drove to Winchester. Exiting LHR heading away from London was not difficult, since the roads are well marked.

Getting out of the airport onto the motorway is easy, and Brighton isn’t that far away, so very possible. However, depending on the time you get onto the motorway, traffic could cause you some headaches, not to mention if you’ve never driven on the left. Only you know your comfort level. I recently drove to Tintern, Wales after my flight and had no problem, except the construction on the M4, but I’m used to driving on the left. I did get some sleep on the plane.

"There does not appear to be a good train route to Brighton" - that's because you chose the wrong airport. The rail connections from Heathrow are all into London, then you need tube and another train out to Brighton.

Is there any way you can get a flight into Gatwick? Gatwick is astride the London-Brighton main line, equidistant from both. Multiple trains per hour to Brighton and other South Coast destinations. That way you could pick up a car in Brighton to tour the south coast (Rye, Lewes, Arundel, Chichester and many more). Even if you pick up a car on landing in Gatwick, it is 1/3 of the distance to Brighton, and heading out of London.

We last rented our car at Heathrow and immediately drove to Bath. The ride was about 2.5, mostly on dual carriageway.

I probably had two hours of sleep on the transatlantic flight. However, I was so excited about our trip that fatigue was not a problem.

It is a personal decision that every person has to make, depending on how well you handle jet lag.

Definitely have a nav system or GPS for locating your lodging.

Since our drive was away from London, traffic was not a huge issue.

We just rented a car at Heathrow last month but it was after several days in London. Our first missed turn was trying to get out of Heathrow and that was with a GPS! After that things were great. The GPS is a must! Have all the post codes for where you want to go AND the best thing is to have your car rental's return address!!! I could have kissed our salesperson!!!!!

Driving from Heathrow could be less pleasant than hoped.

First bit is the M4 Extension, then the M4, then the absolute thrill that is the M25 all the way around to the M23. The M23 for the foreseeable future for the first many miles is a highly restricted and extremely difficult construction zone while what was an excellent motorway is turned into a "smart motorway". Plenty of automatic speed averaging cameras for the whole duration. The motorway packs it in at Pease Pottage and becomes a slow road for the rest of the way to Brighton.

The train will be much easier, especially if your destination in Brighton is in the city.

Emma's route above is the way to go. The train from Victoria to Brighton only stops a few times on the journey and goes around 100 mph between the stations. You can't do that in the car, and there are no traffic problems for you or the train driver.

What time does your plane arrive? Weekday or weekend?

Is this your first trip to England? Brighton?

Whilst genreally renting a car from Heathrow is a good idea due to the selection of cars (and number of automatics) and also the relative ease of leaving the airport and finding yourself almost immediately on a motorway where you can take your time adjusting to driving on the left without having to navigate small roads, roundabouts etc there is also the sensible advice not to drive in unfamiliar territory straight after a long haul flight. (we always have an overnight stay at an airport hotel whenever we visit the US).

However Brighton can be a bit of a pain driving from Heathrow, not least because of the M25 but also the restrictive parking in Brighton. Do you have somewhere to park your car where you're staying? Otherwise it can be a stressful and expensive experience.

I wouldn’t ever choose to take a car into Brighton. It’s a horrible place to drive - even for a Brit like me with 30-odd years experience of driving! Busy, one-way systems, very difficult and expensive to park...

And that’s not even taking into account your tiredness, unfamiliarity with British roads and a couple of hours (at least) driving on some of our busiest motorways.

Go by National Express coach (bus) from Heathrow or get the train using Emma’s route.

In 2014 we drove from LHR to Bath after an overnight from SFO. It was our first time driving in UK. The motorway was no problem. Once we got to Bath environs the very narrow roads inbound were a bit challenging, just for a heads up on that aspect. Once in town, the streets have their own challenges. Roads are very narrow, allowing only one car each direction at times due to cars parked on both sides , and not all parked cars flip their side view mirror in despite two way traffic. We ended up taking off a parked car mirror unintentionally (& compensating for it afterward). After few days we realized you need to yield to oncoming traffic on these single trafficking roads and await flashing headlights (or giving them) to make the pass thru.