How to travel around the UK cheaply!

Hello fellow budget hunters

Today’s post is all about how I find cheap ways to travel around the UK. It’s not going to be about fare dodging or dodgy hitch hiking – this is about using public transport the best you can for as little as you can. I’m going to try to make this as informative as possible so I will split it into sections. There will be no information on flights but check out the post on that even for domestic flights.

Train

Firstly I own a 16-25 railcard which saves 1/3 off trains, I highly recommend these as the savings add up. There are also savings for ‘two together’ cards or family railcards.

The next piece of advice is if you are traveling as a three then book a group ticket. These are available for 3 or more adults and cut the costs of your individual tickets.

Fare splitting – this is perfectly legal and there is a number of sites that provide you with the service of looking up if a train ticket is cheaper in multiple parts. I have done it for last minute trains and has saved me £20 each time. This also works for advance tickets and I think it is always worth a look.

Finally, look out for voucher codes, train company offers and super cheap advance tickets. Virgin often have sales where you can travel between Birmingham and London Euston for £5 without a railcard. You can often add those tickets for your travel to Birmingham for very cheap and get to London for £8.

There is a world of voucher codes and the best prices for train tickets are 6-8 weeks ahead of travel so that’s when you need to start searching if you have the luxury or if not use the other hacks.

Coach 

We all know I love a good bargain and I will admit that Megabus is one of those! I regularly get £1 fares to London from Cardiff or £3. You can get your tickets from 10 weeks before and even up to hours before the tickets are so much cheaper than trains. We’re talking maximum £10 a journey so definitely worth a look if you don’t mind a longer but cheaper journey.

It is also worth checking with national express but their site is harder to find the cheapest ticket on. Both let you have the freedom of a toilet, wifi, a plug and somebody else driving.

Within cities

Trams or all day bus tickets – it might seem simple but if you think you will be getting more than one bus in a city it is so much better to get an all day ticket. Except in London.

In London I would recommend either using your contactless card or an oyster card. You can link oyster to your railcard and get 1/3 off the off peak tube fares but you can also hit the cap of £6.60 on both. After that amount you stop paying for journeys in those 24 hours. An all day travelcard is about £12 so you save so much in London on transport. They can be used on buses, water taxis and the underground.

Rent a bike, we have all seen the Boris bikes but they can be cheaper to get around.

Blahblah car – this is another way of saving yourself money.

 

I hope this has helped a few people in how to save money in travelling the UK.

Safe journeys!