mmc923

Hello all! Would like to visit London (first time for me - many repeat visits for hubby who wants to show me around), and perhaps some other areas of England for a week to 10 days sometime this year. What time of year is best to get more "bang" for our Pound?

isabel

The only things that have different prices related to time of the year are airline tickets and sometimes hotels. Everything else - food, transportation, entry fees, etc. are going to be the same regardless of when you go.

Hotel prices vary greatly not so much by time of year as specific dates - certain days of the week, how far in advance you book them, etc. Most have on-line booking so you can check dates you are considering and see if it makes a difference.

So your main expense will be airline tickets. I flew from Boston to London in Nov for mid $700s, just booked a ticket for March for just under $600, and am looking at tickets for my husband for May and they are around $800. July and August are the most expensive.

BUT - by saving a few hundred dollars and going in the winter you are going to get cold, damp weather and many fewer hours of daylight. In November it was dark out by 4:30 and didn't get light in the morning till around 7 or 8. In June it will be light out till 10:00 at night.

So I guess it all depends on what you mean by "bang for your £"

mmc923

Aha! Thanks so much. I guess airfair and hotel season rates were really what I was looking into. Didn't know if summer was "high season" (which apparently it is). Perhaps September might be a good compromise for us - not prime July/August time, but still more daylight (and less damp) than in November/December/January/February.

Thanks for the input!

BigRuss

Summer is "high" season to some degree, but London is an international city and the financial capital of Europe so there are always travelers for business that keep hotel rates steady. I wouldn't want to go to London or England generally in winter because attractions close earlier and it gets dark early and it's even wetter than usual.

Unless you can time the exchange rate (and if so, you have used that skill to have enough money that seeking a bargain is irrelevant, as is the requirement of saving a couple of bucks on economy class tickets), the savings from season to season in the UK is not that much. We had pretty good conditions in April/early May, but weather in the UK is usually a variable and rarely dependable.

PatrickLondon

Other factors affecting the bang, if not necessarily the buck, might be finding your enjoyment spoilt by additional crowds in school holidays, and/or times for big free festivals and shows, which tend mostly to be in the summer.

http://www.visitlondon.com/events/calendar/

outwest

I've visited London three times in mid-February and found it to be good value. A lot of hotels do have cheaper rates at that time and we had mild weather all three times (I realize weather is luck of the draw but we've experienced more rain in Paris and Rome than we've ever experienced in London). The crowds were also significantly less, something that we really realized when we were at Hampton Court Palace—our audio guide kept saying things like 'stand back and let everyone see, there's plenty of time' but we were virtually the only visitors there.

Mimar

I wouldn't tour the English countryside in winter or late fall or early spring. We like spring there because eveything is so freshly green, trees are blooming, and the days are longer.

However, if you're going to stick to cities and bigger towns, any time is good -- barring heavy snow.

travelgourmet

If you get a good price on airfare and use Priceline for your hotel, I don't think any particular month would be significantly better than others, but September would be a good choice for weather and lots of daylight.

Sue878

We usually go when we get a good airfare, but we have never gone in the summer because of the crowds.

flanneruk

Couple of other points:

"we've experienced more rain in Paris and Rome than we've ever experienced in London".
That's because it doesn't rain much in London. Contrary to the silly stereotype beloved of bad travel writers, London gets less rain than truly sodden cities like New York or Jerusalem. It rains more often - but in tiny quantities, which is why few of us bother worrying about it

"never gone in the summer because of the crowds.".

Hmm... London obviously empties in the summer, because we all go away. Result: public transport's empty, it's easier to get into decent restaurants and the city gets duller. Theatre's crap, there's practically no opera or ballet (though summer open air operas boom) and no art gallery or museum wastes energy on interesting temporary exhibitions.

"more daylight (and less damp) than in November/December/January/February"

So? What on earth are people going to do in London that needs daylight? Or that's made tougher by a few drops of rain?Sunbathe? Swim in park lakes?

Truth is, IMHO:
- Price scarcely changes across the year
- Horrible weather's rare in London. But London doesn't handle extremes at all well - and prolonged heat's commoner in summer than snow in winter. Getting round London in July/August is often truly hideous - and few places are adequately air conditioned to deal with temps much over 80 F.
- Crowded, short daylight, winter's millions of times more fun than empty, stuffy, boring midsummer.
- London DOES get crowded with tourists during European "bridge" weekends, especially round Easter, Mayday, Ascension, Whit (both the Christian Pentecost the rest of Europe takes as a holiday and the last May weekend we take off), Corpus Christi and All Saints. Hotels don't get full during English half term, but many attractions do.
- By many countries' standards, spring comes early in Britain. Lambing starts in a week or two for example, English daffodils are already in the shops and snowdrops and aconites are already peeping up. These days, by the beginning of March spring's fully springing in SE England - and London's climate warp makes it earlier
- But ultimately, it's down to what you want to do. Mid Jan, for example, has shop sales, a number of restaurant discounts and a full theatre/opera/etc calendar. It really is impossible to generalise about "best" times - but that doesn't stop the cliche-mongers doing so.

humptynumpty

In days gone by, before rooms were sold through wholesalers on the internet, January and early Feb were better months to receive good deals on city centre rooms. The exhibition centres would exploit the lower demand and many exhibitions operated at this time of year to "fill the rooms".

From my experience it now seems impossible to generalise about price trends. Prices show huge variation between hotels and over time.

We looked at a room with the Radisson Group in 3 weeks time. Similar rated rooms in their group offered anything between £74 including breakfast to £278 room only.

Simply use price comparison sites to see what you can come up with.

dorfan2

Been to London twice in March and going again this year in March. Airfare is cheaper and is the "low season" for rental property rates-usually rates go up in April. The weather was great the last two trips (hope I didn't jinx myself). Cool, but only rained one hour on last trip (while we were in hotel room). Check the average rainfall amounts by month and you'll see that Mar. & April are low - opposite of here in the States! My daughter went early in Dec. one year and everything was very crowded.