Travelodges & Their Breakfasts

Have you compared or looked at Premier Inns? Particularly if prepaid, they are very affordable and very comfortable. Their breakfast isn't always the freshest (perhaps pre cooked eggs) but adequate choice. The all seem an attrocious price but fast and available and price balanced with the cheap room cost. For me the combination was good value.
If your Travelodge room has a mini fridge and coffee making options, I would just grocery shop. (Premier Inns don't have a fridge)

Hi Sierra -

We’ve never bothered with the Travelodge breakfast, considering it not great value. So we’ve always nipped out first thing and ‘scavenged’ elsewhere for a better (in our opinion) alternative.

However, if a flying start is important to you, bringing in something from a local supermarket is a good idea and probably better value. For instance, you can buy porridge (oatmeal) pots in a variety of flavours that just require boiling water to make. You’ll have a kettle in your room so that part is taken care of, but I’d recommend making sure you had a couple of spoons (if you are buying from Marks and Spencer food halls they have free disposable cutlery available) with you, just in case nothing suitable is supplied in your room. All manner of flavoured oatmeal is available, but on a recent (self catering, not from a Travelodge) hiking trip where flying starts were not optional (!) I went with your basic porridge/oatmeal pot, chopped a banana into it and topped off with a squirt of ‘runny honey’, also from a supermarket. Lovely - breakfast of champions!

There will be coffee in your room, but it will be instant and forking out at Costa/Nero/Starbucks etc., may well be preferable. The supplied tea last time we stayed in a Travelodge however, if I recall correctly, was very sensibly, Yorkshire Tea. Although they may have heard we were coming!

Have a great trip!

Ian

Ian's advice excellent except for one tiny point.

M&S provide a good line in free plastic spoons for the porridge pot. Only thing, in my experience, is these tend to be the roll up in a ball type plastic spoons as soon as boiling water hits them. Before I retired I used to run up fairly frequently to M&S and grab one of their pots and the free spoon and when I tried using the water from my mess room water boiler if I didn't put at least 2 of the spoons together by the time I had made one or two stirs the spoon was useless. Or I had to wait for the water to cool so I now had a gloopy mess. I took to always having a metal spoon in my kit bag. More difficult travelling I expect but a rinse with soap and good as new for the next time?

The spoons at Pret a Manger are good and sturdy, and a nice shade of red.

I almost never eat breakfast in the hotel and I don’t find going out for breakfast really slows me down. There is no way I’d spend money on breakfast at a Travelodge. I’m pretty sure you will find better options elsewhere.

London, Bath, and York will all have many options for a quick breakfast. Chains like Pret and EAT will have things like porridge, yogurt pots, and egg sandwiches. M&S Foodhalls have food you can takeaway. Pubs will have a full English breakfast. Bakeries will offer pastries. There will be plenty of choices.

Why not check googlemaps and see what the options are near your hotel?

p.s. I love the bircher muesli at Pret :)

Maria, I just looked into Premier Inns and will keep them in mind as well - thanks!

Ian, thanks for that advice - I love the idea of porridge pots with some fruit added, that sounds perfect! And like Nigel, I almost always travel with a metal spork so finding a spoon shouldn't be a problem :)

Emma, thanks for providing the link, I didn't see that before. Maybe we'll try the unlimited cooked breakfast (couldn't be worse than hotel breakfasts here in the U.S., and I've survived on lots of those!) and stay away from the "breakfast box"... although I'm sure my husband wouldn't mind the cornflakes! :)

Laura, thanks! That's a good idea - once we solidify our plans I'll scope out the neighborhood on Google Maps for potential breakfast spots :)

Always travel with a spork and a bandana or 2. Spork won't melt and you will reduce single serve plastics..... which are being phased out of a lot of places. Bandanas can be a picnic napkin, plate or ice pack. 101 uses for them.

Be careful with the bandanas, though. The color on at least some of the red and black ones runs.

I had a Travelodge breakfast once, never again. I'm sure they commission their bread specifically to get it so thin. You've received lots of good advice, there are many, many options that means you won't have to suffer a Travelodge breakfast.

Some of the Travelodges are now offering a bit more substantial breakfast at a higher price; I haven't stayed in one of these.

In my Edinburgh and York Travelodge, they only offered the breakfast box. It looked exactly like what you get on an airplane for breakfast - no way I'm paying extra for that, much less £5.

Each of these cities has multiple Travelodges, sometimes with confusingly similar names. In York, I stayed at the Travelodge York Central, which was fine (if a bit farther from the station than the Travelodge York Central Micklegate). Across the way is a Weatherspoons, where you can get any kind of breakfast you want. I was amused that for £2, you could add to any breakfast either black pudding or avocado. Talk about where British food has been - and where it is now. This hotel is also just down the street from a Tesco, where you could buy yogurt or other breakfast foods.

In Edinburgh I stayed at the Travelodge Edinburgh Central Queen Street, in the New Town. There were all kinds of nearby places to get all kinds of breakfasts, from restaurants serving full Scottish, to coffee places with muffins, to supermarkets.

Premier Inns are a bit nicer than Travelodges, and a bit more expensive. In London, I really liked the breakfast at my Hub By Premier Inn Goodge Street, and I liked the rest of the hotel too. Just be aware that the regular rooms at a Hub are tiny, and although they will sell them for two, they are really only suitable for one. The "bigger" rooms can work fine for two.

In Liverpool, I really didn't like my breakfast at the Premier Inn City Centre Moorfields (liked the hotel just fine otherwise, but again, it was Tesco yogurt to the rescue for breakfast). Again, Premier Inn have multiple properties in each city (although they don't have a central one in York).

A couple of times I've been able to buy a luxurious-to-me breakfast of scrambled eggs with smoked salmon at a casual spot in England for under 10 pounds. In exchange for that, I'm prepared to eat yogurt for several days!

Marks & Spencer food halls often (maybe always) sell a few cheeses prepackaged in quite small amounts--no larger than the little triangles of Laughing Cow cheese in US supermarkets. I've sometimes bought one or two of those cheese packages, added a piece of fruit, then sought out some sort of interesting-looking bread product; carbs are always readily available, it seems. That works better if you have a refrigerator in you room (which isn't common in budget hotels) and can pick up the cheese the afternoon before when the opportunity presents itself, but perhaps you'll find there's a Marks & Spencer near your hotel.

Thanks for the great suggestions!