033 - Budget travel in Britain | The Indie Travel Podcast

033 - Budget travel in Britain

Standard Podcast [6:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week the Indie Travel Podcast looks at budget travel in Britain. “Budget travel in Britain?” we hear you cry. It does seem a contradiction in terms, but if you plan ahead and are willing to put up with some discomfort it is possible. Honestly.

We’ve decided to make this a case study in travelling from London, England to Glasgow, Scotland by plane, train and coach. We are looking for the cheapest option for leaving and arriving anytime on the 31st of October 2007. This week we look at prices as of the 1st of October and we’ll look at prices at the end of the month in a later travel podcast.

Here are our findings:

By plane - Easyjet will cost £16.99 and take 1 hour 15 minutes (plus check-in/security time).
By train - Virgin trains will cost £17.50 and take 5 hours 40 minutes
By coach - Megabus will cost £3.50 and take 10 hours.

These are good prices for the relatively fast and comfortable flight and train journey, but coach is the only real budget option for inter-city travel in Britain. You may wish to consider Eurail Regional Passes.

Links:
Transcript (pdf, 260kb)
skyscanner.net
thetrainline.com
megabus.com
nationalexpress.com

Recent comments on:
032 - Doing things local
018 - Online hostel-booking engines review

If you love us, vote for us: Indie Travel Podcast as best travel blog in the blogger’s choice awards.

The Indie Travel Podcast gives great advice for independent travellers. You may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes. Both are free and you can find out more here. Thanks for visiting!

If you like this, please Stumble it!

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 and is a Podcast, Transport post. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

4 Responses to “033 - Budget travel in Britain”

Ryan Price Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Hi Craig. I’ve just listened to this one episode, but I can understand why someone would want a transcript for this podcast. You give some great tips and specific figures and URLs during your speaking that would translate well to text. you must not write a script if it takes some time to transcribe episodes.

Also, you guys have stepped up your show notes with some great branding. If someone does email the notes to a friend, the document is already portable and still carries links back to the originating site. If I ever do show notes, this is how it will be. Also, this document is serval kilobytes vs. several megabytes.

I’ll be sure and give your podcast as an example at PodCamp Orlando if I ever get that going.

Craig Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Cheers for that Ryan. (I asked Ryan for some feedback on his post, Orlando Travel & Visitors Bureau Knows Podcasting?.)

Helene Says:
April 20th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I’ve just subscribed and made my way through your podcasts. They’ve kept me entertained on many train trips round the UK. Thank you! One quick point, you mentioned about using http://www.thetrainline.com this website charges a booking fee for using credit cards and having the tickets posted too you. Not good for the budget concious.

Booking with UK train companies through their websites is a way of avoiding these fees. Tickets for any journey in the UK can be booked through any train company’s own website. My favourites are http://www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com and http://www.nationalexpresseastanglia.com Both avoid any extra fees. The latter is operated by trainline so the layout of tickets and prices is the same but it doesn’t include the fees. It does include insurance as a default so remember to deselect this!

On another point, the train ticketing system is so convoluted and complicated in the UK that it’s very often possible to book two single/return tickets by splitting up the journey eg if you’re going from London to Glasgow, booking separate tickets, one from London to Newcastle and one Newcastle to Glasgow. This can be cheaper even on walk up fares. I did just this at the weekend as I wanted to travel out of London at peak times and saved myself £40.

Hope this helps, happy travelling!

Craig and Linda Says:
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:22 am
Hi Helene,

Thanks for listening and those are some great tips. I have to agree that the UK system is convoluted…and don’t get me started about Clapham Junction!

I’ve alway used the Trainline to research routes and prices, then bought my ticket through a kiosk on the station. Do you know if there is any advantage to pre-booking?

The two ticket trick is familiar; sometimes we’ve even found it cheaper to buy a RETURN than a SINGLE! That’s madness. True madness.

Thanks for your great tips.

When you leave a comment, your email address will be added to our email newsletter. No spam, never sold. If you don't want to be added, please say. Images are powered by Gravatar - Get your own.