York, how many days and traveling to Heathrow from York

It depends on your interests, but plenty to do in York - York Minster, The Shambles etc. I'd give it three nights.

York to Heathrow (and I mean this in the nicest possible way) have you looked at a map? It's a five hour (or more) drive. There is no way you'll get a taxi, and a hired car would be prohibitively expensive. Train is 2hrs to King's Cross, and a train or tube to Heathrow from there. My main advice would be to travel back to London the day before your flight.

Completely agree with Simon. 3 nights will give you a decent amount of time for most of the major sites in York.

As mentioned, driving to LHR on the day of departure is long and risks missing your flight should you run into any kind of car or traffic problems.

It's likely faster to take the train to Kings Cross and then the 1 hour tube ride on the Picadilly line to LHR. But considering you need (and I mean you NEED) to be at Heathrow a full 3 hours before your flight, attempting this on the day of departure is frankly... extremely ill advised. Return to London the evening before your flight home.

It depends what time your flight is. If it is morning or early afternoon then you may well travel down the night before.

If it is mid to late afternoon or evening then there is no reason to be travelling down the previous day.

But then I live in this country and also have travel insurance- something most Brits would not travel long haul without. I live almost 6 hours by train from Heathrow, but if I get the first train down can be there by just after noon. If my flight was after 4pm I would think it nuts to stay in London the previous night. And if it was earlier would travel down overnight the previous night overnight.
There are not many circumstances where I would stay at Heathrow the previous night.
From York the first train gets you to Heathrow by 8am.

Insurance is the rub- as many people on this forum seem to travel without insurance- partly due to different insurance markets and costs.

If I was booking a new flight (as you don't seem to be) and travelling from York I would also look at flying out of Manchester. For a same day connection that seems to work better for east coast US destinations than west coast.

Nor is it a 5 hour + drive- it depends on the traffic of course but it is currently (breakfast time today) a few minutes under 4 hours.

Yes a car service will be expensive, but you say you aren't that concerned about cost. And you will find plenty of examples on this forum of people who do long distance car transfers like that. Many which I think are crazy but people do it. At least one York company- Fleetways- has fixed prices on their website- to Heathrow £360 one way, so presumably for them it is a run they do with a degree of regularity.

Private hire drivers will know the routes around traffic.

Personally I would not dream of driving myself that length of journey without taking a break. For someone not used to driving in the UK on what for them is the wrong side of the road I would say that it’s even more important to take a break.
As Stuart says the best plan would have been to fly back from Manchester, but I suspect that particular horse may have bolted.
Whilst 3 days is nice for York, there is plenty more to detain you should you have more time, with two national parks and a lovely coast nearby.
Another way to do this is to build your York trip into the middle of your holiday with time in London on either side.

If you are just planning to stay in York, you won't need a car there. Everywhere is walkable. Also parking in the city centre is very expensiv and you would need to make sure where you book has car parking available. Day trips can usually be planned using either the train or bus. SO - take the train from Heathrow to London and then King's Cross to York. Taxi or hired driver would be exorbitanly expensive as it is over 200 miles....

As for how long to spend in York - that's a bit like how long is a piece of string. There's plenty to fiil three days. Sort out the things you definitely want to see and then worlk out how long it will take to do. There'e the minster, Clifford's Tower, Railway Muaseyum, Castle Museum, Yorkshire Museum, Cold War Bunker, Jorvik, Chocolate story, York Dungeon, Treasurer's House, Barley Hall, Fairfax House, walls to walk, Museum gardens, lots of old churches.... and that is without thinking about any days out! Have a read here for lots of ideas and information.

Some good ideas here, a few thoughts from me:

-I would say 2-3 days is a good amount of time for York- add more if you want to visit the surrounding area. My favourite things there are the Railway Museum, the minster, and the Jorvik Viking Centre. Just walking around the town is great as well (especially the walls and streets like the Shambles) and I would also recommend a ghost tour (tho if you are there in the summer, it won't be very dark during the tour!). If you have more time and can go out of town, you're also close to Castle Howard, one of the UK's best stately homes. If you have even more time you can explore the North York Moors and/or the coast.

-To get to Heathrow from York, I would get the train to King's Cross (very easy- some of the services are even non stop from York), then either tube to Paddington for Heathrow Express or tube to Farringdon (which is only one stop) for the Elizabeth Line.

-I've noticed that people on this forum often recommend showing up three hours early for a flight. I have never shown up more than two hours early for any flight and it's never been a problem for me. However, I understand people may get worried about time and there are lots of places to sit/eat if you're there very early.

Good luck!

Heathrow’s official advice for long haul flights is to arrive 3 hours before flight departure. Any less is therefore at some risk.

I may be very cynical, but I've always felt that advice had more to do with having a captive audience to shop and spend money in the restaurants than it did with actually ensuring there is enough time to get to your gate. Even with very long security queues I've never been close to missing a flight with arriving two hours in advance.

I also don't understand why advice for long vs short haul flights would be different- everyone goes through the same security queue and there are no immigration checks for departing passengers. However, as mentioned, I understand why people may want to be extra cautious. I just don't personally feel it is necessary.

At T5 at least the gates for long haul flights are almost all in satellites B and C, a lot further than the A gates used primarily for short haul. Long haul planes also generally are larger than short haul so need longer to board.

The bottom line to me is that if I am using my travel insurance as my back up plan in case of delays getting to or even at the airport then it isn't going to pay out if I arrive at any airport (in the world) a shorter time than the airport or the airline quotes as the minimum check in time. All long haul airlines from Heathrow or any big European Hub say a 3 hour minimum check in time.
That's good enough for me.
I get, and have a fair bit of sympathy with, the argument that it is a way to make you spend money in the shopping mall that most big airports are, but hey it's their rules.

It may not be possible to rearrange your itinerary at this point, but what I would do is save London for last and head straight to York upon arrival in England (depends on where else you are going, though). I think attempting to get from York to the airport on the day of departure would be pretty stressful, and I don't like wasting a day of my vacation by staying in an airport hotel the night before.

As for how long to stay in York, I love this city and think 3 nights is the minimum, which gives you two full days- barely enough!

Have a wonderful trip!