Still confused about British rail options

This is a good start: https://www.seat61.com/train-travel-in-britain.htm

I’m pretty well traveled and I find public transportation in Great Britain to be daunting. So don’t think there’s anything wrong with being confused! If you’re willing to put in the hours, you can figure it out. The suggested website above is a great place to start. Feel free to come back here with more specific questions. Good luck!

Will that be your only stay? Only daytrips from Bath planned? If so, then likely a pass, or the often mentioned "Two Together" card probably are not going to have value, outside of some type of local day or weekly pass, if that is out there for the area.

The only company that serves Bath proper is the Great Western Railway, you might look on their site for specifics, you can also look at the National Rail site. Other than that, while there are many companies, they do integrate to a degree, most times if the schedule fits, take that train, you may not even know what company you are using.

From Bath, Bristol would be nice, Salisbury, Southampton, and Portsmouth are off in one direction, From Salisbury you could find a way to Stonehenge, Portsmouth has many naval attractions, and about as far as you would want to go on a day trip. Oxford would also not be too much trouble to get to.

Many go to the area to see the Cotswolds, however train is not really a great option to visit those villages, you would need to look at a tour or renting a car for a day or two.

If you are just doing a few short trips from Bath, then a pass is probably not worth it. Buying individual tickets is easy. You choice is advanced where you buy in advance for a specific day and train. Then there are all day tickets which are good for any train that day.

You can buy tickets at the station or through an app on your phone.

To find schedules, costs, etc use:

http://nationalrail.co.uk

As an example, the train from Bath to Bristol takes 12 minutes and will cost you 10 GBP returrn (round trip). That's for an Anytime Single.

Charlie

congrats on the anniversary.

What web sites do the best job of explaining these?

I'd modestly say that this Forum can do a pretty decent job, and we are on your side... There are regular contributors here who are or were in or associated with the industry, regular users of the trains and also plenty of folks who a few trips ago were in the same position as you are now and have found the tips and tricks. Ask away - no question is too silly - and for everybody who asks there are plenty of folks who learn by reading.

May is a little time away. Bath to Bristol is an extremely short trip and very easy to organise on the day. Where else may you journey?

Don’t stress about it! Short trips rarely have many possible savings. And compared to the overall cost of your trip it really will be peanuts. It’s not worth worrying about, honestly.

If you want to do longer day trips, such as north to Worcester or Malvern. the south coast such as Weymouth or Portsmouth or west into Wales to Cardiff, you should have a look at the Freedom of Severn and Solent Ticket. There is a 3 days in a 7 day period option
See details on the National Rail website under Tickets & Savings, Rover and Ranger Tickets

MadMax runs one-day bus tours into the Cotswolds from Bath. I took a tour by a different company (GoCotswolds) originating in Moreton-in-Marsh (not convenient for you) and really enjoyed it. It gave me short visits to a bunch of cute little villages. The MadMax tour costs £70 (not including lunch, I assume), which I consider a good deal for a full-day tour with a lot of stops in an area that simply cannot be seen well via public transportation.

For short daytrips from Bath, a Railcard or pass is unlikely to be of any benefit. I find the most useful website, with or without a Railcard, is this one, which will show your the route, timing, and ticket price for all your journeys, and then send you to the correct train company to purchase the tickets.

https://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/personal/home/search

(Frank II gave you the website above but you may not have realized how useful it is). If you start practicing with it now, you will soon be confident. M

For example, to look at the trip from Bath to Bristol and back, you enter “Bath Spa” in the “From”box, then start typing “Bristol” in the “To” space. May the time you have entered 3 or 4 letters it will offer you several choices for Bristol, including “Bristol (all stations)”. Choose that one unless you know you want one of the others.

Then put in a date, like tomorrow, and time, to see the price of tickets if bought at the last minute. Tick the “return” box if you are doing a daytrip and enter the same date, but a later time. If you do that now, you will see that tomorrow’s journeys all have a yellow triangle alert advising that it will be a bus journey instead of the usual train. But it will give you the prices for the roundtrip journey—£8.80.

Then choose a date in the future, like 6-8 weeks ahead, to compare prices and see if there is any advantage to buying tickets ahead. For this journey there is not, but you will be reassured to see that the normal service is a regular train, not a bus substitute.

To answer some of your specifics-
1. If you buy tickets ahead of time you will usually be given the option of having them as E or Mobile tickets, not physical tickets. If that option isn't available you will be e-mailed a code to pick them up from a ticket machine. The pick up can be done at any station (not necessarily the one you are leaving from) anytime after purchase until a few minutes before the train leaves. Personally I find the GWR machines rather slow and clunky, but they work. Ensure you have the card you paid for the tickets with you, as you will have to put that in the machine to get your tickets. At a place like Bath there will always be someone to help you if you get confused.
2. Likewise almost all, if not all railcards, can be purchased as virtual or physical. So you just keep the railcard on your device. If you opt for a physical card buy it at any staffed station, and it'll be issued immediately. Just take a passport style photograph. For UK senior citizens who opt for mail out cards we don't even have to provide a photograph now as they can check against the passport agency records.
3. There is no journey in this country where you HAVE to buy in advance. You can always just turn up and buy.
4. It is possible to over complicate the process. All this talk about advance tickets and splitting tickets can confuse and stress people out, too much time scouring around to save every last penny. Also with advance tickets you are tied to the booked train. So on a day trip to somewhere you can spend too much time clock watching when you should be enjoying your destination, or end up with too much time in hand.
5. There is a lot to be said for rover (multi day) and ranger (day) tickets for a certain area- like the Severn and Wessex. You buy it once and just travel where and when you wish in that area, usually not before 9.30am. So you aren't thinking about constant ticket buying. If you are passing somewhere you suddenly like the look of just hop off. Get hold of a timetable and just travel- all GWR timetables can be downloaded as PDF's. The S & W ticket covers a big area, and is very good value, especially the 8 in 15 day. You can use it any 8 of the 15, and don't have to use it for all 8. Depending what you are doing that one will likely pay for itself in 4 or 5 days. Pretty much anywhere you'll be travelling the service frequency is very good, hourly or better. On that kind of ticket fill in the date in the box on the ticket when starting each day's travel.
If you get the S and W 8 in 15 day rover then the railcard discount doesn't quite cover the cost of the railcard, so just buy the full priced rover.
Enjoy.

First, thanks for all the comments, even those I don't reply to directly! You've give me a much better understanding.

• It sounds like there's agreement that passes and discount options wouldn't be worthwhile for as little as we would be using them. For those who mentioned not worrying about the money, we're not concerned with that on this trip. We were mostly wondering if those options would make things more efficient. I'm a morning person and don't like many of the requirements to wait until 9:30 just to get a discount. By then, half the day is wasted! :-)
• For those who mentioned the Cotswolds, we'd already planned to use Mad Max.
• Badger, Frank II, and Lola, thanks for the links. It's going to rain heavily here all day so those will give me something to look at.
  
• Paul, we have reservations in Bath for the entire trip. At this time we do not plan on overnight jaunts. I'll check for Great Western's web page. Salisbury is a possibility.
• Nigel, you asked where else we may journey. If you mean, will we be changing cities / hotels, then the answer is no. We'll be staying in Bath the entire time. If that's not what you meant, could you be more specific? Thanks!
• rogerbrown, we hadn't considered anything to the north. Malvern certainly looks promising! I'll research the Freedom ticket you mentioned.
• isn31c, thanks for the general hints.

Contact GWR directly, if Bath area is the region you want to see. Often direct trips from Paddington are cheaper than from somewhere else with a stop in between. Whatever you do, for intercity trips, contact the rail companies directly; for local London buses, and tube, use your credit card to tap in and out and don't think about it too much. Google shows all the bus and tube schedules and makes things extremely efficient - you never wait very long for a bus or anything because you can time it just right.

EDIT nothing new here. I added a post and then decided it was better as a new separate topic.