3 months in England on $8,000??

Assuming you are traveling solo and you watch every pound carefully, I say it is doable, but I don't think you could go much lower.

I am sure there will be some naysayers below my post.

Peter, you are correct. As long as he is a visitor and not working, he can stay for 6 months a year.

Also try homeaway.com - seems to be a sister company to vrbo.com, but with some different properties and some lower cost properties

8000 usd - £5200 will give you roughly £400 per week. That is doable, given you are looking at staying in hostels and cooking yourself.

You might look into university summer lodging. I stayed in King's College student housing in London for a week a few years ago. There was a separate kitchen for food prep and eating. The hostel may be cheaper.

It is do-able if you limit your housing expense and eat in a lot. You are not moving a lot, so transport costs will not kill you. You do know that you cannot spend more than 90 days in UK per year? Be sure you do not cut it to close and wind up with 91 days and get banned from travel to Schengen Countries for a really long time.

I just did a real quick google search on Liverpool apartments for rent and found -http://www.findaproperty.com/. They have apt. for rent for 450 pounds and up per month. That would be 112.50 pounds per week, furnished. An apt. can be cheaper than a hostel. Do vrbo.com also. If you do some serious searching on the computer and book early, you can get cheap apt. Some list for students, and they are willing to rent by the month, esp. in the summer when most students are gone. An apt. is much nicer than a hostel. More room, more privacy, more security, etc. If you look at rooms for rent, they are even cheaper per month. Same or close to same security as above, but cheaper than a hostel.

You do know that you cannot spend more than 90 days in UK per year? Be sure you do not cut it to close and wind up with 91 days and get banned from travel to Schengen Countries for a really long time.

Schengen rules won't affect teh OP here.

The UK doesn't fully implement the Schengen accords, particularly the open borders/tourist visa bits. UK immigration law lets US citizens stay for a maximum of 6 months at a time.

Please note many hostels have a limit as to the total number of nights you can stay...typically 7 to 10 nights. If you plan to spend 30 nights in each city, you may have to pack & change hostels a few times. Check directly with the hostel to see if they can be flexible. But for a stay that long the university housing or a studio flat might give you better space and amenities for the price.

Our family of four spent three weeks last August in the UK (London, Bath, Northern Wales, Central England) and spent about CAD$7000 (plus airfare and rail passes)which works out to $1750 each for three weeks or $580 each per week. Therefore, using a simple comparison, 12 weeks would be around CAD$7000. Note that this was when the pound cost around 1.8 CAD and it is lower now so your $8000 should be doable. We spent about $3600 on 19 nights B&B accommodation (incl 11 nights in central London) and about $3000 on food (groceries plus dining out). We found Weatherspoons to be a great pub chain with drink and meal specials that were really decent. Because the B&Bs had amazing breakfasts (more like brunches really), we only had to pay for the other two meals each day, and most of the time we were on the go so picking up things from delis and grocers.

We stayed in simple B&Bs and spent half our time in London and half in the smaller towns. This saved us some accommodation money, but there are more free things to do in London. We also loved using the Oyster card in London (saved money 'cause it always maxes out each day at the day pass rate).

Hope this helps!

Thanks so much everyone for their advice - you're going to save me a lot of money!

Tom, have you ever considered exchanging homes? We have done 5 exchanges to Britain for 3 or 4 weeks at a time and all have been wonderful. In spring '06 we did 2 exchanges, one after the other and that worked too (the 1st exchangers left our house very clean for the 2nd guests. Since we exchange cars also, it is by far the cheapest way to stay long term in the UK. If you want more info, email me. Julia

Julia,

Thanks, but my wife will be staying in the US, so home exchanges won't work. It sounds like a good idea, though

Tom, I'm guessing that somewhere on the internet is a site for a dual home AND wife swap!

I smell a new reality show!