Oxford to London
 

We will be leaving for London next week. We're renting a car and visiting a few towns in the Cotswolds for three days. We'll end in Oxford and want to drop our car there instead of taking it back to Gatwick. We will then be spending a week in London. What is the fastest way to get from Oxford to London. Bus? Oxford Tube? Train?

Train is fastest (1 hr), bus cheapest but i believe slower though there are express buses - there are specials on trains however:

trains: www.nationalrail.co.uk

Trains go very frequently to London's Paddington station - just rode one a few weeks ago.

But do you know where you are dropping the car? Driving in Oxford isn't the easiest - depending on where in the city you need to go.

Have you considered droping the car at LHR instead?

Is it easier to drop it at LHR than at Gatwick? Bryan at BETS told me it would take 3-4 hours to drive from Oxford to Gatwick, and he suggested we take the train. We would be dropping the car at Langford Lane in Oxford. The Hertz people said it "wasn't too far" from the train station.

Is the entire American travel industry populated by ignorant liars, or have you just had a bad day?

Langford Lane is five miles from Oxford railway station, or ten if you're in a hurry and get a taxi right round the ring road and back into the town from the other direction. This may not be far in the middle of a desert. But it's a bloody long way if you're geting a bus through the city or hoping your taxi doesn't get stuck in a jam on the bypass or outside the box stores of Botley Road.

As for BETS: The bus to Gatwick from Oxford is scheduled to take 2-2.5 hours, and it's got a speed limiting device attached. We've never known that bus to be late.

From roughly where the Hertz place is (more or less on the approach to Oxford from the Cotswolds) it's never taken me longer than 2 hours to Gatwick, though if you're planning to stay in Oxford, you need to allow time to get out of town.

One American travel advisor you CAN trust (except for her bizarre tolerance of the horrors of Blenheim) is janisj. It's unlikely you really need to return the car to Gatwick: leave it at Heathrow, from where it's a great deal easier to get to London than from Hertz's rural fastness. Actually it's next to an immigrant detention centre that gets burnt down every year or so by detainees infuriated at the place's isolation from anywhere they, or their visitors, want to be.

Flanner - have you actually driven between Gatwick and Oxford - i used to regularly drive between Heathrow and Gatwick and it could take hours to go just between the two because of gridlock on the Ring motorway. Optimal conditions maybe but if you're catching a flight i'd leave yes 3-4 hours. Gatwick to Oxford. I haven't driven this in a few years and maybe the traffic load on that ring road has decreased though doubt it.
You may be able to do it in 2-2.5 hours, which isn't much less than 3-4 really, which is probably a conservative estimate if someone were catching a flight.

I assume those "Hertz people" are in the states. The only Langford Lane I know of in Oxford is at the airport. Good news - it is an easy place to drive to. Bad-ish news - it is some distance norh of teh city/train station. But I imagine there are probably buses. Maybe Flanner will see your thread and know the best way

OOPS while I was writing this flanner beat me to it . . . . . :D

(I was just checking that there wasn't another Langford lane somewhere -- my excuse anyway . . . .

In any case -- In your situation I would <b>definitely</b> drop the car at LHR

PalQ:

Of course I've bloody driven it. Mrs F or I do it about once a month, by bus or car. Routinely leave our Cotswold place (half an hour outside Oxford by road) 3.5 hours before takeoff.

The &quot;ring motorway&quot; (I assume you're talking about the M25) nonsense that gets churned out on this site is just that. Truth is, the lane additions over the past 5 years and the near-permanent use of variable speed limits have almost eliminated real congestion on the M40-M23 section of the M25. You just travel at a steady 50-60, even during the morning rush hour.

janisj, The complete address of the Hertz is Kidlington Oxford Motar Park, Langfor Lane, Hartwells of Oxford. We assumed there would be some sort of reasonable transportation from Hertz to the train station (taxi)? The train to London takes about an hour. However, You know the area much better than we do, so will we will probably take your advice and plan on dropping off the car at LHR. Thanks

Yep - that's the place. It is north of Oxford in an area called Kidlington - and that is where the airport is.

Easy to drive to - a b**ch to get to the train station from. Just drive in to LHR and drop the car there - the rental depots are not on-airport so are mostly easy to get to and they shuttle you right to the terminals where you can get on the tube or HEX into town.

Oxford to LHR is a very direct route

At least that is what I'd do.