itspat

I know this topic has been addressed ad nauseum, but I feel like I need someone to help me address our specific plans. We would like to do as much walking as possible and aren't concerned about a difference of 1-2 pounds here or there.

1. Arriving via train (Britrail pass) from Ludlow to London Euston on a Sunday. Will then need a transfer from Euston to St Pancras where our hotel is.
- What is the area around St Pancras like? Urban, financial, hippie, loud, etc.?

2. On Monday and Tuesday, we will need to travel from this St Pancras station/area for sightseeing.
Our must-sees/dos: British Museum, Tower of London, London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Harrods. In addition, we're considering taking a boat cruise +/-dinner on the Thames if possible, and we'd also like to get some amazing authentic casual cheap Indian food.
- Does this constitute travel outside of Zones 1-2? We are not otherwise planning to travel outside these zones.

3. On a Wednesday we will leave from St Pancras via Eurostar.

4. We'd like enough flexibility that we can add a sight here and there if we're up to it.

Please share your advice regarding how to plan our travel arrangements, starting with Euston. Two 1-day Travelcards or PAYG Oyster? Can either be easily purchased immediately in Euston in the early evening? Is the 2-for-1 very helpful to us? I only see offers for Tower of London and London Eye - nothing else on our wishlist.

Many thanks yet again. Let me know if I can provide more details.

flanneruk

Why are you arriving in Euston?

PatrickLondon

>>What is the area around St Pancras like?<<

What's the hotel's postcode? What they call "St Pancras" and what I call "St Pancras" might be clean different, depending on which side of the main road/railway lines it might be. If it's one of the big hotels actually on the main road, the street ambiance is nondescript busy urban through route, but with plenty of reasonably pleasant side streets, restaurants and cafés, some potentially loud, but you always have the British Library to drop in on for a bit of peace and quiet, OK cafés, interesting bookshop and stunning permanent exhbition.

>>Does this constitute travel outside of Zones 1-2? <<

Doesn't sound like it, but check for yourself:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...rvices-map.pdf

>>Two 1-day Travelcards or PAYG Oyster? Is the 2-for-1 very helpful to us? I only see offers for Tower of London and London Eye - nothing else on our wishlist.<<

You'd probably have to do the arithmetic for yourselves, but roughly speaking it sounds as though you could save the price of one or both Travelcards on those two attractions:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14416.aspx

>>Can either be easily purchased immediately in Euston in the early evening?<<

Yes, but there may always be queues; there will also be ticket machines as well as manned booths. You would need to go to the separate Underground and National Rail tickets for each. Whether you try and buy them all when you arrive, or go separately to the National Rail ticket office at either St Pancras or Euston for the day(s) you decide to use a paper travelcard is up to you.

alanRow

<i>Yet another London Oyster vs. Travelcard thread!</i>

That's like saying "Yet another wallet vs cash thread". Oystercard is an electronic wallet for travel in London, by itself it does nothing and has to be loaded with cash (Pay as You Go) or a season ticket (Travelcard).

As to your questions

It's a 10 minute walk between Euston & St Pancras
It depends where around "St Pancras" you are
No - virtually all of it is in zone 1
The savings on the Tower & Eye will more than cover the costs of your travel in London - but the Travelcards must be bought at a train station booking office NOT the associated Tube station

itspat

Thank you. We are arriving in Euston, I think mainly because when we typed in Ludlow to London the only arrival listed was Euston. If there was a more direct way to get to St. Pancras from Ludlow, we would do it.

The hotel we are planning to stay at is called Great Northern Hotel. We thought it looked charming, and got a good deal. We figured we were fine taking public transportation and didn't need to have all the sites right at our doorstep. It should be convenient for our trip out of London. Anyone know anything about it, or the area around it?

What is the proximity between the tube and rail stations at St. Pancras? Lots of steps? Do you have to physically exit the building and get to another one?

Okay, now for the TravelCard… Two single day cards, no photo ID required, correct?
If you buy that TravelCard the same day at the rail station, where and how do you pick up a 2-1 pass? Do they have them at the stations themselves? Is there something we will need to print up at the hotel?
2-1 Passes do not allow for any expedited, skip-the-line circumstances, correct?

Oyster card: can you approximate about how many rides 20-30 pounds would give you, considering our points of interest and staying within zones 1-2?

Realistically, would you ever walk from, say, Tower of London to Westminster Abbey? I'm not saying we would do it... Just trying to get an idea of whether our perception of walking is realistic or not. What about British Museum to Harrods? Again, just trying to get an idea of approximate distances between places on our list, having to cross busy roadways, etc.

Many thanks again.

texasbookworm

Try walkit.com for London to see really accurate distances.

But even Googlemaps will give you a great idea of how far between spots; just plug in sites and hit pedestrian mode and voila you will see (that no, no way to walk from British Museum to Harrod's! London is very very spread out.)

indy_dad

Hi itspat,

I think you are making this much harder than it needs to be (you aren't alone, don't worry).

Go to googlemaps and put in Euston, St Pancras and your hotel. The latter two are on top of each other and Euston is only 0.5 miles away. If it were me, I'd simply walk to the hotel from Euston on your arrival day rather than worrying about a transfer.

If you want to use the 2for1 discounts on both Monday and Tuesday, then simply buy 1-day paper travelcards from Euston or St Pancras National rail desks for both days. You will use those cards to your heart's content. No Oyster Card needed -- you are covered.

If you want to make other trips on Sunday or Wednesday, then you will need an Oyster.

No photocard needed for the 1-day cards as far as I'm aware.

If you did get an Oyster, the beauty of it is that it will automatically cap out at the 1-day travel card limit. No need to put &pound;30 on the card.

You need to print out the vouchers for the 2for1's ahead of time. Print out all that you might do.

http://www.daysoutguide.co.uk/2for1-london

General Tube info:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/

itspat

Thanks again. Yes, I completely agree with you that I'm making it more complicated. There seem to be an infinite combination of options, which is a blessing for people who visit this wonderful city but a curse for indecisive, overanalytical people like myself!

We will arrive on a Sunday, have Monday and Tuesday to do most of what we can, have a little bit of time on Wednesday before leaving. So yes, we'd like to be able to get out a bit on Sunday and Wednesday. Travelcards can't be purchased individually on Sun/Wed? Or you're saying that, by the time you account for 2 full days and 2 half days, you'd be better off just getting an Oyster card?

I'm not sure I understand the "capping". Again, I'm sure it's probably very simple but I just can't see it. Sample fares I see online for a Oyster daily peak are ~8.4 pounds. Travelcard daily peak is 8.8 pounds Does that mean that, once I've exhausted 8.8 pounds on an Oyster card traveling in zones 1-2, I won't have to pay anymore for the rest of the day?

As for walking... plugging in British Museum to Harrod's suggests a ~1 hour walk, which we could technically do and hopefully see a lot of other neat stuff along the way. Same thing for Tower to Westminster. I know it's crazy to suggest we waste an hour walking when we could be actually taking in the sites or spending more time at, say, the Tower... it's just more the logistics that I'm wondering about. I know when we visited San Diego, we could have walked from our hotel to the zoo, but it would have involved crossing under a busy interstate highway which we felt we didn't want to do. However, if it had been a scenic walk or such, we may have done it.

Aargh... just can't wait to get on the plane and get this trip going!

indy_dad

Touring museums is tiring. I'd save your energy for that rather than walking across the city. Do try to group your activities. You could do the British Library and the British Museum on Sunday (check hours) and not need public transport, for instance.

A little perspective: your 2, 1-day travel cards are &pound;17.60. A 7-day card is &pound;30.40. So at most, you are fretting about &pound;13 per person (less actually).

If it were me, I'd get the 1-day cards for your travel intensive and 2for1 days (M, T) and IF you decide to use public transport on S or W, then load &pound;10 or so on a PAYG Oyster.

When using the Oyster, it will cap out (stop charging) after you have reached &pound;8.40 (peak) or &pound;7 (off-peak). I doubt you will use that much on your "off" days. If you think you will, just get the 7-day paper card and be done with it.

PatrickLondon

>>Does that mean that, once I've exhausted 8.8 pounds on an Oyster card traveling in zones 1-2, I won't have to pay anymore for the rest of the day?<<

Yes.

I wouldn't walk all the way from the BM to Harrods, although it's certainly possible, if you've got the time on your hands, to route much of it through the parks, which would be pleasant on a day with nice weather. Another option might be to get the 19 or 14 bus all the way:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/15101.aspx

anicecupoftea

You can see a lot from the top deck of a bus (especially if you can get the front seats) whilst resting your feet. In fact you'll see more than if you were walking, given that you can look up and around you without bumping into people.

itspat

How much does a blank Oyster card cost, if you load nothing on it?

Our current plan:
Two 2-for-1 Travelcards for our tourist-intensive days (Mon/Tues), and just buying a blank Oyster for each of us, even if we just load a few pounds on it to get around Sun and Wed.
We accumulate public transportation cards from around the world and have found it useful as we sometimes to return (to Paris, for example) or could loan them to friends to use while they are traveling (if a picture ID is not required). So having an extra Oyster card laying around might not be a bad thing?

Sound reasonable?

janisj

>>How much does a blank Oyster card cost, if you load nothing on it?<<

OK -- a blank oyster card doesn't make any sense. No reason to have one unless you load <i>something</i> on it . . . It has no value otherwise.

Sort of like asking how much a debit card costs is you don't have a bank account. It is just a piece of plastic.

flanneruk

I don't think they'll let you have a blank Oyster.

At a machine, a ticket office or a franchised outlet (in effect: just about every sweet and paper shop in London), they'll let you have an Oyster if you:
- pay a refundable £5 deposit, and
- put something on. If you don't want a Travelcard, this can be anything reasonable, but roughly, a one-day cap (£8.40, but call it £10) makes best sense. That then means you're charged the electronic fares for any journeys you take.

On the way home, you can get any unused cash back at your last station. If you don't want to surrender the card, you won't get the cash back.