Вторая часть лекции 'Expensive Britain' as a Travellers' Myth. How to plan a trip to the UK without breaking the bank, прочитанной в магазине "Англия" ("BookHunter") 8 апреля 2012г. директором компании "Elite Education" Джоном Мойесом (на английском языке).
Part II. Internal transport. Free attractions. Places to visit outside London. Overall calculations.
Internal transport – options and recommendations
“So, you have got your visa, your hotel and your flights. You touch down in London, but unless you have flown into London City Airport, you are still probably rather a long way from your hotel. So what should you do? Well, you definitely shouldn’t get into a taxi! Even if you have been dreaming of riding in a black London taxi, don’t do it! If you have landed in Gatwick and you take a taxi which is not pre-booked to somewhere in North London at a rush hour, you could end up paying as much as you did your your flights for your ride! This is because London taxis are very expensive when they charge on the meter. Not only that, but they also charge when they are standing in traffic and not moving!
If there are fewer that three of you, your best bet is probably to get a train or bus into London. Buses are usually cheap, around ten pounds from any of the major airports into the centre of London. Trains are much quicker but generally a bit more expensive. For example, if you just arrive at the station, a ticket on the Gatwick Express is 16.85 each way. Not too expensive, but if you go to www.gatwickexpress.com you can buy a return online for around 20 pounds, though as usual you have to at least roughly know when you will be travelling. Once again, the key is to make your plans in advance, and you can save large amounts of money.
You can also book in advance at www.heathrowexpress.com though the saving here is much less – standard price is 19 pounds each way, whereas the online ticket is 18 pounds. However, there are slower trains which run from Heathrow into the centre of London, and the London Underground which will cost around six to eight pounds each depending on the time of day.
However, one major disadvantage of using the train or bus is that you will only arrive in the center of the city, and will still need to take onward travel to your hotel. Therefore, you need to add 4.20 per person if you take an underground trip, or 12-15 pounds which is what a short taxi ride costs in London. Therefore, even if you have taken the bus into the centre, probably the cheapest you can do it is for around 15 pounds per person, so if there are four of you and you are flying into Heathrow (Gatwick and Stansted are much further out and therefore tend to be expensive), it might be worth checking taxi prices, but only if you pre-book, as depending on where you are in London it may work out roughly the same but of course you get the convenience of not having to take your luggage across London on public transport! If you know that your hotel is on the same side of London as the airport (south for Heathrow and Gatwick, north for Stansted) than a pre-booked taxi could even be worth looking at for two people, whereas if you are on the other side from the airport it is less likely to save you money.
Taxi prices vary from company to company, so it is worth checking a few different firms out and getting prices. Type someting like “taxi heathrow central london” into Google and it will bring up many different companies.
The one I always use is www.addisonlee.com who are very reliable but I know that they are not the cheapest. Don’t get your hotel to book the taxi, it will always be much more expensive. Once you are actually in London, the public transport system is excellent and whilst it is relatively expensive compared with Moscow and St. Petersburg, there are still things you can do to make sure that you do not overspend.
The cheapest single ticket on the London Underground is 4.30. Obviously, if you travel by buying a single ticket each time, you will quickly end up spending huge amounts of money on transport. However, you can buy a travel card which allows you unlimited use of London’s entire transport system for the whole day (until 6 a.m. the next morning) including buses and overground trains for about 7 pounds if you are staying in the centre. If you are going to outer London, it will cost 11.60 but you are only likely to be doing this if travelling to Heathrow by underground. This is the best option if you are only planning on doing this if travelling to Heathrow by underground. This is the best option if you are only planning on staying in London for two or three days and plan to travel to a lot of different places. If you are staying a little longer, or are planning on doing a lot of walking around London (highly recommended if the weather is good), then an Oyster Card is probably better. This is a plastic card which will cost you 5 pounds, but you can get this money back by returning it when you leave London. You put money on the card, and if you use it to pay for your journeys it will cost you between 2 and 2.70 for underground journeys in central London, and 1.35 for a bus journey (standard price 2.70). Actually, bus is often much nicer than underground, as you actually get to see things, though you need to plan your route.
www.tfl.gov.uk is an excellent government site for all London transport needs.
If you are travelling outside of London, use trains, and, as always – book in advance! As an example, the cheapest fare from Londin to Edinburgh is 120 pounds. I did the same journey just before Christmas for 26. Best time to book is 10 weeks in advance.
Flexibility will also help you to save more: it is always cheaper to take a train after 10 a.m. on weekdays in and out London.
Here is the website where you find all the necessary information on train routs and tickets: National Rail Enquiries
If train still seems too expensive (e.g. Bristol on a train is never cheap), then you can check www.megabus.co.uk Sometimes you can get incredibly cheap fares – e.g. 2 pounds London to Leeds. Buses are not fast (e.g. it will take you 2 hours to get to Sheffield by train vs 4 hours on bus) but they are very comfortable and usually full of very friendly students.
Car hire is not usually expensive if booked in advance, you can get it for 12 a day, – but petrol is expensive (1.50 a litre) and city centre parking prices are crazy (10 pounds a day and upwards) so driving in the UK is only recommended if you really know where you are going and if it is somewhere remote or not served by public transport.
Flying in the UK could be worth it for Scotland but as UK is so small, even a 4.5 hour train journey will not be any slower once transport to airports and check in are taken into account.
Free attractions
Once you are in London, there is a huge amount to do. And the really great news is that most of it is free! All the state museums in London are free to visit. It you are in London for a week or less, there are enough fantastic free places to make sure that you don’t need to pay for any of your attractions at all: British Museum, Kensington Museums (three museums all very close), Natural History Museum, Science Museum, Tate Gallery, National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, The Imperial War Museum, The Royal Observatory, etc.
Plus, all the parks are free, the best of which are Greenwich park (where the observatory stands) and Regent’s Park (Camden Town tube station, near London Zoo) which contains Primrose Hill, from which there are stunning views across London on a clear day.
And there are many more. All the free attractions and lots of other useful info can be found at www.visitlondon.com If you do wish to visit some paid attractions – the best of which include the London Eye, the Tower of London, Madame Tussauds and the Salvador Dali Museum – you can also find information on this site about how to buy tickets in advance over the internet.
Places to visit outside London
London is great, but Britain has much, much more to offer. The UK is very small and the train service is very good and quick. Hotels and eating out, especially in the north of England and Scotland are hugely cheaper than London.
My picks:
- Edinburgh – The capital of Scotland. Excellent shopping and dining. Fantastic beer and whiskey. In general, hotels and entertainment much cheaper than England and especially London.
- Liverpool – Home of the Beatles. Some very fine art galleries. You can easily reach Ireland by ferry or plane.
- Manchester – Fantastic shopping and architecture. Lowry Museum. Manchester United.
- York – The best preserved medieval city in Britain.
- Cardiff –The Capitsal of Wales. Don’t worry, they all speak English there, not Welsh.
Closer to London:
- Lincoln and Newark (Newark is one hour on the train, Lincoln is 25 min further from Newark) – Two more beautiful medieval places, very easily accessible from London and not well known by tourists so you will have the place to yourself.
- Brighton – 1 hour on the train, unique architecture as built by King George as his spa town.
- Bristol – Spectacular port city, famous for having the best cider in the world (apple beer but very strong – you have been warned!)
This is just cities, but you can find amazing countryside as well in Cornwall, Somerset, North Yorkshire, Lake District, etc. The choice is yours, I have missed out many here. Speak to people, see what they like, don’t like.
Once again, the main thing is – BE ORGANIZED!
For example, here is the cost of 1 week in the UK for two disorganized people, using prices taken off the internet today [08.04.2012. - Britannia]:
- Direct flights with British Airways leaving next week – 457 pounds each (914 for both)
- Black Taxi from Heathrow to Central London – 120 pounds
- 5 nights at Royal Park Hotel 4* if paid at the hotel – 239 per night (total 1195)
- Train tickets to Edinburgh and back, bought at the station – 120 pounds each, each way (total 480 pounds)
- Two nights at McDonald Roxburgh Spa Hotel 4* if paid at the hotel – 139 per night (258)
- Ten tube journeys each at normal rate of 4.30 – 86 pounds.
- Black cab back to airport – 120
Total: 3 173 pounds (150,000 roubles)
Prices for two organized people:
- Two direct flights with BA booked in advance, for early September (great time to go) – 297 each (cheapest 190 with Lufthansa via Frankfurt into Gatwick) (380)
- Return tickets on Gatwick Express booked on internet – 20 pounds each (40)
- Five nights at Aloft Excel 4* Hotel in Docklands area (not on the tube but very easily accessible on light railway) booked through booking.com – 60 per night (300)
- Return train tickets to Edinburgh, booked in advance ovwer the internet – 52 each (104)
- Two nights at McDonald Roxburgh Spa Hotel 4*, booked in advance through Lastminute.com – 60 per night (120)
- 20 journeys on underground using Oyster Card – 40 pounds
Total for the same – 924 pounds (43 890 RUR)”.
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См. также: Part I: Visa requirements. Accomodation. Flights.
George Mikes. How to be a Brit. Penguin Books, 1986.
