London I - How to get there

London Calling? I will start of with the beautiful city of London, located within the United Kingdom and home to over 7,5 million people.  I have lived in London twice, and I loved it from the very first day.
From the English breakfast to the Oxfort Street Christmas lights until the late night pints in the Pub.
London is the place you must visit!

I will post a number of posts on London, in which I will talk about a specific subject. As otherwise I will be all over the place, loading you with information. So the first part will be on how to get to London, how to book your accommodation and how to travel the city.

I. How to get there

Depending on your location there are numerous ways to travel to London, the easiest way is to travel by plane, however from the European mainland there's also the possibility to travel by boat, train or by car. I will mainly focus on air travel as this is the most applicable for the majority of the readers.

Personnally I have used all of the above ways of transportation, and I will also state my personal experiences with each type of transport.



Airplane
London has five airports which makes it a very suitable destination to reach by plane.
I personally prefer this way of travel by far, as it is the quickest and most of the time the cheapest option as well.


- Heatrow is the biggest airport and possibly the destination for non European citizens as this airport covers the majority of the incontinental flights. Once you arrive on Heatrow airport, the quickest way to get to the city is by tube (metro) by using the Heatrow shuttle express you can get on four tube-lines which will take you directly to the city centre.
Probably the most preferred airport due to the good connection and the large number of flights.


- Gatwick the second biggest airport, however Gatwick does not have a direct tube connection. However the airport train will take you to the city in no time.


- Luton & Stansted are both smaller airports located further away from the city, however these airports are mainly focused on budget airlines. So when looking for a cheap flight look for either one of these two airports. There is no direct tube connection, however there is an train connection which will get you to the city in 20 minutes. If you have some time and you want to save some pounds get on the bus to the city centre.
Possible coach companies are: Terravision, National Express and Easybus.

- City Airport the smallest airport of them all, however the most central located within the city.
The airport is specialized in smaller aircrafts however this is the absolute best if you want to get to the city fast. During the weekends you might get some cheap flights towards city airport.

I personally flew on City airport once, however it was absolutely perfect, as you do not have to taxi for miles, little till no waiting time to get your luggage, and your in the tube only minutes after you left the airplane.

Train
Depending on your location within western Europe you can choose to travel to London by train. The Eurostar and the Thalys will take you from Paris to London within 3 hours. Depending on the time of the year, you might get some fairly good deals.



Boat
There are numerous ferries which can take you from the European mainland toward the United Kingdome within a few hours. The boat is a good way of transportation if you want to bring a lot of luggage.

Personally I used the ferry once, I took the Stena Line HSS Discovery which was the High speed catamaran, which is taken out of the fleet due to it's high costs.
I made the choice to take the ferry when I finished my first internship in London, and had to go back to the Netherlands with loads of luggage.

We travelled with a group and the connection from London to Harwich went very well.
Once on board everything when fairly quick, the boat took us within 3,5 hours from Harwick to Hook of Holland. However a few of my groupmembers got seasick during the trip.

So my recommendation would be, only use the boat if you want to bring a lot of luggage, and do not take the ferry if you easily get seasick.



Car
You can get to London by car, by using the channel tunnel from Calais to Dover. This is a good way of transport if you want to bring a lot of luggage, however take into account that you have to drive on the left side of the road, you are not allowed to use the channel tunnel if your car runs on LPG, and that you have to pay for every single day if you want to use your car within London city limits.