I’m looking at temporary accommodations in London. Tripadvisor.com helpfully offers a list of neighborhoods to restrict a search, but I don’t know where most of these neighborhoods are or how far away they are by tube or bus. I can certainly pick through various maps to figure it out, but I thought maybe this would be trivial for someone more familiar with London.
The place I need to get to on a daily basis is immediately south of Hyde Park, right in the middle east/west-wise. The venue gives the following advice: Tube: South Kensington, Knightsbridge, Lancaster Gate Bus: 9, 10, 52, 360, 452
The tube stops are a 15-min walk from my destination and the bus stops are under a 5-min walk. I’d like to keep my door-to-door travel time to <30 minutes if possible, including average deadtime waiting for buses and trains (too optimistic?)
The list of neighborhoods offered in the tripadvisor.com search are:
Bayswater / Notting Hill / Lancaster Gate
Bloomsbury / Holborn
Camden / Primrose Hill
Charing Cross / Trafalgar Square
Chelsea
Chiswick
Clapham / Battersea
Covent Garden
Docklands / Canary Wharf / Isle of Dogs
Earls Court
East End / East London
Euston / Kings Cross /St Pancras
Greenwich
Hammersmith / Fulham
Islington / Clerkenwell
Kensington and Hyde Park
Knightsbridge / South Kensington
Leicester Square / Shaftesbury Avenue
London Bridge
Marylebone
Mayfair / St James's / Piccadilly / Green Park
Oxford Street / Fitzrovia
Paddington / Maida Vale
Regent's Park / Kings Cross
Soho
Victoria
Waterloo / South Bank / Southwark
Westminster / Belgravia
Wimbledon
As I write this post, I see that this list is possibly a one-to-one match with tube stations, which means this is maybe an easier task for me than I thought, although the bus possibility is still out there, as is the purely on-foot option.
Is there anyone with time to kill who wants to break this down for me? Is the bus approach worth considering? What’s a reasonable set of neighborhoods to include in my search?
South Kensington is on the District and Piccadilly lines, and on the southwestern side of the centre of London, so I would look at areas on those lines (which run parallel with each other in that part of town), but to the west of there. That means that Earls Court and Hammersmith would be the first area to look at. Next you could look at Acton, which is a bit more suburban.
Unless you’re going a short distance, I’d avoid using buses, as they can run very slowly, especially in peak times, due to traffic congestion.
Wow, that’s a pretty extensive list, covering most of London. I doubt any one person will be able to break it all down for you, so I’ll chip in with what I’m familiar with.
Battersea/Clapham has some very nice areas to live in (and some grotty ones), but that just about describes anywhere in London. Battersea Park is lovely, and there’s plenty of good bars and restaurants of many types and price ranges.
The 452 will get you to where you want pretty reliably. It has a bus lane all the way to Sloane Square so even in heavy traffic it will get you there with an error bar of 15-20 minutes max. You’ll also have the option of the Northern Line tube from Clapham (Common, North, South or High Street, depending on where you stay). You may also have the choice of Vauxhall tube (Victoria line), or Clapham Junction, Queenstown Road or Battersea Park overland (again, depending on where you stay). So, whatever;s broken (and it will), you’ll have other options. You could also grab a “Boris Bike” and cycle in.
If you decide to stay in Clapham or Battersea, look me up and I’ll buy you a pint.
For a brief, happy period I was able to commute in London by walking. It’s by far the most satisfactory method (healthy, but also completely predictable as unaffected by signalling problems, leaves on the line, congestion, strikes etc.). If were in your shoes, I’d aim for that. Depending on your footspeed in urban terrain, that would mean looking at Bayswater/Notting Hill/Lancaster Gate; Mayfair, Belgravia, Chelsea (expensive!); Paddington, Earl’s Court and maybe Marylebone. Of those, Earl’s Court, Paddington and Bayswater etc. are probably the best in terms of value for money and decent environment.
Rob Dog’s suggestion of Clapham/Battersea is a good one. If you feel up to cycling in London traffic (I don’t) somewhere around Battersea Park could be good.
Bloomsbury/Holborn would work for you in terms of time - a short Piccadilly line ride from Holborn/Russell Sq but you would be getting onto standing room only trains every morning and evening, which you’d have to learn to tolerate.
Generally speaking deadtime waiting for tubes is pretty minimal - 5 mins is considered an absurdly long delay on most lines. The only exception is if you’re on one branch of a split or shared line, in which case there will be trains every couple of minutes, but not necessarily the one you want. Even then more than 5 mins wait would be rare.
This is only for a brief stay, so I’ll be able to tolerate some imperfections in my daily plan. I think I’ll explore the walking-distance suggestions first and move out from there. (I like the certainty with walking, at least temporally if not meteorologically.)
Having worked as a temp in London, I can assure you that no two places are more than 2 hours apart (unless there is a Tube strike). You can live anywhere, but Stanislaus’s suggestions are sound.
Walking is wonderful, but do not expect anyone to be able to give you directions beyond the closest Tube station. One of the nicest things about walking is coming across at random somewhere famous - Scotland Yard, for example, or that you recognise from a movie. And London can be beautiful above ground; below… not so much!
When you’re looking for specific properties, don’t go by the neighbourhood name you’re given. Estate agents can have a very elastic idea of what they cover. What you’ll need is the precise postcode (which will look something like SW1A 1AA) to put into Google Maps.
And be prepared to be shocked by the prices. The London property market is insane (and I speak as one who’s benefiting from it).
Due to a set of convenient coincidences and multi-party interest (I’m not intentionally being vague here; it’s just not that interesting), price shouldn’t be a problem for this trip, from what I’ve looked at so far.
I’ve already found several adequate solutions that I’ll be looking into more.
Many thanks again, all, for the useful pointers. Saved me a lot of time getting orient(at)ed!