I am on a career break and is not rich by any means. Living in London is crazy expensive, but there are ways to get out of London / do London for a bit without raiding too much into my savings. Here are the 3 things that I do to make my UK travel cheaper.

i) Rail cards

1/3 off any train fares almost any time. There are 6 types of these cards:

1. youth / 18-25 or full time students
2. family & friends
3. 60+
4. two together
5. disable person
6. gold card – aka. pay your 12 months travel card up front at any rail station (must be purchased at RAIL)

**The discount is not valid for morning peak hours Monday-Friday before 9:30** Discount is applicable on all weekends and bank holidays.

The deal that I use is called ‘Two Together Railcard’. This is not a rail pass. It is more of a discount card – £30 annual fee or £70 for 3 years. One card covers 2 people. Point (ii) covers how to get this card for free.

 

The card entitle the holder 1/3 discount on any national rail & many buy 1 get 1 free attraction tickets (e.g. British museum special exhibition, Brighton aquarium etc). It really don’t take much to get your money back.

 

Example:

1. London to Brighton is £21.50 for return super off peak. With the rail card, it becomes £14!!! *based on thetrainline.com i.e. for 2 people, that’s £7.50 x 2 = £15 worth of savings
2. Exhibition at British museum is £17.5 per person (i.e. £35 for 2 people). But with the card, I only need to pay for 1 person. So without leaving London, I’ve saved £17.50

 

Very important. This card has a clear photo of the 2 registered person. It only works if both are traveling at the same time. Just make sure that you have a partner in crime that will be there to stay. My spouse is 99% of the time my travel partner when I am not solo, so it makes sense for me to get the card with our names on it.

**This has NOTHING to do with the London tube

 

ii) Tesco Club Card

Did you know that your Tesco club card vouchers can be exchanged for Rail Cards? It only cost £15 worth of vouchers. So if you save up all your Tesco vouchers, you don’t even need to pay the £30. Basically, that’s just 3 months of groceries at Tesco and you’ll have enough points. This is a straight freebies.

**You cannot buy this deal. It has to be exchanged with your tesco vouchers!!! Save your vouchers for this noble cause.

 

iii) Trainline

thetrainline.com

This is the train galore! I love this site. Easy to use and great price.

This is where I book my transport for around UK. If the destination is on the far end of UK, I’ll look at skyscanner as well.

 

Let me rant a bit, the transport in London is insanely pricey. Often, the air ticket cost the same as the transport to get to the airport. Again, I’d like to emphasize that I HATE spending money on transport in general. I live quite near Kings Cross, so rail is normally my preferred choice.

 

So here it is 😀 This is how I make my travel more affordable. So how about you?

 

**My apologies on the feature photo. I can’t find any photo of myself inside any train except this one. This was in fact taken on a SCNF (French) train.

 

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