Travel options for London-Paris-Amsterdam and back

I wouldn't do it.

There are a few logistical problems that may occur. Is the car right or left hand drive? Do you have any experience driving this car in both England and the continent? Are you an insured driver on the car? Do you have an IDP? Does the car have the necessary vignette to drive within the metropolitan Paris area? Have you computed the cost of crossing the channel (twice) plus gas and parking? Have you considered what will happen if the car is vandalised or broken into while it is parked outside any of these cities? How do you plan to get the car back to London at the end of your trip?

Or do you mean that you would only drive your father's car in England and would rent a car while on the continent? Then how would you get to Paris?

It's unfortunate that you weren't able to plan your vacation far enough out to take advantage of any of the reduced rail fares. But I think that any savings you might find by driving will be negated by the utter headache and hassle that having a car on this itinerary would prove to be.

Why are you splitting Paris? I'd go directly to Amsterdam from London. Then Bruges with Paris at the end. That would eliminate one train trip and you could consider taking the ferry - Rail and Sail on Stena Line, includes train from London to Harwich and overnight ferry to Hook of Holland then train to Amsterdam.

Driving would take a lot of time as well as cost - use ViaMichelin.com to estimate both time as well as gas and tolls, then add parking. There are options for outlying parking with public transportation to the city centers but that's another cost vs. time trade off. Plus how would you put the car back into storage?

Enjoy the planning and the trip!

One thing that might reduce travel cost is to fly London-Amsterdam, looks like about the same cost as the Eurostar to Paris. Then after Amsterdam, take train to Brugge. If you make one or two more changes you can do it using IC trains and avoid the Thalys cost. Then IC train to Brussels and TGV to Paris. That will eliminate one whole one way cost for 2 between Paris and Amsterdam. That's about $160 right there. And instead of splitting time in Paris two separate times, you can do it all in one shot. Probably get a better rate on an apartment and one less check-in check-out cycle.

Flybe has flights from London City airport, and KLM for a bit more.

Edit - I don't know your exact travel dates, but guessing from your description, London-Amsterdam for 2 is about 200 GBP, say $270. Amsterdam-Brugge with IC trains 108 EUR, and Brugge-Paris via Courtrai and Lille Flandres 82 EUR, so 190 EUR train cost or about $230. So that is $500, $340 less than your estimated cost with the stated itinerary.

A British car with right hand drive makes little sense. Bite the bullet and book ASAP. Fly to Amsterdam, then Thalys to Paris.

Day 1-5 - London (5)
Day 6 - Fly to Amsterdam
Day 6-8 - Amsterdam (3)
Day 9 - Thalys train to Bruges/Ghent
Day 9-11 - Belgium (3)
Day 12 - Thalys train to Paris
Day 12-16 Paris (5)
Day 17 - Fly out of Paris

DJP's plan makes sense. Booking so close to your travel dates is going to be costly both for transport and accommodation, unfortunately. You have picked three expensive cities too!

There is plenty to keep you occupied in London itself and day 1 will be getting over jetlag, so with such a short stay, a car would be a disadvantage.

To cut down on cost and travel time, for easier logistics, you may want to consider dropping Bruges then go straight from Amsterdam to Paris.

There are two big problems with your plan.
1) This trip is all cities, where are you going to park your car when you are in those cities? Especially if this is a valuable car.
2) How are you going to get the car back from Paris?

If this was a trip to rural areas (Normandy, Champagne, Flanders, rural Netherlands etc.) I would say go for it. Millions of Brits take their cars across the channel every year. And so long as you have the paperwork sorted (passports, insurance, driving licence) it would be hassle free and fun. but not for city-hopping.

Otherwise, go for djp_syd's open-jaw plan.

For cost and bookings for getting your car across the channel, see here: https://www.eurotunnel.com/uk/home/

"London-Amsterdam, looks like about the same cost as the Eurostar to Paris" - until you add in the cost of getting to the London airport, which could be considerable especially if it's own of the "cheap" airlines.

Eurostar sell through tickets from London to Amsterdam changing at Brussels. Go to Amsterdam, then work south to Bruges. Thalys are the high speed trains that connect Paris with Brussels and Amsterdam/ Cologne, if the journey doesn't involve Paris there are other frequent trains for the Amsterdam-Antwerpen-Brussels section. Change at Antwerpen for Bruges (Brugge) if not actually visiting Brussels http://www.ns.nl/en

There is also the option of overnight travel by train & ferry, leave London 7:30PM arrive Amsterdam around 11AM next morning
https://www.stenaline.co.uk/ferry-to-holland/rail-and-sail/timetable
slightly confused by them closing a stretch of line in Rotterdam for rebuilding! Buy the ticket as a direct Rail&Sail package - Online overnight price includes cabin

Bruges-Paris has two options. Go to Brussels and get Thalys or drop down to Lille in France and get an internal French high speed train.

SteveB,

until you add in the cost of getting to the London airport, which could be considerable especially if it's own of the "cheap" airlines.

Referencing London City Airport. Both Flybe and KLM fly to Amsterdam from there in the 100 GBP range. I think the OP was worried about cost. The IC route from Amsterdam to Brugge does require train changes at Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Ghent. but is competitive time-wise with using the Thalys, which still requires one or two changes. And it is a TGV from Lille Flandres to Paris.

We flew from Heathrow to Amsterdam for $350 Canadian via Brit Air back in April (mind you, we booked well ahead, and we were not staying in London, so I couldn't go cheaper and fly later as we didn't want to hang around the airport all day).

I just checked expedia and plugged in Aug 21 as dates for one way to Amsterdam from London Heathrow and am seeing flights with KLM for 2 people coming in at $200 total (Canadian, so that's about $160 US). Those are evening flights on a Monday, so different time of day and day will make a difference. (I changed date to a Sat and am getting ~$150 Canadian)

I'm with the others who suggest flying from London to Ams.

Guys, thanks a million for all of your responses. Just to clarify some of the questions, the car is currently housed in a classic car storage not far from London and given that my dad goes over to Europe (far more frequently than I), it is road worthy with all of the checks and balances covered. Regarding how it would get back to the site, if it turned out to be more economical to just drive then I would have re-routed to just fly back to the US out of London instead of Paris. That being said, no I would not have the necessary vignettes for driving in Paris (didn't know these were needed) and I never really thought about the possibility of vandalism if parked outside of the city (guess that's me being naive).

I tried viamichelin.com (thanks for the recommendation) and while it does come out to be significantly cheaper, the parking etc. may actually make the fares even overall. As such, it seems pretty clear from your advice that we should forego the car. We will look into flying and train ASAP as our travel date to Europe is actually 08/14 (again, short notice of the trip was out of our hands). We'll also look into switching our itinerary as you all have suggested. Thanks again!!

Both Flybe and KLM fly to Amsterdam from there in the 100 GBP range.

We flew from Heathrow to Amsterdam for $350 Canadian via Brit Air back in April

If you avoid Heathrow the going rate for a flight booked well in advance is £35 plus a fee for checked bag. £100 inclduing bag is OK if it is on a flexible basis. But whichever London airport you use you still have to get into Amsterdam from Schiphol

Via train and ferry overnight the price for all transport and cabin (and bags) starts at £94 city centre-city centre

The through train fare from Eurostar (incuding a Thalys connection from Brussels) starts at £52 and takes less than 5 hours overall, centre to centre.

All routes are always cheapest booked well in advance and by the operators website