Travel in and around London

Darrell - How many are in your party? What time of year will you be traveling? Are you planning doing Windsor, Blenheim Palace, and the Cotswolds as day trips?

For travel on the tube, I think an Oyster card is your best bet. For travel train travel, I think you would be better of buying point-2-point(P2P) tickets as opposed to a Britrail pass.

Here is a web site to check out the fares so you can do a comparison of prices. http://www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com/

A BritRail London Plus Pass would cover all your trips on National Rail trains, including Bath Spa to London. See here. Having the pass also qualifies you to use the 2for1 vouchers offered by National Rail during the time your pass is valid. See here.

For Tube and bus rides in London an Oyster card should be your best option. Read about the cards here. There are also 1-, 3-, and 7-day travelcards, but since you're going to be traveling beyond London several times and probably won't take many Tube rides on those days, using Oyster cards on a pay-as-you-go basis will work well. On any day you use the card, the amount you pay will cap at 50 pence less than the cost of a 1-day travelcard for the zones in which you travel that day no matter how many rides you take.

We like using a BritRail pass as we can be more flexible with our travle plans (adapting for weather or if we find out about a special event or "matainence works" on the route we need,etc.). Windsor is a wonder 1/2 or full day trip! For the Cotswolds, consider going to Stratford-upon-Avon. From there you can do a group 1/2 day tour of the Cotswolds. There are few train routes into the Cotswolds. We haven't yet don Blenheim. Other day trips you might consider are York, Cardiff Wales, Canturbury or Dover. Oxford and Cambridge are options too.

The Cotswolds is much closer to Bath than to London. Maybe you should travel to the Cotswolds from Bath. I have only been to the Cotswolds by car so I don't know what the best public transport options are Blenheim Palace is near Oxford, so about half way between London and Bath. If you have not yet booked accomodation you could make Oxford an extra stop.

Your post: "We will be traveling from Bath to London. Once in London we want to go to Windsor, Blenheim Palace, the Cotswolds, and many places in and around London."It sounds as if you're thinking of trying the Cotswolds as a day trip from London by train? That will lead to not the best result for you: the only train station in the Cotswolds is Moreton, then you would have to switch to the bus system, but since you're doing it as a day trip to London, you'll run out of time and have to reverse that travel itinerary to get back to London--too much travel for the small amount of time you would have to actually see anything.A way of doing the above in a more pleasant way is: You're going to be in Bath before London, that's the best time to take a day trip to the Cotswolds, using Mad Max or one of the other professional tours out of Bath.

Do the Cotswolds tour with MadMax. It leaves from Bath, walking distance from the train station. We went with MadMax for the Stonehenge, Avebury, Castle Coombs, & Lacock tour last May. It was the best guided tour we have ever done. The driver was great and we had the perfect amount of time in each place. Saw more than we could have on our own and the price was reasonable. We have already reserved the Full Day Cotwold tour for our next trip this May. I'm looking forward to it.