Day Trip from London to the Cotswolds

You can take the 7:00am train from Paddington Station to Moreton-in-Marsh arriving 8:30am, when you get to Moreton take a bus to (8 miles) Bourton-on-the-Water then to (12 miles) Broadway then to (11 miles) Stow-on-the-Wold and back to (4 miles) Moreton. Take either the 6:12pm or 7:36pm train back into London. You could have a dinner in a pub in Moreton before getting the train.

Thank you.

Would you recommend renting a car and driving? I am wondering if it would be too challenging.....not so much driving on the left - but just navigating around the roads. I am wondering if they are tight? Or if things are difficult to find?

Check out London Walks, www.walks.com - they have day trips out of London to a variety of places including two Cotswold walks [Oxford and the Cotswolds, June 2, 9, 16, etc., and The Cotswolds in Spring/Summer, June 6, 20, July 11, etc]. I've never done one of their all-day trips but have really enjoyed all the 2-hour London walks I've done with them. Have a great time!

I took a London Walks tour of Salisbury and Stonehenge and loved it. The tour guide handles buying the train tickets, leads you on the tour and gives you loads of historical information. It was great! I highly recommend their tours, having taken quite a few over the years. Have fun!

Deb

Yes, yes rent a car for the day...you would love the freedom of having the car. By having a car you could see some of the very small quaint villages that buses do not go to. I sent you a PM regarding a place to rent a car in the Cotswolds for the day.

I feel really dumb right now because I am having trouble booking the train tickets.
If anyone can help, I'd really appreciate it.

I am trying to buy the train tickets. I used this website. http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/en/s/planjourney/query

I put in 3 adults (my husband, myself and our 16 year old) and 3 children. (Total of 6)
It then gives me the fare which shows 4 adults and two children and the total as 65.40.

It shows outward journey as 63.40 for 4 adults and 2.00 for 2 children. Then for return journey it shows nothing. Not even the number 0. It then shows total of 65.40.

I don't understand why it is saying 4 adults when we only have 3.

Is the total really (just) 65.40? We cannot afford twice that (i.e. 65.40 being just one-way.)

Also, there is an option for friends and family pass. Is that something I need, or something I should get?

We also want to take the train to Windsor - is the pass something that is multi-use?

Thanks very much for the help.
We would not be able to figure out how to do this without the kind help from this board.

Kathy

Have found my answer - maybe this will help another family.

Originally, when I went to price on the website, I priced for just one ticket. That was (best price, being off peak) 31.70 GBP.

I (erroneously) thought our trip for 6 would be ~ 180 GBP - putting it out of our budget and almost axed that part of our trip.

However, I decided to put in all of our family members. When I put in our whole family, which was 3 adults and 3 children, I got round trip fares for all 6 of us - same journey - for 66.40 GBP.!!

It automatically changed one child to an adult and applied "GroupSave". Four of us (as adults) are now travelling at 63.40, which looks like buy one-get-one free adult fares, and the other children are $1 each.

Strangely enough, 2 adults and 2 children under 16 returns a higher fare of 95.10 GBP.

So - it looks like they are heavily discounting for larger families.

I got a similar discounted fare to go to Windsor. Again, the website recalculated everything automatically.

Also - you can select your seat.

Finally, another thing I have learned is that they will show both legs of the journey and call one "outbound" and one "return." Then, it gives the price for the "return" trip. This was very confusing to me - and I was afraid the price being shown was only for the one-way return. Today I e-mailed someone at our hotel who explained that "return" trip means "round-trip."

I mention all of this because I found the website to be non-intuitive, to say the least.

Happy travels.

Kathy

Yes, for the bus, train, etc., return means round trip.

Kathy, as to driving in the Cotwolds, yes the roads can be very, very narrow in places. However, a car gives you so much more freedom to explore. The Cotswolds are made for exploring, not necessarily going from place to place. Try to drive during daylight hours. Nights on those narrow roads, on the left can be a bit trying.

The reason that they changed your child to the 4th adult is that Groupsave gives groups of either 3 or 4 at the same price as 2 adults. This deal is not available on short distance travel, and please remember that all parties on the ticket must travel together for the entire journey. When the Conductor checks tickets s/he'll expect to see 6 all sitting together.