Exchange Zones

Due to British Pound being the strongest currency in the world any trip to England becomes very expensive.  At the time I was in London (August, 2007), one British Pound was worth about 2.25 Canadian Dollars.  As a result I had to pay double the Canadian price for most of the things in London.  As an example, for a pint of beer that at a pub in Vancouver, Canada would cost me $3.50, I had to pay £2.90 which was about $6.50 (Canadian Dollars).  The relation in absolute figures in case of other products is not always the same as in case of beer, but nonetheless London is an expensive proposition for any foreigner.

I was lucky to have at least prearranged my accommodation and did not have to add to my budget the high cost of staying in a hotel.  Having friends in other parts of the world does definitely have some measurable advantages…   If you don’t have friends in London, try Bed and Breakfast, a Hostel, or a Home Exchange.  If you travel in a group a good idea would be to rent a furnished apartment or a house.

What struck me just upon my arrival at Heathrow Airport was the fact that on top of everything one has to add the cost of information (or the lack of it).  You can catch a train from Heathrow to the city of London.  There is a well marked passageway to the Heathrow Express which will get you to the city center for mere £15.  If you are better informed you may opt for using so called Heathrow Connect which will do similar job for only £6.90.   However, if you do a really good job asking around you will find out that you can also use the subway service (the Tube), which is a totally separate entity from the other train services, and it will cost you only £4.  The only problem is that you may have to change trains and that it will take longer to get to your destination.  Now, if you are REALLY smart, you may get one of the so called Travelcards that are valid for a certain period of time (Day Travelcard, 3 Day Travelcard, 7 Day, Monthly, etc). Travelcards can be used on the Tube, DLR, Tram, and National Rail within the zones covered by your ticket and on all London Buses displaying London Transport sign.  Since I arrived early in the day I had a lot of time to ask around and to do a good investigation at the airport concerning the cost of getting to the city.  As a result of it I got ONE WEEK Travelcard for only £23.20. Since this Travelcard was only valid for Zones 1 and 2 (London Center) and Heathrow is in Zone 6, I only had to pay additional fee of about £2.  In effect I paid only about £25 to get from Heathrow to the city center and for all additional travel for the whole week.  If I wasn’t paying attention, and just followed the signs to the Heathrow Express it would cost me £15 just to get to Paddington Station which was in the area of my accommodation.

In fact I got something called Oyster Card.  It is a magnetic or electronic card, which supposedly gives even more advantage than simple paper Travelcard.  However, I never figured out the difference, and in my opinion it only adds to the whole confusion about London transportation system.

The other odd thing that I noticed in the London Railway system is that there is no central railway station.  Instead there are a few independent stations in London such as Paddington, Euston,  Victoria, Waterloo, etc. with trains going to various directions.  As a result you cannot go to a main railway station to figure out what train to catch to a destination outside of London.  You need to know first to which station to go, before you do that as various stations serve only certain directions of travel.  As an example I had to know that I needed to go to Victoria Station to catch a train to Gatwick Airport before flying to Hamburg.  Once there, I also had to be careful not to pay £15 for the express train to Gatwick, as the normal train takes only 10 minutes longer at the cost of only £8.90.

One more saving tip.  If you want to save on train travel in England, book your trip and buy your ticket well in advance.   If you just go to a station and buy your ticket the day you travel (just before boarding the train), you will be throwing a lot of money away…