Knowing how much gasoline prices have risen here in good ol' West Virginia, (and I live right next door to a refinery!), I was wondering what the cost is up to in the UK? We will be driving many, many miles in Wales in June and just thought I might need to take out a second mortgage on the house to cover the cost! Am I right?

Leeann - Lowest price in the U.K now is about 82p per litre.

Hope this helps ...

Steve

Don't worry too much. The petrol IS very expensive in the UK, but the cars are smaller, and you may be driving a bit but you really can't drive "many, many miles" in Wales. At least not in comparison to how far people are used to driving in the States. You won't need to refinance to pay for your gas

(The longest single trip I ever took to the UK was 6.5 weeks - 2.5 weeks around Scotland then 3.5 weeks down through England and finally into London. Total mileage - less than 1,800.)

82 p translates into about $1.53 per litre. There are many, MANY more unrewarding things you could spend your money on and they won't bring nearly the number of memories that your impending trip will provide. GO for it (and keep those Mountaineers shooting 3's, too!!)

Filling up the gas tank in the UK is always a shock! It's a good thing it's too difficult to convert a litre into gallons, then convert it into US dollars. It's something you really don't want to think about anyway.

But, just like at home, it's a necessary evil and you need to buy it, whatever the cost. We just try not to think about it. $)

Oddly enough, the price of petrol in the UK is about the same as it was when I was there in 2000... it ran about 80p per litre. At the time, we figured it out at about $5 a gallon. Of course, the exchange rate was 1.65 then...

The gas prices in the US at the time were much lower than they are now, but the UK hasn't changed much...Very odd, that!

Remember that litres don't equal gallons

It took about £45 to fill up our tank (we had a manual transmission car), but that tank lasted forever. The cars get better mileage (about 45 mpg!) than US cars, and stick shift even better than automatic.

It's worth it

The reason fuel prices in the UK don't seem to have moved that much is that they are largely made up of tax.

As the tax has not increased at the same rate as oil prices (and the chancellor has even allowed the tax to stay the same for a while - heaven forbid) the impact of higher oil prices is proportionately less over here.

I suppose that is almost an upside to high tax rates on fuel.

You will probably find that gas is not the only thing that is much more expensive than in North America. Eating out will give you a shock as well. As a Canadian who returns to the U.K.on a regular basis, I find that most things are twice the price in Britain tnan in Canada.

I think you may find that cars get better mileage over there, thus negating the higher price.