With all due respect, you can have a lot of difficulty picking the tickets up if you do not have a UK address. They are NOT going to be mailed to the US! The smarter way to do it is to plan your trip so that the first part is stationary ie. you stay put in London for example, and while you are there, you buy the tickets locally that you will need for the rest of your trip, If you have the time to do that and if you are familiar with British Rail enough to create a proper itinerary, then you can save money, no question about it!

Posted By Katharine Lancy on May 1, 2008, 1:46 PM

National Rail's website allows you to print your ticket on your own home or office printer. So you don't need to have your ticket mailed to you in the 'States or to your hotel.

True, complicated journeys may still require a paper ticket. So there will be some exceptions--in which case you need to allow time to book the tickets during your first days in London.

Thanks for posting your comment!
Sean,
Blog editor

Posted By Sean on May 2, 2008, 10:50 PM

We are planning a trip to Great Britain 9/5-9/15/08. We will stay with friends in Manchester a few days and plan to take the train to London for a few days, returning to Manchester for 2 days before flying home. What should we plan to see? Hotel deals in London? Any info would help.
Marianne

Posted By Marianne on May 5, 2008, 12:22 PM

We bought our tickets (London to Edinburgh) in advance through National Express online and picked them up at the Kings Cross station when we arrived. Picking the tickets up was easy, there was a kiosk in the station that printed out your ticket with credit card validation. It was much like the airport kiosks that print your ticket. We got a bargain by booking each way individually instead of round trip.

Posted By Laura on May 5, 2008, 1:51 PM

Try seat61.com. It has all the info or links, rest of Europe too and even outside Europe.

Posted By Roger A.C. Williams on May 5, 2008, 9:15 PM

What about Japan rail passes purchased in the US for use in Japan are they worht it?

Posted By Louis on May 6, 2008, 12:48 PM

Marianne, check out www.premierinn.com. Hotels right on the South bank close to everything go for around 100 pounds. Many other hotels charge at least that much without the great location. Go to www.visitlondon.com for one-stop place to get ideas on what to do.

Posted By Susan Patrick on May 6, 2008, 8:32 PM

As an American living in the UK, I can tell you that using NationalRail.com is often a frustrating experience, and friends who have tried to buy tickets from outside the UK have even more difficulties. Without a UK postcode, the site often stalls and won't let you do anything. www.raileurope.com doesn't always have the cheapest prices, but I've gotten good deals and at least they will mail you the tickets.

Posted By Ellen on May 10, 2008, 7:50 AM

Anyone travelling to Britain over any university break can stay at University residences. For example London School of Economics have single rooms for around 40 pounds per night. Rooms go quickly though so you have to book in advance.
Robin in Australia

Posted By robin hagedorn on May 13, 2008, 12:28 AM

www.nationlrail.co.uk (it’s.co.uk, NOT .com) is the official National Rail Enquiries website, and it’s pretty good and easy to use. It won't sell tickets, but at the end of an enquiry, it offers to hand you over to a choice of vendor, who will.

The problem is that none of these vendors (almost all of which are powered by independent train ticket retailer TheTrainLine.com, even those branded as official individual train company websites) will accept non-UK credit cards, or send tickets outside the UK. Until, that is, the latest retailer came on the scene. www.raileasy.co.uk charges a small booking fee (£1-£3) but will accept non-UK credit cards, and will let overseas visitors collect tickets at stations, either from the ticket office or self-service machines. They originally told me they'd send tickets abroad, but stopped doing this recently after such a high proportion of even registered overseas mail went astray. They're just fixing their site so that overseas visitors are specifically prompted to select the ‘collect at station’ option.

Interestingly, the above correspondent

I direct Americans to use the official site instead: nationalrail.co.uk

Posted By Mark Smith on May 13, 2008, 11:25 AM

We enjoyed our stay at Rhodes Hotel. It is near Paddington station, clean and comfortable, good breakfast,and friendly owners. Very convenient for both London and trips to country from Paddington station.

Posted By Lynn on May 14, 2008, 12:46 AM

I posted this comment elsewhere on the blog, but will repost here:
I'm taking a high-pointing tour round N. Europe this summer. So far, all efforts to book Scotrail's `Caledonian Sleeper' Euston-Ft. William on line have failed because it only works with UK post codes! They're supposed to fix this example of poor programming so keep trying I guess; ETD is 07 July
First Scotrail told me last week they'd soon provide for overseas payment so I tried it again but it still doesn't work. Talk about lousy computer programming. It booked a berth--F13L, the old one, F15L, disappeared--for a "Standard Advance Single" fare of just £56, EUS-FTW (London/Euston-Ft. William, Scotland) on the Caledonian Sleeper. This took several tries as it kept coming up with a day service with 2 changes. It finally found the overnight sleeper with no changes.
Then on to payment. Like last time it demanded a post code then a country. I put in my Zip Code, 80303, then United States then the stupid bloody thing didn't work again. It kept demanding I verify my address and of course this didn't work. They told me they were fixing it but it's still not fixed. You'd think the Poms would know how to do things.
I gave up and tried Rail Easy which said it won't sell sleeper tickets, "coming soon". Ho hum. With the trip 5 weeks away, I might just give up and go to my old travel agent down the street as neither of these services works. I prefer not to try overseas phone bookings due to my hearing problem

Posted By Roger A.C. Williams on June 2, 2008, 10:20 AM

As I explain on my site on Caledonian Ser page(seat61.com/CaledonianSleepers.htm), Thetrainline.com (which powers ScotRail et al) won't accept non-UK credit cards, so simply book by phone by calling ScotRail from overseas on +44 1752 675 670 (open daily 0800-2200 UK time)

Only one retailer, RailEasy.co.uk, WILL accept non-UK credit cards (with ticket collection at the station), but at the moment WON'T sell sleepers, only daytime trains. But they expect to add sleeper booking functionality any time now. Then overseas passengers can book online."
--Mark Smith
http://www.seat61.com/

Posted By Mark Smith on June 2, 2008, 10:25 AM

I prefer not to try overseas phone bookings due to my hearing problem and the problems.
For example, I had trying to redeem "green stamp" miles (United Mileage+) for an open-jaw booking. On line wouldn't work it wouldn't come up. More crappy programming. I tried the phone and some guy with an Indian accent (I bet he was in Mumbai) kept saying the new nonstop DEN-LHR was "not available". I finally just gave up and bought a paid ticket on line, back from Arlanda/Stockholm via O'Hare (Chicago) ie DEN-LRH, open jaw, ARN-ORD-DEN. Seat assignment didn't work for the ARN-ORD flight (an SK, SAS, code share) but email did, some chap at SAS got me a good seat while United showed none available. And no meals--for a 9-hour flight. Sure.
Thanks anyway, Roger AC Williams, Boulder, Colorado USA, still battling Murphy's Law.

Posted By Roger A.C. Williams on June 2, 2008, 3:07 PM

Thanks for the raileasy link. After days of frustration trying to figure out how to buy one of those tantalizingly cheap advance purchase tickets, it was great to finally find a way to do it. Saved the two of us >$150 off the walk-up fare (which is what we would've had to pay) for a trip from London to Plymouth. Thanks!

Posted By James on June 7, 2008, 2:47 AM

One option for cheap rail travel not widely known outside Britain - and in fact even within the country - is Megabus. This is a cheap travel platform run by the transport group Stagecoach. Much of it is - as the name suggests - by bus. You can travel from London to Scotland for a couple of pounds if you book early enough - though it is not an easy journey for those who value luxury and comfort. What isn't generally appreciated is that Megabus also offers cheap fares on the various train services that Stagecoach operate. Routes particularly useful to tourists include London to Bristol and Bath. There are also services as far north as Sheffield. And, of course, there is a big selection of their bus services: London to Birmingham, for instance, for £1 if you book in advance. The rail fare from London to Bath is about £16 each way.

Posted By Ian Chandler on June 9, 2008, 8:09 PM

Until today, every attempt to book this train on line failed, with a variety of error messages. I finally tried their phone bookings only to run into garbled voice mail I couldn't understand (as usual). After it apparently left me sitting on transatlantic hold then I got a local message "If you want to make a call, please hang up and try again" (meaning the line went dead) I gave up on this too. I'd also tried a Sydney travel agent (in connection with Norwegian Coastal Voyage with a friend there) but all she could obtain was full sleeper fare for a whopping US$400 or so (London-Euston to Ft. William, Scotland).
I finally tried Raileasy and lo and behold it WORKED. I now have a "Standard Option Single" ticket EUS-FTW in July for £88.50. I did get a warning from Explorer (Firefox didn't work, it quit) about a different security certificate, so I hope it's legit. However there is no reservation or seat assignment just the ticket, to pick up at a station ticket machine using a code I was assigned. I did get an email confirmation.
I wonder if there is a way to get a reservation without another voice call. First Scotrail showed a "minicom" number for the hearing impaired (me) but I'm not familiar with this and don't know if it's compatible with TTY, which I have on my computer. I tried the conf. no. as a "promotion code" but it wouldn't recognize it.

Posted By Roger Williams, Boulder, Colo. on June 11, 2008, 4:09 PM

i have on my past 2 trips (in the past 2 years) used the trainline.com to book and buy my rail tiks. i am in the usa, i had no problems with purchasing tiks while still in the US and then picking them up at a UK station. maybe i was lucky, but i did have mutiple tik purchases both time or they just stopped accepting US credit cards this year

Posted By michy on June 11, 2008, 10:38 PM

To Roger Williams...I also prefer the computer to get the facts due to hearing loss. Have you heard about Sprint's new WebCaptel? I'm not sure if it is in effect in Colorado, and can be used for Europe calls. No charge, no special equipment needed, just a phone and computer with internet access. Site captions everything spoken to the Captel user which is displayed prominently on their computer screen. Ability to print and save conversations. Go to sprintrelay.com/webcaptel.htm.
I find this site a wonderful resource. Give it a try. Marcia in NJ

Posted By Marcia Ledwith on June 14, 2008, 10:31 AM

Hi, I'm in Australia and whenever I visit the UK I buy my train tickets through the Trainline and they've always accepted my credit card.
I'll be trying Raileasy next time, sounds like their rates are lower.
Pat

Posted By pat thompson on June 16, 2008, 6:19 PM