Tube and Oyster is Great, NOT Cheap

A month with unlimited travel from one end of a great city to the other, whenever you wanted to travel, for around 4.7 GBP per day sounds like a bargain to me. We use our Oyster cards on our annual trips to London and don't give it a second thought. We also use the Navigo in Paris and buy one every trip. We consider both to be amazing bargains. Frankly, I'm surprised that they are not much more expensive for visiting tourists.

The public transport system in London is indeed much more expensive for users than the one in Paris.

If you'd got a monthly Travelcard, and you were only travelling within zones 1 and 2, you'd have saved a princely £9. Probably not worth worrying about.

(Note to anyone else who's interested, monthly Travelcards in London are available from any date until the same date the following month, they aren't limited to a 1st to 31st calendar month)

What's not cheap about it? Daily public transit at an average of 5 pounds a day is quite a bargain.

By way of comparison at current exchange for a 30-day pass.
Chicago $76
Paris $88
New York City $121
London $182 for the OP's experience with Oyster Card, but an actual 30-day zone 1-6 pass is 239 GBP, or $311. A zone 1-2, which would cover 95% of what most tourists would need (ex airports), is 131 GBP, or $170.

London buses are much cheaper than using the tube and you get more interesting views and fewer steps. I try to use the tube as little as possible. A week’s travel in London isn’t that expensive compared to many European cities. If you want expensive, try a weekly Venice ticket!

all those shiny refurbished stations have to be paid for

From that amount you weren't actually that heavy users on average, as using an Oyster card as opposed to contactless payment only caps your daily expenditure.

You make reference to being offered seats by people; this may not apply for you, but those aged 60 and over even just staying within London for a prolonged period might find the Senior Railcard worth it as it shaves a third off the off-peak Oyster fare. Taking into account the cost of the card this might have saved you £30 or so.

Comparing metro passes around the world would be like comparing fuel prices. Apples and Oranges. You can get a really good deal in Santiago, Chile. Its metro was extremely cheap.

Yes it is very expensive. You have to use it off peak to save a little Washington DC is similarly expensive

While it is more expensive than other European cities, it is still a bargain for what you get.

You still paid less per day than I pay to commute in the DC area. Round-trip metro fare for me is $12 a day.

I was going to say that at least the Oyster Card daily rate caps at a certain amount. Here in DC, you can spend $$. Some subway systems are cheap such as Barcelona, others are expensive. It's too late for the OP, but I'd also look into getting around by bus during the non-rush hours. We did this in both London and Barcelona and benefit is that you get to see the city and not tunnels.

But yes London is expensive however there is always so much activity in the city.

I was in DC last week and constantly had to check the amount on my SmarTrip card since I didn’t want to leave lots of dollars on it when I flew home. Of course, I loved DC so much, I can’t wait to come back so I guess it was a moot point.

Yes, transport in London can seem expensive compared to some other cities. But, realistically, it’s not a huge chunk of even a budget traveler’s wallet. Compared with the eye watering costs of taxis, the tube and busses are a bargain.

(From Original Poster) This is a good lively discussion. Thanks to everyone. For sightseeing travelers, London has some bargains as well as expensive transport. Biggest saver: FREE museums. We visited many during our 30 days, and made some requested donations. I didn't want to take time to look it up, but I seem to remember the Louvre and Orsay having significant ticket prices especially for a family. Because of competition, we found some restaurants with reasonable prices, too.

Regarding the bus comment, we tried buses several times in off hours, but still decided it took too much longer and could be frustrating with detours around all the construction which seems to be EVERYWHERE. From our base in Covent Garden, we walked a lot and saw a lot above ground anyway. During that good weather, we visited all the large parks which are great.

I think most travelers would say London is the most expensive of the big capitals like Paris, Rome, Berlin etc. Would you agree?

I never found Paris to be that expensive, and Berlin is a super bargain.

One comparison, not brought up because it is not relevant to the OP, is that children on the Paris Metro travel free only until they are aged 4, then pay half adult price until aged 10. In London they go free until they are 10, plus free to 15 for payment of a one off fee of £15 (or alternatively pay half adult fare). Buses and trams remain free until 17 if the child lives in London.

I was recently in London and used my regular Oyster card to the tune of about 30 pounds over 5 full days, mainly the tube but also buses. I don't consider that to be expensive--where I live a round-trip ride on our mass transit, BART, into downtown San Francisco is almost $8.

What makes London expensive is the exchange rate--but, it's a fabulous city I will never tire of so well-worth visiting at any cost.

I always use the Oyster Card for buses and the Tube, almost always after 0930 hrs.

£5 a day for a whole day of rides sounds cheap to me! That's one of the things I like about Oyster. Also, the fact that it covers you if you happen to stray outside your expected zones on a day or two, you are not stuck either buying the much higher price passes for the larger zone range every day or getting stuck and unable to exit at a stop because you didn't buy a pass that goes to your destination.

In my hometown, a one way trip into the central business district by bus is $5 no matter what time of day (they are working on trains, but not there yet). Where I live now, one round trip ride is about the same as the Zone 1 & 2 Oyster fare cap on the London Tube, but there is no cap.

I'm sure there are other options in London that provide discounts off of the affordable Oyster rates, but most of them require you to reside there, be on the government pension plans, or other restrictions that make tourists ineligible. And like with most other things, if you purchase for a longer period of time, you pay a lower overall price. But what good is an annual pass for a tourist that might be there only a month?

Mark

It's possible to have both a Travelcard and PAYG money on the same Oyster card, and the system will automatically charge you only for the journeys you make outside your Travelcard zones. Nowadays it's only really worthwhile if you have a monthly or annual card, though.