How would one go about traveling to the UK for a week? And about what would it cost?

First, is your passport still valid? If not, there is a fee involved for renewing it. The next step is to check into flight costs. Depending upon where you are, it might be cheaper to fly into Manchester vs. London. Both will require a long train ride or additional flight to get you closer to the Newcastle area.

England still uses the pound and not euros. You’ll want to get some money exchanged before you go. I do this at the airport, as there isn’t a convenient place in my town. I got a debit card there that holds larger amounts and a smaller cash amount for pocket change.

If you are staying at a friend’s house, it should be a relatively cheap trip, other than the plane ticket. The trains are not that expensive.

My husband and I travelled to England for 10 days and we did it on $6800. We stayed with friends. I found the food to be really expensive compared to Canada. I doubt that’s changed. Train tickets ran us about $30 pounds a day as we were travelling from Reading to London. That got us into London and travelling on the Tube outside of rush hour. Our train from Reading to Westin-Super-Mare ran $100 pounds each each way.

This was 5 years ago.

Last summer I spent $3000 (maybe $3500) on food, 5 plane flights, 1 train from Germany to France, logging, and souvenirs in my 30 day backpacking adventure with a friend. You definitely shouldn’t have to pay over $3000 for 10 days in England. (Btw, we hardly planned anything besides the countries to visit and buying the tickets. I even made a mistake, bought the wrong ticket, and 2 days before our flight we bought the right ones*

Flight:
For me, a round trip flight was about $1400 from California to London (including tax). That’s your base cost. (also, if your friends place is far from the airport, you may need to take a coach. they can be kinda expensive compared to normal buses (http://www.nationalexpress.com/coach/index.cfm))
Total: $1400

Hotel? Hostel? Camping?
Logging can be expensive (unless your staying with your friend). If your not, I highly recommend Couchsurfing (http://www.couchsurfing.org/). You basically surf someones couch (it’s free). Otherwise we stayed at 1 hostel (in france: probably 15–30 euros a night), slept on a train, in a coach station on the floor, and in an abbey in Bath, England (it was awesome).
Total: FREE… or 300 pounds..? (10 days, 30 pounds a day)

Food:
We lived on bread and water… haha, well, sort of. A 2 foot baguette in France was 1 euro. In England we at out (expensive) or shopped at small stores for food. If I can remember, in London, meals were usually 7 pounds or more.

Money:
If you have a debit/credit card, see how much they charge for over seas transactions (it can be expensive). Let them know if your going to use it. In London there are ATM’s or ‘Cash Point’ all over (even in the small town next to Bath.. i think it was called Stratton)

There’s so much more I can go on about (I miss that trip!) But it was a whole lot of fun. If you need more info, or better descriptions, just ask!

Cheerio!

-ben

btw, this is the abbey we stayed in: http://www.downside.co.uk/

*(the tickets for small airplanes from country to country are about 50–90 euros) btw, I don’t care much for Ryanair, my experience was they are stingy and have small airplanes.

there are ATMs everywhere and most places take card (Visa, Mastercard, sometimes AmEx, never Diner’s hahahah). Sort yourself out with a VISA certified card with reasonable (or nonexistent) overseas charges, and you will save hundreds of dollars compared to buying the currency from a bureau de change. Seriously, they always rip you off big time.

Trains are fucking expensive here, and I’d advise you book in advance when you can. www.eastmidlandstrains.com www.thetrainline.com are the two you should use. Check throughout the day for cheaper tickets (it’s easy with those sites), as prices vary hugely between times.

If you plan on travelling by train a lot, and you are 16–25, I advise getting a Young Persons’ Railcard (YPR), which costs £20 and saves you a ⅓ on every ticket.

London is extremely expensive, but the greatest city for a thousand miles. The North, however, is much, much, much cheaper, the price of a pint at your local being about ⅓ of the price in London, and rent being at least 50% less.

another good deal, is if you get a group of 4 people, you can do ‘groupsave 4’ (under railcards dropdown on the above website trainline), which is 4 for the price of 2… very nice.

otherwise, check http://uk.megabus.com/ & National Express ‘Funfares’ for cheap coach tickets (though coaches are shit and slow and don’t serve beer).

Considering how weak the dollar is, you’ll struggle to get by on $30 a day, though it depends a LOT if you’re paying for acc. expect hostels to be £20 a night. 15 if you’re lucky. If acc. is free, £20 a day is reasonable spending money. Well, I mean you can afford lunch and dinner. Even in London, if you know where to go.

If you go to London, and don’t fancy paying £4–6 a pint, find a Samuel Smith’s pub, which serve decent beer and are generally (incredibly good for London) £2 a pint. It’s a proper Northern brewery, but if you zoom in you can see they’ve got quite a few tied pubs around the West End. Some of these have very cool (often Victorian, or older) interiors.

That said, don’t miss some of the other fantastic pubs around the West End, and be sure to try some other ales than Sam Smith’s.

If you pay more than £2 a pint in the North, you’re going to the wrong pubs (Hint: is it full of Southern students/bankers?).
Find a real one.

If in doubt, ask CAMRA =P

Any questions…

I like to check Kayak.com and http://www.bt-store.com for good deals on flights. If you can stay with your friend, you will save a lot on lodging. If you need other places to stay and don’t want to couchsurf, try hostels. I also save money by only eating out rarely. I go where the locals go to buy food for for at least one meal per day.

Also, if you are a student, be sure to bring your student ID and ask if there are discounted student fares. There is also something for students called an ISIC (google it), but I am not sure that it is more useful than a regular student ID. I believe that the ISIC folks also make a discount card for young people (non-students) who are under 26. Plus, some websites that are aimed at students such as statravel.com also have good travel deals for non-students. Google “student travel.”

London is very expensive you will find it cheaper up north in Newcastle you may be able to get a flight to Edinbourgh which is closer to Newcastle. Manchester direct would be ok too. If you are only coming here for a week it shouldnt cost too much. Your friend will know lots of affordable places to visit. Have fun if you decide to visit us here in blighty!!

Buses are a lot cheaper than the train though less comfortable.

Depends where you’re starting from. For me, flying into Heathrow costs at least $900, probably more like $1200 on average RT. If you are on the U.S. east coast, you might be able to get a RT flight for a fraction of this – $300—$600 maybe? A week isn’t very long so it shouldn’t cost that much overall once you’re there, especially if you’ll be staying with your friend. Last time I was in London, a hostel was about 40 USD / night and the pound was worth twice the dollar. Now it’s more like 1.5:1 I think. If you budget $1k for flight and $1k for in country expenses (~140 usd / day over a week), you’re in for a comfortable trip by my standards and well within your budget.

I would start by setting up an airfare watch on kayak or similar for your route of choice to get an idea of how much airfare will cost. Then determine whether you will stay with your friend the whole time or not. If not, YHA/Hostelling International is a great budget accommodation chain; price out accommodation. Get an approximation for food and misc daily expenses from your friend. If the numbers work out, buy a plane ticket. That will have you committed with dates locked in and getting the other things done in preparation for your leave will probably be much easier. At least that’s how it works for me – I never feel like I’m really going to go until I have a plane ticket.

Alternatively, I think your budget is very doable and you could just buy the plane ticket now and do any other needed research later. Maybe discuss with your friend to verify she agrees with my opinion – as she surely knows better since she lives there!

Newcastle has it’s own airport and there are direct flights from several US cities so it’s may be easier just to fly direct to Newcastle.