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Help with England Trains/Passes- trip in 7 days!

Posted by (Carol Stream, IL, USA) on

I'm very confused. I leave in a week for a trip to Bath, York, London and then a day trip from London to Stratford Upon Avon and I'm about to pull my hair out trying to figure out how to get from one place to the next in the easiest and least expensive way.

There are 2 of us traveling.

Here's what I'm trying to figure out transport wise:

(I already figured out how to take the bus from LHR to Bath, so that's set).

Bath to York (September 22)
York to London (September 24)
Tube pass for London (September 24-29)
London to Stratford Upon Avon for a day trip (either Sunday 9/27 or Monday 9/28)
From Victoria Station London to LHR (September 30)

I'm trying to figure out what the simplest and least expensive way to do all this would be.

From what I see, the car rental way is the cheapest way to do the first portion of the trip. I have a car rental quote through Auto Europe- picking up in Bath on 9/22 and returning it in London on 9/24 for $118 USD. Does this look right?

For the London and then day trip to Stratford Upon Avon, is there a tube pass that would work for all of that? Or do I need to get a tube pass for only London and then separate tickets to cover the day trip to Stratford Upon Avon?

Or am I really missing a super easy, cheap way to get one pass that covers everything we are doing from Bath through returning to the airport?

Help please! I want to have this all pinned down so I can have everything set and paid for before I board the plane next Saturday morning.

Thank you thank you thank you!

~J

Posted by
1266 posts

Jennifer - I don't know about car rental with Auto Europe, but the fee looks better than train fares for your proposed travel.

You can pick up a Oyster card at about any tube station when you get to London for travel on the tube.

You can do a same day return from London Marylebone to Stratford Upon Avon for £30.00 departing 7:23 returning 19:43 on September 28th. It is roughly a 2 hour 15 minute train ride to Stratford Upon Avon.

To get to Heathrow - from Victoria underground station take the District Line towards Richmond or District Line towards Ealing Broadway to Hammersmith. From Hammersmith station take the Piccadilly Line towards Heathrow Terminal.

Posted by
2 posts

Thanks Joel.

I suppose it looks like I do have it mostly figured out.

I just wanted opinions or advice from others that have been there to see if I'm missing something obvious.

Any advice on what tube passes to get- looks like there are several options.

If I get a travelcard pass for zone 1, can we just pay the difference in fare for anything outside that zone (Like our return to LHR?)?

Thanks!

Posted by
8700 posts

For your time in London and for getting from London to LHR, loading some money on Oyster cards and using them as pay-as-you-go cards will work well. When you get to LHR you can get back any unspent money plus your deposit. For days that you are in London and want to take advantage of any of the 2for1 offers from National Rail, buy one-day, zone 1-2 paper travelcards from a National Rail station (not a tube station) for each of those days and don't use your Oyster cards on those days. To see the offers and print the vouchers for them, go to www.daysoutguide.co.uk.

If you book well in advance at www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com, you can get deeply discounted train tickets for Bath Spa to York (separate booking required for Bath Spa-London and London-York) and for York to London; but at this relatively late date your quote from Auto Europe should be less than train tickets for two people, even if you can get moderately discounted fares.

Posted by
571 posts

Jennifer, i wish you a pleasant journey. You're making a similar trip to one I'm doing a couple weeks later (Bath, to York, to Edinburgh, to London in early October). We went with an 8-consecutive-day rail pass. I looked into a one-day rental car in Scotland and was quoted $200 by Eurocar just for the 12 hours we'd have it (different pick-up and drop off).

Like you, we're considering a day in Stratford. I thought I read that the people who do the Original London Walks offer a train/walking trip to Stratford. You might check www.walks.com to see if it's still on their schedule.

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