This little guide will cover important facts written in my other posts about London travel, transport and such.. But will also add some extra things like maps, planners and more..
So, let's start!
Let's assume you are amused about traveling to London, spending some time there to see the Town, some attractions, maybe some event, or even experience nightlife.. So you took piece of paper, have opened Notepad or Word document and you plan to put all the important things together with cost on the paper.
What you should include there, must be:
- Bus or airplane tickets cost, driving or flight times, arrival and leaving times
- Hotel or hostel accommodation and costs
- Transport within London costs, maps and routes
- Event planner
Fight time and costs varies a lot depending on where you are coming from! As I don't know if you plan to travel solo or with family, I will provide you some calculators where you will have to enter number of people and age to get correct cost of getting there and back to your place.
At this link you can do booking to find out the cost of flight if you plan to use Airplane.
At this link you can do booking to find out the cost if you plan to use Bus.
Ok, so now when you know how long traveling to there and back will take, you can write down those on your planer and calculate starting and arrival times to fit everything else, for example hotel booking and such..
As for that, you will have to decide what type or accommodation you want. Depending on your budget you can choose between few options:
- Budget hotels, 2-star;
- Mid-range hotels, 3-star;
- Luxury hotels, 4-star;
- Deluxe hotels, 5-star;
After you decide which one you want, call them and book your time!
Time to move on to the transport within London. There are several ways to move around this iconic city and those are: The Tube, Cabs and Bus.
First of all you will want to get so called Oyster card which will save you nice amount of money.
You can get one fast and easy. Most stations across the London have at least one ticket machine where you can get your oyster card. Minimum deposit is ~7.45usd which is £5, and the biggest is up to £50. You will need your credit card like Visa or MasterCard in order to get one.
Now you are wondering how to reach the Hotel you have booked. Don't worry, you can plan all that even from your home. Here is the map of The Tube and Bus routes. There is always an option to use a cab.
Standard Tube map.
Central London Bus map.
Central London night Bus map.
North West London bus map.
North East London bus map.
South West London bus map.
South East London bus map.
If you have a young child or you are unable to walk the stairs please do check this Avoiding Stairs Tube Guide.
For more details and prices please refer to my older posts about London transport:
- Travel To & Within London By Bus
- Travel Within London By Black Cabs
- Travel Within London On Foot
- Travel to London
- London Tour From Europe
- London Tour From USA
Great! Now you should have first three points of this guide covered.. prices, times and everything written on paper!
The only one left is events. Well at this point I would have to contact you and see what you are interested in and what you like so I can provide the list that will be fun to you but as I can't do that, I will just put some suggestions from all of the areas:
New Year's Eve 2013 .. this one you shouldn't miss at all. I have even made entire post about it which you can find here.
Cultural events like visiting museums and cultural places. More about it can be found on Culture section of this website and within London's Most Visited Tourist Attractions post.
Extraordinary nightlife!.. more info about that can be found on Nightlife section of this website.
That would be all and I hope you have found this guide useful. Wish you a nice trip and have a great time!
