Storage at the Bath, UK Train Station

I’m curious why you think staying at an airport hotel the first night of your arrival is your best option. Why aren’t you going into London?

Rick's guidebook describes The Luggage Store, roughly across the street from Bath Spa train station. But unless your flight arrives quite late, I'd prefer to sleep in Bath or London and have more total time there. See train schedules at www.nationalrail.co.uk. There is also storage at Paddington station, which is the change point between the Heathrow Express and direct London-Bath trains.

Better actually to go into London itself on arrival as trains for Bath leave from Paddington Station in London not from the airport.

When you get off the train in Bath, you’ll see that a number of the businesses opposite the train station have signs saying they’ll hold luggage for a small fee.

If you are just doing a day trip to Bath spend night 1 wherever you’d be staying on night 2 after your day trip. Than you’re not mucking around with dragging luggage all over.

If you want public transport to Stonehenge the bus leaves from the Salisbury train station or the Salisbury city center, makes a loop out to the stones, comes back by Old Sarum and drops you at either place.

TBH I’ve done Stonehenge by the local bus several times and it’s taken most of the day. I’m not sure how you’d have time to get to Bath, store luggage?, spend a few hours there, take the train to Salisbury ( not sure about luggage storage here?) bus to stones, back to Salisbury, return to London by train.

There are day tours that run to Stonehenge from Bath and I’ve done that too. The early one to Stonehenge leaves around 8-9 so you’d be pushed to get to Bath in time. I’m not sure if there are 1/2 day afternoon tours. The company I used was Mad Max. There is also an equally good company called Lion Tours.

How many nights will you be in London? If you haven’t traveled internationally before you may not know how you’ll be with jet lag and travel tiredness so I’d want a day with much easier arrangements for my first full day. YMMV, of course.

I think that you are trying to do too much in 1 day = Bath & Stonehenge & you might as well also throw in Salisbury Cathedral. If you land at Heathrow, consider taking the bus link to Woking and then a train to Salisbury for an overnight - and try and see Salisbury Cathedral if time. Next day - shuttle bus to Stonehenge and back to Salisbury, then train to Bath (best to stay the night). Train back to London (Paddington). Rail map:>http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/static/images/structure/css/nationalrailnetworkmap.pdf

If landing and staying in a hotel near Heathrow - no need to go into London in order to gat to Bath. You need to get to (by local bus or taxi) a rail station on the mainline going west - possibly Hayes & Harlington or Hanwell. You then take a train (frequent) to Reading and transfer to an express to Bath. www.nationalrail.co.uk

I agree that your plan is impractical in a couple of ways. First, as suggested, you'd be better off sleeping in London near Paddington Station and you could then leave your luggage in your hotel room. Second, fitting both Bath and Stonehenge into one day would mean a lot of time in transit and very little time in each destination. Better to take one day trip to Bath and a second day trip to Salisbury, from where the excellent shuttle bus runs to Stonehenge and Old Sarum.

Thank you, all. Thank you for your thoughtful and very helpful suggestions & information. I'm amazed at the depth of your knowledge and how willing you are to share, and some of you included links in your responses. So helpful. It looks like we'll have to refigure our plans, although we're stuck with staying at the hotel in Gatwick Airport (not Heathrow) when we arrive. We have a non-refundable reservation. I should have asked the Rick Steves Travel Forum before we rushed into that decision.

It looks like we'll have to refigure our plans, although we're stuck
with staying at the hotel in Gatwick Airport (not Heathrow) when we
arrive.

What time does your flight arrive? Morning or evening? What do you plan that first day? Will you have a day to kill around Gatwick? Or are you planning to pop into London (or elsewhere) for sightseeing?

You might just want to consider writing off the cost of that non-refundable first night and head into London instead, get a cheapish hotel near Paddington ready to get to Bath the next day.

You can get to Bath from Gatwick by train but it’s longer - takes 2.5 hours with a change at Reading. Whereas from London Paddington it’s only 90 minutes direct.

It is more convenient (& cheaper) to take a train from Gatwick to Bath Via a change at Reading and therefore avoid London altogether. Being as you are staying at a hotel at Gatwick, it should be pretty simple to figure out when you will be ready to leave for Bath. Therefore, I would advise that you pre-book the train travel ideally at around 11 weeks out ignorer to get the chapters ‘Advance’ tickets for specific trains. Your train company will be www.gwr.com

Taking pre-booking now for 18 June as an example, you could get from Gatwick to Bath for only £14 per adult using the route that goes direct to Reading. It would take a total of 2 hours 30 minutes. To get from Bath back to London (Paddington) would cost £15 per adult and take 1 hour 30 minutes.