Another Oyster Card Question

Shelly, The bus on an Oyster is less expensive than a tube ride. You can check all the fares on the Transport For London website tfl.gov.uk. Here is the page with the bus fare: www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14415.aspx

Thanks Laura most informative.

Buses can be very slow in Central London - for example one of the worst is any route along Oxford Street where you can walk faster than the bus can drive (and there aren't any cars there either - it is stopping for cross streets and ped crossings). Use the tfl journey planner as a guide to journey time. Victoria to Tower Hill is 15 mins by tube and 45+ mins by bus (and you need to change between 2 routes). This isn't to say that there aren't some good routes, especially if the underground would need changes of line. You can see a lot of sights on some routes, but if your time is short you might want to spend it where you want to be at rather than getting there even if it costs a bit extra.

Marco
Thanks so much for your insight. While travelling above ground you do get a better view of London but we will be walking a lot as well. I think now we might just do the HOHF bus on Sunday afternoon and use the tube the rest of the time.

Not a big fan of HOHOs but I can see how they can make things easier. From Victoria though you also have a great regular bus route that goes through a lot of sites - the 11. Up Victoria Street, Westminster Abbey, Parliament Street, Whitehall, Trafalgar Square and the Strand to Aldwych, St Pauls, and the City, finishing at Liverpool Street Station (and the other way through Chelsea to Fulham).

As someone who rode the buses more often than tube this summer, it's not always as bad of a picture as painted. There's a section of Oxford Street that's slower, but in timing it, taking the bus was always faster than walking, if I was going for at least a few blocks. I find that the worst section is up Whitehall. It's consistently faster to walk rather than take the bus.