London, Bath, York trip planing (train)

Price point to point vs. a pass. I suspect that point to point will be a better value. The oyster card is for travel in London. But, beyond the travel, I would comment on the overall plan. Given your questions, I would assume that you have spent little or not time in any of the three locations. If so, I would definitely suggest reconsideration of the time distribution. London has at least 100 times the things to see as Bath and York combines. Unless you have critical things to see outside Bath and York, each can be easily seen in one day. You could spend months in London and not see everything.

This is our first time visiting. Thank you for your suggestion.
The time we are spending at each place is defiantly flexible and I can change it. ( what we have seen, Bath looks so relaxing, that is the only reason we wanted to spend more time there).

A car will be a hindrance in London, will be no use at all in Bath and York if everything you want to see is in the cities themselves, but could be useful in Wales, especially if you plan to travel outside the main cities and towns. Bath is the closest of your other destinations to Wales, so I would suggest going from London to York and then York to Bath by train. The journey planners on crosscountrytrains.co.uk and nationalrail.co.uk are good. If you do hire a car, do it from Bath.

Pounds in the UK.
A visa is not required.

I would personally just give Bath one day (take it as a day-trip from London; it's only about a 90 minute train ride away), and then add those three days to London. Your first day in England will be mostly taken up with jetlag, anyway! When you're in York, you can probably see most if not all of the city in 1 1/2 days, maybe 2 at most. Take one of the free walking tours that the city offers during the day, and maybe the Viking Tour avaulable for a mere 5 pounds in the evening. Walk around the walls, see some of the smaller venues (I regret missing the Quilt Museum, myself!). Next time I go, I'm going to make sure to get a room at a B&B that is right in the heart of town, near the Minster, since I was pretty tired after London and walking the mile from our B&B southeast of the train station into town just wiped me out for some reason. Consider renting a car for that third day and head into the surrounding countryside. Last July, my mom and I went to Castle Howard (what we saw was lovely, but it was a bit rainy so we didn't venture into the grounds much beyond those adjoining the castle), and then spent the afternoon at Rievaulx Abbey, which ended up being my favorite spot out of the entire 18 days we spent in Britain!! An amazing set of ruins, in a gorgeous valley, with very few tourists since it is a bit off the beaten path (there were more sheep than people!). It helped that the skies had cleared by then, so we actually had some sun, a rare thing on our trip. If you don't want to drive yourself, then definitely see if you can hire a driver. That might even be better than driving, since I really missed seeing a lot of the scenery because I was concentrating on the road.

It might help some if you describe what you're interested in seeing. It appears that you may have just listed three prominent English cities and planned to visit them with the exception of Wales. If you are interested in ruins, castles or famous houses and gradens those often are in the countryside. From what you have listed I would plan on more time in London and less in Bath but if you want to see Wales and the countryside I would suggest something like: London 4 days, train to Bath 2 days, rent a car and drive through the countryside (Wales, Cotswolds, it's up to you) and then onto York. Spend a couple of days in York and then train to London. If you don't want to rent a car (which is understandable) you'll need to coordinate more on tours and train schedules. I'd suggest making a list of what kinds of things you want to see and "must see" sites and let that dictate your planning. Good luck,
=Tod

It is so hard to decided what stuff to see and what not to see, I want to see it all, I know that is not possible. Thank you for all your answers. I will have to really decide what we really want to see and make a list as it was suggested and make a final plan. Thank you so much again for all the answers.

Once we booked a Gray Line Tour of Bath. We booked it at Gray line Tours.com. This last year we just took the train to Bath for the day. It was definitely enough time. We also took the train to York and spent the day.

Jessie, you have some good suggestions here. So, I'll just reiterate that you do not need or want a car to see London, Bath or York. In fact, they'd just be an expensive hindrance that you'd park (at a steep cost) while you spend the day on foot. The rail stations at Bath and York are very close to the town center; very walkable. I've found that looking a photos helps me decide where I want to go and how much time to spend there. Besides the usual tourist sites, you can search places like Flickr for pix from other travellers. Buy train tickets online before you leave, the earlier the better. Tickets bought on the day of travel are (often very) much more expensive.