I’m from America. My mother and I are contemplating a trip to England next year. We plan on hitting London, Reading, Moulsford (near Wallingford), Oxford, Forthampton (near Tewkesbury) and Clyro, Wales (west of Hereford). This seemingly bizarre itinerary is because we share an interest in our family roots and want to visit some of the family’s old haunts.
Mom is 70 and reasonably mobile.
I have driven on the left before - I spent a few weeks driving in Oz and NZ - so please resist the urge to talk me out of it on that basis . But I’ve never set foot in Britain.
My hypothesis is that, due to the fact that we’re visiting some small towns, public transportation really won’t be a viable option. I’m asking those of you who live there or are quite familiar with southern England to weigh in. Thanks in advance.
Yep, rent a car. The rail network isn’t actually as terrible as it’s often made out to be, but autumn weather usually plays merry hell with reliability (such as this weekend’s gales) and it’s not easy to travel between small towns on public transport - unsurprisingly the better links are between cities and commuter towns.
I’m no expert on reliable rental companies, but EasyCar (aka EasyRentacar) seem to be pretty popular.
Yeah; pretty much what Crusoe said; public transport will get you almost anywhere you want to go (even most really small villages have a bus service), but it will be much more convenient for you (and efficient in terms of your limited time) to hire a small car.
If you want to check out some prices in advance of your visit, you can get contact details for some rental companies here
Luckily, my anti-hamster kit allows me to repost this lost response:
Personally, assuming that your above itinerary is accurate, I’d follow grimpixie’s advice and not drive in London. So you arrive at Heathrow, tube/taxi into London, train to Reading (it’s a fast, commuter service), hire a car in Reading and drop it off at Heathrow when you leave.
The tube into London from Heathrow is vastly cheaper, but with lil’ ol’ mom, you may prefer to be gouged (hugely) by the airport taxis.
Better still is the Heathrow Express, a very comfortable train service that shuttles between the airport and Paddington station. It’s not cheap (£12 each way IIRC) but faster and more relaxing than the tube and more pleasant than a taxi.
yeah, I’ll just chime in with a vote to NOT drive in London, (the tube is the easiest way to get around by far - proabably the cheapest too - some stations may be difficult (lots of stairs) for your mom.) Get a car for the out-of-london stuff, especially wales - but be prepared for narrow country lanes in some places
Doh, I knew that :smack: . Thanks for the correction Crusoe.
Just did a little searching for taxi costs. From Heathrow to London apparently costs £30-45. If you train it, it will cost £24 plus taxi at the end --> £30-£34.
In contrast, a tube travelcard for the day is £5 (offpeak) or a single from Heathrow to London is (IIRC) ~£3.60. Taking the latter, and adding a taxi at the end, you’re looking at £10-£12.
…complete hijack alert…
Why not take the oppurtunity to visit Hemel Hempstead, home of the ‘Magic Roundabout’ - 6 roundabouts arranged around a central roundabout…
Wow - you folks are great! Thanks much for the pointers. The “hire a car in Reading” advice makes tons of sense.
We have roundabouts in my native Ohio. I circumnavigated my first one within my first few miles of ever (intentionally) driving on the left, in Hobart, Tasmania, so I’m not a “clockwise virgin” anymore.
IMO the central part of the magic roundabout (and the one in Swindon too) isn’t a roundabout at all as traffic circumnavigates it in both directions; I (but I’m no authority on the subject) consider it to be just a circular arrangement of mini-roundabouts.
We discussed this recently at Anthracite’s board (Am I allowed to link to the thread?).
A solid recommendation: be sure to rent a car with an automatic transmission. There’s enough going on without having to worry about teaching your left hand how to shift, and automatics are not the default rental car like they are in the US.
I would second this.
A few years ago on a business trip I had obtained directions to go to a church on the way between London and my destination. I was doing all right with the left-side business (white knuckles), but I soon found out that roundabouts were by far the more challenging beast for me.
We have them in the East, but nothing prepared me for the sheer quantity in the UK. Consider this: wherever a small US town would have a traffic light, a UK town has a roundabout. The result is that a grid of streets has a roundabout at every node, so a simple “three streets over and one street up” becomes challenging. I found myself completely disoriented, every hundred yards I encountered a sign with a picture of a circle with, it appeared, twelve streets coming out of it.
Over the next several days I became more relaxed when I realized a few things:
[ul][li]The British are very respectful of their driving rules – the traffic in the circle has the right-of-way and they follow this rule strictly.[/li][li]A typical roundabout is simply a circle set on top of a four-way intersection. This means that left=first exit, straight=second exit, right=third exit (There are plenty of exceptions, but these are the most common).[/li]An American can get away with some pretty stupid things on the road – the British cut us lots of slack. I did things that would have evoked horns and obscene gestures in New Jersey, but I never saw as much as an unpleasant glare.[/ul]
I hired a car from EasyCar yesterday, just returned it this afternoon. They really are dirt cheap. Don’t know if they have a handy pick-up place if you don’t want to drive in London though (I rented from High St Kensington and it took about 45 mins to drive the 6 miles from my house to the rental place :rolleyes: ). You can see where they cut costs - they don’t even have an office, just a bloke with a picnic table sat behind a van (“EasyCar Mobile Rental Unit”) on the 9th floor of a multistorey car park!
Anyway, it’s worth reiterating that unless you specifically ask, you will get a manual (stick-shift) car (in fact I don’t think EasyCar do automatics at all). I don’t know how prevalent manual cars are in the US but you may feel more comfortable with an automatic so you don’t have to shift with the “wrong hand”.
Roudabouts come in all sizes and a suprising variety of shapes - they are not all circular. Most are of modest proportions, one or two lanes and three or four exits. This is the type that most books, including the highway code, discuss at some length.
Roundabouts can be a problem especially if you step out of the airport, into your hire car and then drive onto a major road or motorway. Your first roudabout experience may be an encounter with one of those multi-lane many-exit monsters.
Roundabouts are great, but the big and busy ones present a challenge to the inexperienced. It might be a good idea to travel away from the airport before hiring your car or timing your arrival to a non-rush-hour time.
There are also mini-roundabouts - the roundabout island is just a painted circle or bump in the road. Cars should treat mini-rounabouts as their larger brothers. Mini-roundabouts allow large vehicles with a large turning circle to drive right over them. The purpose of the mini-rounabout is to estabish who has right of way.
Good stuff. I drove manual transmissions in Oz and NZ and although it wasn’t bad, certainly an automatic would be easier.
And, yes, I know that Wales is not the same as England. But Clyro (the birthplace of my mom’s grandfather) is all of one mile over the border, so 99% of the driving and all of the airtravel will involve England. No chauvinism intended, Futile.
. But I’ve never set foot in Britain.