Robespierre: I'd rather not link to pdf's unless absolutely necessary, and there's a link to the journey planner from the front page, which is, in part, what the OP needs (although s/he also needs the fares you linked to).

London Victoria - where the coach, bus & train stations are.

BTW it's Liverpool STREET

I have flown to the UK from LAX many times - it is a LONG flight and you will arrive tired (unless you are all super-humans and can get 8 good hours sleep on the plane) :-) I'd forget all about going into London and sightseeing, even 1 site, and leave it for another time. I would also not mess with public transportation when you have major jetlag -- it's a 10 hr flight with a 8 hr. time difference, it is not much fun.

Instead of public transport I'd get a car service to meet me at Heathrow and take the family to Stansted. Get a good nights sleep and be on your way the next day.

As some one said, you should have investigated more carefully flights out of Stansted - it is not close to Heathrow at all and money you save on "cheaper" flights will be used for transportation getting to/from there and for a hotel.

I realize not everyone is an advocate of a car service,but when we fly from either CA or AZ we sure appreciate not dealing with the tube, luggage, climbing up and down stairs or hunting down elevators. While it is a personal decision check out some services, you may find the price to be well worth it in the long run.

Incidentally, it usually takes a minimum of 1 hour to get your luggage and clear immigration at Heathrow - factor that in too. It can be a very tiring experience after a long overnight flight. It's going to be one very long day/night and unless you live right next to LAX you have to figure on the time it takes to get to LAX from where ever you live and being at the a/p 2 hrs. before flight time.

I link to .pdf files because they can be downloaded and printed in any desired scale/resolution, or downloaded into laptop or pocket PCs and used on the go with infinite zoom factors. I have several hundred in my iPAQ whenever I travel.

When the automatic link-maker mangles a URL (like tfl.gov), it would probably confuse a newbie less if you made it into a working one, such as http://tfl.gov.uk

I should have taken into account the travel expenses in London. Our actual family vacation is in Italy, but we "extended" it a few days as a "Why not..." since we were there on layovers anyway. I didn't realize how far out Stansted is. We are leaving in less than 2 weeks, so I have a little more time to pinch some pennies!!

If you <u>do</u> decide to go into London and see a sight or two rather than going straight to Stansted, you should buy Oyster Cards when you get to Heathrow. You can pre-load them with all the transport you will need on a pay-as-you-go basis for both times you are in town. You will actually be paying single fares, but the Oyster card caps your total each day, so the most you will pay is 50p less than a travelcard.

First day: &pound;5.80 (kid &pound;1) - LHR fare is &pound;2 and single tube rides are &pound;1.50. If you don't reach the cap, any excess remains on the card, which you can have refunded. (Which doesn't happen with a travelcard.)

Second day: when you return, you can either cap a &pound;3 bus pass (kid free) or a &pound;4.40 (kid &pound;1) bus + 2-zone Tube pass. (The bus pass has no zone limitation.)

Third day: same as first.

Here's a map of everywhere you can go from Liverpool Street station without changing buses:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/spiders/...ool-street.pdf

Here's a geographical map with all the tourist destinations on it:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/tourist.pdf

And here's a complete geographical map of central London (also available at Tube stations):

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/pdfdocs/centlond.pdf

Sorry - that second map of sights is only vaguely geographical. The sites are sort of in the right parts of town relative to one another, but both the horizontal and vertical scales are distorted considerably.

Robespierre-
I just wanted to say thanks for all of you valuable information that you consistently provide. We are leaving for London in a couple of weeks, and your comments/suggestions have been a very helpful. =D&gt;

<i>De rien. Bon voyage.</i>

Thanks everyone!! Wish us luck on this first time experience!!