Surrey Transportation Tips by Bwana_Brown Top 5 Page for this destination

Good Railway Connections

While staying in Farnham, if you want to do some sight-seeing in London, there is no need to worry about the hassles of driving your car in traffic and then finding a reasonably-priced parking spot - not to mention the daily traffic levy that you have to pay just for driving your car into the congested central part of the city. Cameras record all vehicle license plates and the mandatory fee must be paid within 24 hours to avoid a fine for daring to drive into the already crowded city.

I have always enjoyed sitting back in comfort and letting the trains and subways do the work for me when I visit London. We grabbed this modern 9:30 AM South West train at Farnham station and sat back in comfort, watching the country roll past as we made the one hour trip to Waterloo Station on the banks of the River Thames. The trip reminded me of several that we took from Horley (beside Gatwick Airport) back in 1979 and, in fact, this ride ended up on the same railway tracks, as we went past the familiar old landmark of the impressive Battersea Power Station (declared a National Historic site in 1980 and retired from active service in 1983) as we neared our final destination beside the London Eye.

We each bought a one-day Travelcard for 15 GBP (US$22) that covered our round trip train ride as well as any subway (we needed three of these in the course of our explorations) or bus rides we took in downtown London.

Mode: TO

Type: Train

Our Journey

This battered and well-used map shows our route around southern England, starting from the Red dot denoting Farnham, Surrey. From there we went east into London before continuing further east and north in a loop that took us back toward the west through Cambridge and Banbury. Stratford-upon-Avon marked our most north-westerly point before we headed south through the Cotswold Hills to the Bristol/Bath area. We then went directly south to Stonehenge before heading off generally west toward Devon and finally Cornwall on the tip of England before backtracking straight to London again.

On our December, 2005 trip, we again used Farnham as a base, for three nights, before we headed west to Cornwall. We managed tours as described on my 'Horley' and 'London' pages on the first two days before travelling to Cornwall slightly north of the 2004 route shown on this map, stopping first to view the Neolithic stone circle around the village of 'Avebury', indicated by the pointer in the second photo.

Mode: AROUND

Type: Car/Motor Home

Always Good to Have Your Own Wheels

I reserved our rental car (over the internet via 'Expedia.ca' on Jan. 2) from Hertz, requesting an economy car at a rate of 122 pounds/week (US$225) with a daily rate of 17 pounds (US$32). When we landed at Heathrow, we did not have to wait long at the Hertz counter before we were served by the only lady on-duty at about 9:30 AM. I gave her my paperwork and she phoned over to the main rental area for them to get back to her with the details of which exact vehicle we would be receiving. Since there was no-one else waiting, we chatted away quite pleasantly on a number of subjects while we waited for the return call. After a some time, I suggested that maybe she should call again to see what was happening. She agreed that it was a good idea and, after hanging up, she said - 'you know, you have been waiting quite some time - I think that I will give you an upgrade'! Hey, a nice conversation and a bonus to boot! Later on, I saw one of the small Fiat cars that we would have received and was very thankful that things worked out the way they did! The car was great, plenty of power, great luggage room, smooth and well-handling. We put 1200 miles on it in the course of our excursion. The price of gasoline (petrol) in the UK was about 2.5 times higher than in Canada, but that is normal so no worries there! This photo was taken about 450 miles into the trip in the parking lot at Anne Hathaway's cottage (Shakespeare's wife) at Stratford-upon-Avon. The final bill was 260 pounds (US$480) by the time all the extras were added in - and this was without any additional insurance of any kind.

Mode: AROUND

Type: Car/Motor Home