London to Paris

Do not rent a car for travel in Paris.
Eurostar is great as it delivers you in the city centers , saving you the time and expense of travelling to and from airports. Also , luggage allownces on cheap airlines are painfully low, with high over weight fees.

To buy cheapest Eurostar ticket you have to play on web site a bit. First , book travel for tues, wed, or thurs, book non rush hours, book overnight a sat , book a round trip even if only using one way, and book exactly the allowed limit of time ahead, I think it used to be 90 days when I booked online, I booked on the 90 th day out for best price. I paid 45 euros return( two years ago).
Pick tickets up at station, you get an online confirmation that you print and take to station. It works.
Sometimes the RailEurope site is more expensive then the Eurostar site. Enter you London hotel address not you American one, otherwise it seems to shunt you over to the RailEurope site.

The two most popular ways to travel between Paris and London are:

A - cheap flight, such as RyanAir or Easyjet. These no-frills airlines fly out of smaller airports and have strict luggage limits.

RyanAir

EasyJet

B - Eurostar, the train service with the "Chunnel." The train departs from London St. Pancras and arrives in Paris Gare du Nord. The underground tunnel part only lasts 20 minutes, but total travel time is 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Eurostar

Travel information for Eurostar

Since I loathe air travel and love trains, I took the Eurostar from Paris to London and back. It was incredibly convenient....no luggage limits, travel from city center to city center, no shuttles, no hassle :)

Renting a Car in Paris:
For travel inside Paris, you should NOT rent a car. Use public transportation instead. If you would like to take day trips to remote destinations in the French countryside, renting a car might come in handy.

The Eurostar website usually does not give an option for ticket "delivery." The only option available is pick up at the station. To retrieve your tickets, just take confirmation information to the ticket counter or insert the card you used in the ticket machine at the train station to print them out.

The train is convenient, fast and comfortable. If you do fly Ryanair, beware that the "Paris" airport that they use is way out and you are stuck having to take their shuttle into town.

Driving in Paris is not for the faint-of-heart. The public transport is good, and walking is fun. If you want to drive out to some smaller towns, take the train out to one of those towns or to one nearby and rent a car from there, thus avoiding the mayhem of driving in Paris.

Things have changed at eurostar.com since Pat bought tickets. If you register as a resident of the US, return (roundtrip) fares no longer are cheaper than single (one-way) fares. You can book up to six months in advance and you can use your home address.

However, it's still a good idea to register as a resident of each of the countries listed on the site and compare fares, both single and return. To do that requires clearing your eurostar cookies and re-registering each time you wish to change countries.

If you register as a resident of the UK (and probably any other European country on the list of choices), you can book tickets only up to three months in advance.

I too think Eurostar is the way to go between London and Paris. City center to city center travel is so under rated. Check out this site: http://getalittleparis.com/

Thanks for all your helpful info. The Chunnel sound great, but very pricey. What about ferry? As far as car rental goes, it would be to travel around, (not in Paris). Do you save when you rent from U.S. before going there?

Stepahnnie, I don't think 45 euros is pricey, renting a car, paying for parking, which btw is about 20 or MORE euros a day in Paris, and buying gas far outweighs the Eurostar price. Be careful when comparing prices of flight versus, train, versus ferry and driving.
Cheapest way to "rent " a car is to lease it, but that is for more then 3 wks. For short term I have no idea.
If you are renting the car to tour the Loire Valley many people would suggest renting the car OUTSIDE Paris , say in Tours , then do your driving it about , and then drop off outside Paris and take train back in.

In my opinion, you can't put a price on "peace of mind," unless you're debating train travel against something else.

Round trip tickets are considerably less expensive. Adult O-W = $96; Adult R-T = $75.50. Prices taken from Eurostar.com for Wednesay May 28, 2008/Thursday May 29, 2008 for round trip. Calculations done today Nov. 19, 2007.

Please don't mistake us for the Eurostar PR Office ;)

Ferries travel from Dover to Calais. You would be responsible for transportation to/from these cities.

There's a regular comparison of travel options from London to Paris at www.airflights.to

National Express (coach and ferry) is the cheapest but takes the longest. Eurostar is the most expensive, but generally considered the nicest travel experience. British Airways and EasyJet offer the cheapest flights (Ryanair is difficult to book flights on this route with, and fly to an airport some distance from Paris).

A car may be more of a help than a hindrance in Paris - and driving behaviour is different there - the hooter is a regularly used part of the car.

Just got back from a wonderful 2 weeks in the UK, best part was a week in an ancient thatched roof cottage on the coast in Cornwall. Not touristy, we were the only Americans and the people were great. A terrific place for hiking. Anyway we finished up our trip with 5 days in London- one day we took the earliest Eurostar to Paris just for the day, arrived back in London on the latest return. Eurostar was easy, we printed up our tickets at home and you just scan them at the station HOWEVER I would not recommend Paris for the day. It is too hectic and it was not easy getting around. The Gare du Nord train station in Paris was crowded and dirty with gypsies and others begging and trying to sell old metro tickets, etc. None of the ticket machines worked and the line for tickets was long. The only helpful people were fellow travelers, mostly British and we do speak a little French. I was very disappointed with the experience. I had spent time in Paris in the early 1990's and loved it, but this time it was dirty and rude and I couldn't wait to leave. We almost missed the Eurostar back to London because the signage was so poor and the help so unhelpful. Hate to complain, but I will not be visiting Paris again for quite a while.