how to travel from London Gatwick to Edinburgh, and return to London, Heathrow
 

do you have any advise how to travel from London Gatwick airport to Edinburgh, and return to London Heathrow airport. Is it easy to go by train. If I have heavier luggages that I don't need to use while at Edinburgh, how and where should I store the luggages until I return to London. Please advise. The problem is I left from Gatwick, and return to Heathrow. How can I get the train ticket, in advance or buy each way, and how much. Or is there a better way?

Fly. BA will do that route for you. They treat the airports as interchangeable.

Someone else will have to speak to you about the luggage.

Alternatively fly LGW-EDI with Easyjet (www.easyjet.co.uk) & fly EDI-LHR with BA or bmi (www.flybmi.com). Just check all 3 websites to see which combo is cheapest/most convenient.

If you are going city centre-city centre it can be easier to get the train, but if you're starting & ending at airports it's easier to fly.

You obviously have your reasons for flying out from Gatwick and into Heathrow, but I don't know where that leaves your luggage.

Are you going to be in London before leaving for Edinburgh and are you returning into London after getting back to Heathrow? If so there are over the counter left luggage facilities at all the main line train stations.

I agree: it is difficult. I think I should get rid of weight as soon as may be. So I should phone or e mail my London hotel to seek their permission to leave spare bags there, fly into Gatwick, buy at Gatwick railway station a rail ticket London, Edinburgh, London at 13 5 pounds, and Gatwick to London at 12 pounds, a seat reservation at 3 pounds that day for London to Edinburgh, and a two-zone, one-day, London travel card at 4 pounds. The last two items are about three pounds each. I should then take a train up to London, a taxi to the hotel, drop bags, take a bus to Kings Cross station, and the train to Edinburgh. On weekdays they leave hourly on the hour and take 4 ½ hours to Edinburgh. You know that trains run from Gatwick to Victoria, but I want to say that for the same fare you can take trains direct to Kings Cross Thameslink, from where taxis go to Bloomsbury hotels, and with a quick change at London Bridge to Charing Cross. You use the same platform, so face no steps and thou are ten minutes by taxi hotels around Convent Garden and the Strand: I can send you comments on these by Fodors readers if you ask. Or if you have already booked in London and tell me the name and if possible address of the hotel I can tell you how to go there from Gatwick, using which London station.

Ben Haines, London
[email protected]

For the sake of completeness, you could take the Thameslink train from Gatwick to Kings Cross and walk a few hundred yards to the mainline station for trains to Edinburgh. To get from Kings Cross (where the Edinburgh trains arrive) to Heathrow involves taking the tube, or changing again to the Heathrow Express at Paddington. You might as well fly - and according to www.edinburghairport.com, there is a left luggage facility at Edinburgh Airport.

Ben, it's a nice plan (if the OP is spending time in London, which he/she doesn't specify). But I have *never* managed to get a return rail fare for less than about £80 - I think you have to book at exactly the right split-second to get the fares you recommend.

I like and did Ben's plan, but to store luggage I asked the hostel that I was staying at and would be returning to in London if I could store my extra luggage in their luggage room. Make sure it is ok with wherever you go.

"I think you have to book at exactly the right split-second to get the fares you recommend"

Hardly, never found any shortage of the cheapest tickets for the London to Edinburgh train EXCEPT Friday afternoons

You do know that it's now cheaper to buy 2 single tickets on this route than 1 return.

You can also get a Virgin train to Edinburgh via Glasgow which leaves from Euston and the overnight sleeper service run by firstscotrail where the minimum cost is £19 one way

I can only speak for my own experience, which is invariably that it's cheaper to fly. I do check every option, every time.

Unfortunately, if the OP's luggage is heavy enough to merit storage in London, then the easyJet alternative (or any low cost airline) will be tough - very strict weight limits on bags, very expensive surcharges for overages.

I think a simple LGW-EDI-LHR openjaw trip on BA (with bags) might be the best (certainly the easiest) alternative. I'm seeing £62 all in for arbitrary dates in late April.