Cheapest way to travel on the London Underground
By Darren Cronian on Monday, November 10th, 2008

It is official, I am a geek. Whilst typing up this blog post, I am sat on the National Express East coast train line, using their free WiFi access, en-route to London Kings Cross station. Once in London, I’ll be heading off to the Etap hotel, then make my way to the World Travel Market for a few hours.

Cheapest way to travel on the London Underground

So far, no delays, taxi arrived on time, and the train was literally stood waiting for me to board. My first challenge when I arrive at Kings Cross will be to find out which is the cheapest way to travel around the London underground for four days.

Anyone London based have any suggestions?

I’ll not need to travel much between the hotel and ExCeL, so it’ll be for travel between Kings Cross – Docklands, ExCel – Lastminute Labs, then to Blackfriars Bridge for the Travel BlogCamp. Then Docklands – Kings Cross for the journey home.

Follow my journey by bookmarking my World Travel Market page.


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9 responses to “Cheapest way to travel on the London Underground”

Murray Harrold | 10 November, 2008 at 12:06 pm

Get around London? I have the number of a chap the has a new Rolls Royce Phantom….. Failing that, an Oyster card, I am told.

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Darren Cronian | 10 November, 2008 at 12:08 pm

@ Murray

I think the Rolls Royce might be out of my bloggers budget, but, the Oyster Card sounds interesting. I will look into that now.

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Jack | 10 November, 2008 at 2:46 pm

Darren, just get an Oyster card and load it up with £15 to begin with.

See my piece on cheap London travel.

The good thing about the Oyster pre-pay is that you’ll only use the needed funds, up to the daily travelcard maximum cost.

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Sam | 10 November, 2008 at 3:44 pm

Get an Oyster card. You can get them at the information/ticket window in any station

Basically there is a couple of £ deposit (refundable when you leave/return the card), you charge the card up with money and use it to tap in and out of public transport. It will work on the Underground, Docklands Light Railway (DLR, what you will take to get to ExCel) and on any bus. And best of all! It just about halves the cost of a journey (if not more!) compared to if you bought a regular ticket with cash. And…it rather intelligently totals up the number of journeys you have made in a day and once you reach the point at which it would have been cheaper for you to buy a day pass, it just charges you for the day pass rather than keep charging you for single journeys.

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Jeremy Head | 10 November, 2008 at 6:11 pm

Oyster all the way… but you probably already know that now!?
http://www.travelblather.com/2008/04/maybe-its-becau.html

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Andy Hayes | 10 November, 2008 at 6:50 pm

Oh, yes you need the Oyster Card, without a doubt. We mention it here at Europe A La Carte:
http://www.europealacarte.co.uk/blog/2008/09/26/surviving-london-travel-tips/

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Joe | 10 November, 2008 at 7:16 pm

The Oyster card is the way. Instead of 4 pounds per Underground trip; it is 1.5 pounds. For buses it goes from 3.5 to .9. Also, once you have spent the maximum per day, you will not be charged. Basically, you get the card by paying a deposit and putting money on it like a cash card. When you are done, you cash it in and get a pint. At least that is what we did!

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Garri | 11 November, 2008 at 7:26 am

Cheapest way is to fair dodge! If caught pretend you cant speak English. They’ll just rustle your hair, tell you not to do it again, and send you on your way ;-)

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Matt | 14 November, 2008 at 1:07 am

That is very good information. The London Underground is a massive subway system. It really makes Toronto’s subway system look bad.

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