Kandace_York

I didn't think I was really up to planning an independent family vacation, and I'm beginning to realize my doubts were spot-on, and I probably should have just booked a tour, added a couple days to travel on our own, and been done with it.

We are a family of 4, planning a September/October trip (12-14 days) to London, Yorkshire and Paris. We have passports, airfare and hotel accommodations -- which in itself has been an immense and exhausting frustration.

Now I'm down to rail transportation, which I *cannot* seem to figure out (why can't they be as organized as the Germans?). Yes, I realize it's now quite late in the game, but when your job unexpectedly turns into 12-hour days, 6-day work weeks for two months straight -- and likely to continue up until the day of departure -- and no one else in the family has ever planned a vacation or traveled outside the U.S., there are very few options.

$600 to go round-trip on the Chunnel from London to Paris? Yikes!

And England travel ... I can't even begin to decipher it. National rail, regional rail, Tube, bus, travel cards, what makes sense, what doesn't. Egad. There seem to be hundreds of opinions and suggestions.

I've plowed through threads here. I've trudged through all the websites. Half the time, the websites don't even work. One thread said to go through SGNF instead of Eurostar to save money ... except that it's in French, so no dice there, back to square one.

Does anyone know of an independent tour that might be able to get negotiated train travel rates or fill in the holes of our now-tattered vacation plans? In desperation I contacted a local tour agent who pretty much refused to do anything other than arrange a textbook full-service tour at roughly double the costs I'd already gotten for airfare. I hunted for "independent tour expert" for my area and the Google search sent me right back to that very travel agency as being the top-notch local authority.

***frustrated***

So now I feel like we're really stuck, with some arrangements we can't back out of, but these arrangements make it impossible to hook up with a tour that might solve our dilemma.

Help! And thanking you in advance for putting up with such a snarky post!

cynthia_booker

I feel for you. Is there anything you can simplify? Even if it costs some non-refundable deposits. It would be better to have a trip that covers just two or three places than no trip at all. Even is you don't see all the must-sees, you and the family can have a wonderful trip. And those that are missed be the basis for up-coming dreams.

janisj

OK - relax. Things aren't that bad. You seem to be is a bit of a panic and there is no need.

First of all -are you doing things in the order you said . . . London > Yorkshire > Paris? If so,the Eurostar may not ne your best bet. You'd have to return to London (granted, to Kings Cross which is next door to St Pancras). But if you are up in Yorkshire - you can fly from Leeds to Paris w/o having to go back to London.

Are you renting a car for Yorkshire?

(Your London transport - tube/Oyster/travelcards is easy peasy and not related to the train to Yorkshire. You don't need to pre-plan/pre-purchase transport for London)

Michael

<i>
$600 to go round-trip on the Chunnel from London to Paris? Yikes!</i>

That's $150 RT per person if you are giving us a total cost for four. Check to see if Ryanair is cheaper, but I think you'll discover that with the cost of going to and from the various airports and all the added fees, the train is more convenient and about the same price.

janisj

"<i>but I think you'll discover that with the cost of going to and from the various airports and all the added fees, the train is more convenient and about the same price.</i>"

IF - you are traveling from central London, then yes Eurostar is definitely more convenient and probably cheaper. But not necessarily if you are traveling from Yorkshire.

But you may have left things too late to get the best train OR air fares.

indy_dad

I feel your pain/stress. What holes/transportation are you trying to fill? Planned itinerary?

greg

There is usually an inverse relationship between the price vs. research and the lead time.

If you want low prices, you usually need a long lead time to research and snatch advance tickets. Except for rush hour travels, you can buy trains to most major destinations at last minutes without much research if you are willing to pay the full non-discounted prices.

Most trip advices assume you are in the former group: have lead time and willing to spend research time in order to snatch the low cost tickets.

I think you are more in the latter category. If you follow so called how-to-find-low-cost-tickets, you would find dead ends for long distance train tickets.

I think you gain sanity by partitioning the task. You have perhaps 5 tasks. You are dealing with different operational entities.

1. inside London. This is a city transit and you probably want some kind of Oyster card. Unfortunately, it is quite a chore to decipher which one. If you post how long you are staying London, where you are going, whether you can travel post rush hours, etc, there are many very knowledgeable people here to recommend a relevant card.
2. between UK cities. If you don't want to figure out, some kind of Britrail simplifies your task. This is probably not the cheapest. There are also many UK train experts here who can recommend relevant pass / point tickets if you post where you are going.
3. Yorkshire: depending on what this means, you might actually need a car.
4. Paris and back: Eurostar is the most straightforward and actually simple to choose since it has a monopoly position. Fares go up steeply as you approach the departure date. Unfortunately, you have to deal with this. You probably need to pay 1.5x-2x the best price at this point.
5. inside Paris: depending on you usage model, stacks of one-trip tickets (carnet) is usually what you need for a fraction of week stay. No need to do anything until you get to Paris.

Before you long for simplicity, consider Swisspass in Switzerland. It covers all the federal rail trains, most boats, museums, and city transits. Simple? yes. But it is a very very expensive pass.

PatrickLondon

Trains within Britain: www.nationalrail.co.uk. Cheapest fares for 2 adults and two children from London to Leeds on 20 September: £67.80

Trains London-Paris: www.surostar.com. One way London-Paris, 20 September. Cheapest fare for 2 adults and 2 children under 11: £211 if you travel at silly a.m., £248 around lunchtime/early afternoon (tickets going fast - it is a popular time of year to visit Paris), rising to £300+ if you travel at peak times for business travellers. Yes, that is what it costs.

For planes: www.skyscanner.net

What arrangements are you committed to, and what would you like to fit in?

Heimdall

<i>Now I'm down to rail transportation, which I *cannot* seem to figure out (why can't they be as organized as the Germans?).</i>

Back in the days when all the trains were operated by British Rail, and before the internet, life was a lot simpler. Then, all you had to do was walk up the the ticket window and buy your ticket. I must confess I don't use the trains anymore, preferring to drive instead. With a family of four it would probably be a lot more economical to use bus/tube in London and hire (rent) a car for your trip to Yorkshire.

The $600 (about £380) for a family of four to travel round-trip from the centre of London to the centre of Paris doesn't sound too unreasonable to me.

flanneruk

"Back in the days when all the trains were operated by British Rail, and before the internet, life was a lot simpler. "

Now real investment in going into Britain's railways, you simply go to www.nationalrail.co.uk, look at whether an Anytime, off-peak or advance ticket suits your needs and buy the one that suits you. No need even to walk up to a ticket window. Where, incidentally, the range of fares under state ownership was broadly identical to the range today.

Doesn't sound remotely "disorganised" to me.

Ackislander

flanneruk said, as is often the case, what I would have said. This is not a hard problem, certainly no harder than making a three city airline reservation in the US when all three cities are not served by one airline.

PalenQ

Not sure how many trains you are planning on taking in England but check into the BritEngland Railpass if your family includes kids under 16 they each get a free pass to match what the adults buy - and if they are over 15 then the Party Pass allows the 3rd and 4th person to get a pass at half-price of what the first two pay - passes let you hop on any train anytime - no restrictions and such flexible tickets can cost a fortune - but if just say going to York and back then it is easy enough to book online advance tickets - restricted however to a specific train and non-changeable and to secure as they are sold in limited numbers weeks in advance.

so check www.nationalrail.co.uk to see what fares are available and then compare to the pass - if at all close go for the pass as it makes things so easy - just show up and hop on the train. check out these superb IMO sites for lots of great stuff on British trains and passes: http://www.budgeteuropetravel.com/id11.html; www.ricksteves.com and www.seat61.com (click on the commercial link on this site to RailEurope USA to get BritRail England prices and if buying a pass book thru this site to give Man in Seat 61 IMO a well-deserved commission.

zippo

We should get G4s to run the railway. Rail privitisation was deadly - we had to buy back the track providers (network rail) because so many people were dying in rail crashes. Prices in the UK are now astronomical and rising. Take the bus?

bilboburgler

There is a bit of "noise" here and the OP just wants to know how to get around not understand the politics of rail privatisation and not too many options. Breath....

Calmly then, Patrick London is on the ball and has the key three links you need. But I think the link may be eurostar.com due to a typo

Within Paris and London there are also city based underground, overground trains, bikes and buses.

If that is not enough then Mike at seat61.com can put you right if anyone can.

Why aren't we like the Germans?.... perhaps another thread...

PatrickLondon

I seem to remember people suggesting you delete the Eurostar.com cookie if you're in the US, and tell it you're in the UK, in case that gives you cheaper fares: but I'm not sure if I've remembered it right, or whether it makes much of a difference.

Rubicund

Tell us where you're staying on what dates and we can help. When do you fly in and out and where from?

PalenQ

$600 to go round-trip on the Chunnel from London to Paris? Yikes!>

Why go round trip - why not fly open jaw - into London and say out of Paris or Amsterdam or Frankfurt - why necessitate a perhaps expensive return to London?

Kandace_York

Thank you, everyone.

My big hang-up was London --> Paris --> Thirsk transportation.

I got one-way tickets from London to Paris (Eurostar) for $400.

It would be cheaper (and so much faster) to fly from Paris to Leeds, rather than take Eurostar back to London and then the train from London to Thirsk.

However, flying is a hassle, too. I cannot find anywhere how I would get from LBA to Thirsk by train. Noplace seems to say whether there is a train station at the airport or an easy way to get to the train station. I suppose ... a cab? I just don't know.

And without knowing the distances, I can't really book tickets, because I don't know how much time to allow from plane arrival to train departure.

We were planning to rent a car to drive around Thirsk/Yorkshire, but then that's a problem, too. I can't tell whether we can get a car at the Thirsk train station, or if we're in walking distance of our B&B from the train station, or if we'd just be better off driving from LBA to Thirsk.

Husband is intimidated about driving very far and wants to limit the driving just to back country roads of Thirsk/Yorkshire -- does NOT want to drive from LBA to Thirsk.

So ... this segment remains a puzzle. Once I somehow figure this out (which has already taken several hours with no resolution), then I can start trudging through the rest of the train travel issues (Heathrow to London, London to our apartment and back as needed) and our day trip to Stonehenge --> which I think *will* be a pre-arranged tour, assuming I can find a convenient pick-up/drop-off point.

Ideas? Thank you ... and please accept my apologies for sounding so whiney. I've been to Europe, but always by myself, never with a family. I didn't realize how very much this complicates things.

Kandace

janisj

"<i>and please accept my apologies for sounding so whiney</i>"

You don't sound whiney . . . but very confused. You have set out a plan w/o first finding out what is possible/practical.

"<i>Husband is intimidated about driving very far and wants to limit the driving just to back country roads of Thirsk/Yorkshire -- does NOT want to drive from LBA to Thirsk.</i>"

I'm not surprised you are having a hard/confusing time of it. You are are sort of trying to fit a round peg in a square hole and complicating things more than necessary.

Thirsk is quite a small town, it will be easier IMO to initially get used to the car/driving from the airport instead of on very narrow rural roads.

janisj

Why are you doing this London > Paris > Thirsk?

Where are you flying into and home from?