Travelling to London by Plane

Your flight into London can land at one of five airports. While City Airport is probably the closest to Central London, Heathrow Airport, Gatwick Airport, Luton Airport and Stansted Airport are all only one hour or so away from Hatton Place.

Driving in central London can be awful and you must pay the £11.50 Congestion Charge each weekday that you drive your car. If you are driving to London and your car can fit into our garage, we recommend that you park in the garage and forget about your car until you leave town. If you want to live like a Londoner, walk where possible and buy an Oystercard and take the tube trains and buses.

Getting Around in London

You can walk to many of London’s tourist sites and attractions, but as London’s sites are spread out from the Tower of London in the east to Buckingham Palace and Westminster to the west, you will find yourself using buses and tubes at some point, wherever you choose to stay.

You can see a map of the tube network here. For more details of buses, tubes and getting around London, see the Transport For London website which has a useful journey planner

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/

Travelling on the London Underground (Tube) & Buses & Oystercards

While you can pay by cash to use the tubes (but not the buses), it is much cheaper to buy an Oystercard (£5 deposit, get it back when you leave London by handing in the card at a tube station). You charge up the Oystercard with cash either at a tube station or a newsagent (look for the light blue Oystercard logo in the shop window). You then touch in and touch out at the barriers at tube stations and touch in only on buses. Having an Oystercard halves tube fares in zone 1 and you cannot get on a bus without an Oystercard.


If you use your Oystercard for several journeys in one day, the journeys gradually become cheaper until you are travelling for free. Children under 11 travel free on the underground and buses (just use the extra wide barriers at the tube station which close more slowly). Children age 11-15 can buy an Oyster card with a Young Visitor discount attached to it. A parent has to certify that the child is age 11-15 years and you have to ask at the station for the staff to add the discount (they won’t offer it!). It will give 50% discount on all fares. One adult can set up the Young Visitor discount for up to four children and the children must be present.