I’m bad about underestimating travel expenses. If flight and hotel are covered, what should I plan on for 5 days?
The place i’m considering is near Hyde Park and they say has a metro station near by.
If you were going for 5 days with no backup (no extra credit card to fall back on) how much money would you want?
Basically, I want to do a bit of touristy stuff in the area, maybe have dinner each night, but nothing extravagent. And take the subway to get around and just look around basically. .
Would I be cutting it too close with $1500 for 5 days? (1500 after flight and hotel)
$1500 is around £200 per day. That should be more than enough.
Get a weekly travelcard, if you’re staying within zones 1 and 2 that will be £25.80 and will cover you for your entire trip. If you’re going to be travelling outside zone 2 then you’ll need an extension for the trip or consider getting a travelcard that covers more zones.
If you’re not eating extravagently you can get away with £50 per person per day (I’m assuming breakfast is included in the hotel). Of course you could easily spend a lot more or less than that but I think it’s a fair figure to work with. If you want recommendations let me know what type of food you like, and I may be able to help.
Not sure how much the attractions cost but I know museums are free and I can’t imagine the most expensive attractions (things like Madamme Tussauds, never been myself) being much more than £20 to get in.
Get an Oyster Card. 3 pounds, cheaper than travel card, much less of a hassel. Can get from any tube station.
What are you planning to do. If its tourist related stuff than about 1000 pounds should cover it, even allowing for a bit of extravagence on one day. If its a trip of fine dining and expensive operas, well the skys the limit really.
Depends where he’s going and how much he’s travelling. He could spend £39 on an Oyster without leaving Zone 1 in five days compared to the less than £26 for a travelcard. That would only be 4 journeys a day to get up to £39:
1- to first attraction and lunch
2 - to second attraction
3 - to dinner
4 - back to hotel
and that’s £7.20 a day plus £3 for the card. It’s only 3 journeys if zone 2 is involved.
If you’re staying in zones 1 and 2 get a travelcard whether on Oyster (additional £3 but will be easier if you then go outside the travelcard’s area) or paper.
£7.20 is the absolute maximum he could spend a day in zones 1 and 2, and that’s only if he travels at peak hours getting the tube and not buses. He’s on holiday, so I can’t see him leaving very early.
£200 per day is a HUGE amount of money. You could go to the theatre every single evening, eat out at a really nice restaurant, pay for the special exhibitions at the museums, buy some souvenirs, have some booze and get a taxi home.
It is the maximum but as I said if he makes 4 journeys (or 3 involving zone 2) then he’ll spend that no matter what time he wakes up. At least with a travelcard he doesn’t have to worry about jumping on the tube when he wants.
Nope. The off-peak price cap is £5.60.. With pay as you go he doesn’t have to worry about jumping on the tube when he wants, either.
There is an additional advantage to getting a Travelcard, however - you can use it for 2-for-1 entry to lots of London attractions and for discounts at some restaurants as well as on the riverboats. Mind you, if you’re worrying that £200 per day is too little then you’re probably not going to be bothered about small savings like that.
Oh yeah, it is £5.60, it will still end up more expensive (£31) to do that and he’ll have to wait until 9.30am before starting out. But as you say, it’s only a small amount of money difference in the grand scheme of things.
£3 is the redeemable deposit you pay for an Oyster card, which is simply a credit card-style devise onto which you load any kind of ticket, travelcards included. The Oyster card on its own has NO travel allowance on it. You will still need to buy a travelcard for £25.80. The advantage of putting your travelcard onto an Oyster rather than just carrying a paper ticket is that the Oyster also allows you to load Pay-As-You-Go amounts that allow you to travel outside of zones 1-2 without buying an additional paper ticket.
The London transport network is priced according to zones, which divide the city into about 6 circles pulsating out from the centre - zones 1-2 will cover you for any journey via bus, Tube and overland train for the vast majority of your trips - you will only have to purchase additional tickets if you want to visit attractions outside the centre, such as Hampton Court Palace or Windsor Castle.
National museums are all totally free, giving you access to some of the world’s best - the British Museum, National Gallery, Tate Modern, Victoria & Albert Museum, to name but a few. Privately-owned attractions, such as the Tower of London and the London Eye, charge.
If you eat in pubs, expect to pay between £7-£15 for a main course. A bottle of wine could be anything from £12-£20. Nicer restaurants are obviously more, but allow £30-£50 for a nice dinner with wine.
£200 per day is loads. However, you said you wouldn’t be taking additional credit cards. I’d always recommend having an additional source of funds in case disaster strikes - buying an emergency plane ticket home, for example.
^
I know perfectly well what an Oyster card is having lived in London till Sep last year. It is at the end of the day, A LOT cheaper than buying travel cards, despite the protestation that I have heard. And far less of a hassel.
Also from what he is saying he is going to be living in either marble arch or knightsbridge or Edgeware road , thats bloody expensive. 200 pounds a day is not loads there.
So at 2 journeys a day, by your costing, it would cost him £25 for the 5 days. Why not get a travelcard for 80p more and have unlimited journeys? He’s going to use more than 2 journeys a day.
I would say that a day spent in the Trafalger-Charing Cross-Picadilly-Leicester Sqaure-Covant Garden-Soho area will not go amiss. My favourite place on gods green earth.
National Gallery, I never get bored there.
Lunch at the Embassy of Texas
Catch a movie
Go to Oxford Circus, Bond Street as well for shopping
And best of all, the entire place is can be seen via walking
Travelcards are the same price whether on Oyster or paper ticket. ColdPhoenix has it right. As a tourist, you’ll easily take 3-4 tube journeys per day - considerably cheaper to get a travelcard than pay per journey. And I can’t see what is so much less hassle than a single travelcard that you buy once??
Only if the OP is planning on eating in Michelin star restaurants for every meal.
With an Oyster card in my pocket, so that I could catch the tube to interesting neighbourhoods with a variety of ethnic foods, I think that I could eat very well on less than 40 pounds per day (including beer or wine to go with the food).
Firstly, you need a back-up funding source in case you get pickpocketed (it happens frequently in London so be wary). Secondly, $1500 should be enough depending on your tastes. Thirdly, always bring more money and fewer clothes than you think you’ll need…
And plan a whole day for the British Museum (but not a weekend day, it’s too crowded).
I thought the whole point of Oyster cards is that they’re smart enough that they will charge you the minimum possible fare for your journey? So, if you only make two journeys in a day it will charge you the appropriate fare for those journeys, but if you go on to make more journeys in the same day, it will only charge you up to the equivalent of what a Travelcard would have cost you - after that, any more journeys you make in the same day are not charged.
That’s how it was explained to me, anyway (although I work in London, I very rarely take the Tube as I tend to cycle).
Pick pockets, simple buy a blazer and keep most of your money in the inside pocket.
And unless you are eating Shawarma’s and Doner kebab at Edgeware Road (about 10 pounds with a soft drink) the area you are staying mean 25 pounds easy for a meal and a glass of wine or about 20 sans the wine. Take my advice, 1000 pounds will seem very little once you are there.
Travel - Get a 7-day travelcard on Oyster card for zones 1-2. It’s a £3 deposit for the card and £25.80 for all Tube and train travel within those zones and all London buses in all zones. If you want to venture out of central London to somewhere like Wimbledon or Greenwich which is outside of zones 1-2 you can put cash on the Oyster card (or go by bus). Once you have the Oyster card, it’s so much less hassle than messing around with paper tickets.
Pubs - Check out this site: Fancyapint.com for reviews of pubs in the area you are staying and all around London. They are quite good at rating the pubs with most character highly. At the other end of the scale, if you are looking for straightforward and good value food and beer you can’t often go wrong with a Wetherspoon’s pub (The Tyburn at Marble Arch is probably your closest one). These are becoming an increasingly widespread chain in the UK; you can have a meal and drink here for less than £10.
3 Restaurants - Toptable.com is the best site for restaurant reviews. Many of the more upmarket, ‘posh’ places, particularly those with ‘star’ names attached to them such as Gordon Ramsay require reservation so check ahead if you plan on really splashing out on a restaurant meal. You can find any world cuisine somewhere in London. If you are a curry fan, a visit to Brick Lane (about 15 minutes walk from Liverpool Street station) is a must. Doner kebab shops are everywhere, as are fried chicken and BBQ ribs and it should not cost you £10 for a kebab and soft drink. For a quick cheap filling lunch there are Subway sandwich bars all over central London.
Entertainment There’s enough tourist attractions in London to do more than one of them each day for months. For music, cinema, theatre, art exhibitions etc pick up a Time Out magazine which you can get from any newsagent.
