Planning Your Perfect UK Rail Itinerary: Twelve Tips for Stress-Free Travel

Ever dreamt of a UK train trip but don't know where to start? We've got you covered.
In this episode of the UK Travel Planning Podcast, we share twelve practical tips for planning a UK train trip. 

Tips include the importance of utilizing resources such as the Guide to UK Train Travel eBook and UK Travel Planning website which provide practical tips, itineraries, and information on navigating the rail network.

We also address the issue of cost, providing insights on how to save money on UK rail travel by utilizing rail passes and National Railcards. Discover tips for planning your itinerary including why methodical planning at the outset will avoid wasting time and doubling back during the trip.

We share essential tips to make train travel more enjoyable including travelling light, booking seats on long-distance journeys, and allowing ample time to catch trains at busy train stations and much much more!

Let this podcast be your ticket to an unforgettable UK train journey!

Show notes - Episode 80

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the UK Travel Planning Podcast. Your host is the founder of the UK Travel Planning website, tracey Collins. In this podcast, tracey shares destination guides, travel tips and itinerary ideas, as well as interviews with a variety of guests who share their knowledge and experience of UK travel to help you plan your perfect UK vacation. Join us as we explore the UK from cosmopolitan cities to quaint villages, from historic castles to beautiful islands, and from the picturesque countryside to seaside towns.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Hi and welcome to episode 80 of the UK Travel Planning Podcast. This week we are following on from the previous two episodes episode 78, where we talked about 10 steps to planning your UK vacation, and episode 79, where we gave you some tips to planning your perfect road trip in the UK. So this week, in episode 80, we are going to share 12 tips to help you plan your UK train trip itinerary. So since we're talking trains, I've obviously got Doug here, hello. So Doug and I are going to be talking and sharing some of our top tips to help you plan your UK train trip, because we know quite a few of you might feel a little bit stressed at the thought of planning a train trip if it's something that you're not used to. So these 12 practical tips will help you to plan your trip and make sure that you have a good time when you're traveling the UK by train. So, doug, do you want to start off by talking about tip number one?

Speaker 3: 1:37

Well, yeah, tip number one is the UK train travel e-book that I've written, and this gives you lots of practical tips and help and also includes 10 rail itineraries that I've written, tried and tested many, many times. But also within there is some practical help as to how to use the rail network, from buying tickets or using stations, which can be difficult because obviously some of the main stations of main rail clubs are very busy and in complex places.

Speaker 2: 2:11

Yeah, they can be. Yeah, yeah, so that's good tip number one. So tip number two is to check out the UK travel planner website, because we have an entire section dedicated to travel in the UK by train, which really we are adding to all the time, but it really it gives you all that you need to know to plan your UK train trip. So if you use our e-book and the free resources that are available on the website, that's going to give you a huge head start with planning a trip. But you can also obviously join our private UK Facebook group, which Doug runs.

Speaker 3: 2:46

Yeah, that's like the UK train travel tips.

Speaker 2: 2:49

Yeah, so that is a private Facebook group, so do come and join that if you've got some questions. So obviously we've got plenty of resources to help you to plan your trip. So tip three, doug.

Speaker 3: 2:58

Well, I can summarize this one train travel in the UK is not cheap.

Speaker 2: 3:02

No, it really isn't.

Speaker 3: 3:03

So we're all looking for the best deals that we possibly can. So in one of our articles on the website is 13 top tips to save money on UK rail travel, and this takes into account the various rail passes and national rail cards that you can purchase. So the rail passes includes the Brit Rail, the Global U Rail, which has options for consecutive and for flexi use, and then also the UK national rail cards. You've got examples of the senior rail card, student rail cards and the two together rail card, which we, which we've talked to a lot of people about- that one because anything.

Speaker 3: 3:41

well, you have to travel at the same time. Yeah, two of you have to travel because it's all together, yeah, but they do give you some good savings.

Speaker 2: 3:49

Yeah, so that's a good option. So now tip number four is to plan your itinerary in a methodical, sequential way, because what you don't want to be doing is wasting your time doubling back because they say you know train travel is pretty expensive in the UK, so you need to kind of figure out where you're going to go from each destination to another. So I have got a very popular 14 day best of Britain by rail itinerary which starts and ends in London and that includes many of the most popular destinations, city destinations. So it starts off in London, goes to Bath, then into Cardiff, then up to. You've got an option of Liverpool or the Lake District, then up to Edinburgh, down to York and then back down to London. So obviously that's a 14 day one that you can choose how you you know you might want to extend that. And we've also got a best of Scotland by rail itinerary as well, which you can add to that and make that a longer trip.

Speaker 3: 4:41

Yeah, that's right, and that's a good circular rail trip in Scotland, which we have done all these Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 4:47

The only thing in Scotland. You can't do that out of scar by train because there is no train service on.

Speaker 3: 4:50

so there's better a challenge out of it.

Speaker 2: 4:52

So another option to consider is whether it's worth basing yourself in one or two locations, so, for example, london and or Edinburgh. Those are really great destinations to base yourself, very accessible by train. So we've taken day trips from Edinburgh before to places like St Andrews to Glasgow.

Speaker 2: 5:10

Yeah, Aberdeen, Glasgow yeah, there's so many places and Doug has written an article which gives you lots of different options for day trips from Edinburgh by train, again London. There are so many destinations you can choose to to you can go for a day trip by train. So you've got obviously, oxford, cambridge, bath, york. You just get that. That's endless really. Canterbury Winchester.

Speaker 2: 5:34

Dover. Yeah, there's just so many, so many places that you can go to. If that's what you'd rather do than actually move around, you can do the day trips by train. So, again, we have lots of articles covering these different options, and I will put a link in the show notes for this episode to those articles as well. That brings us to tip number six.

Speaker 3: 5:53

Yeah, we all intend to do this and we all try our best to do this one and that's to travel light. Yeah, it's really important to get. Particularly if you find a little bit difficult to carry heavy items or your mobility is not not so easy, it's to try and reduce the amount that you carry. So say we all try and do it.

Speaker 3: 6:12

Yeah sometimes it's not so easy, but there is restrictions. Just to have which you can take on a train and travel around London with it, just to make it. You know it can be difficult, it can be difficult. So keep it. Keep it light and small as you possibly can, because you've got to consider getting on and off the trains and obviously storing it with on the on the trains themselves and because, without saying, some trains can get very full.

Speaker 2: 6:34

They can, yeah, so you are best, if possible, to try and travel as light as you can Number seven bookseats if you're traveling a long distance or at busy times, and we do recommend avoiding Sunday travel if at all possible.

Speaker 3: 6:48

That's right, the for many reasons. The obviously you got to the fewer trains. At the weekends there's engineering works and so there's more people traveling as well on fewer trains, and booking seats is not compulsory, point of sound. It's not compulsory to book seats on UK trains as a rule and trains don't sell out and trains do not ever sell out, which yeah, we do. We do get that question quite often, don't we that one? But they do not sell out. And see, reservations are not compulsory on standard day services.

Speaker 2: 7:18

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 7:19

But it's a piece of mind if you're taking multiple pieces of luggage and you're traveling long distances. Yeah, I can understand the preference we have done occasionally does not Very often.

Speaker 2: 7:29

Yeah, yeah, no, we do, I mean it's. I know. If you got a book seat, it did feel a bit better when you're getting on a train and you know, then you know that you're. You should be guaranteed your seat.

Speaker 2: 7:38

I think it's sometimes the best thing to do. So another tip that we have, so tip number eight, is to plan to be at the train station and plenty of time to catch your train, particularly that main train hubs Also consider how you're going to get to the station so you're not late. So I'm sure my sister's going to love the fact they want to share this. But a few years ago my sister came down to visit me from Newcastle down in Burton on Trent and she looked at a train ticket and it was I don't know someone like 10 o'clock in the morning. So she got to the train station two minutes to 10. And she got to the platform and waved her train goodbye, basically because she thought she just had to be there for 10 o'clock and it was like no, you need to be there and plenty of time.

Speaker 2: 8:17

The train's not going to wait, which it didn't, so then I had to pay for another train for her to come and visit. Yeah, so she hasn't made that mistake since it was quite a while ago. She was quite young at the time, so she hasn't made that mistake again.

Speaker 3: 8:29

No, for safety reasons they do close the doors and make sure there's nobody near a train before it leaves the platform. So you've got to be there at least sort of five, 10 minutes before the train departs. And the biggest stations, particularly if you're not familiar with them. You don't know where your platform is and you know some of the stations have a good number of platforms.

Speaker 2: 8:49

Absolutely yeah, so you've got to be clear. So another thing to consider, so tip number nine is to bring your own food and drink, because you can't assume that you're going to be able to purchase food and drink on the train, particularly weekends.

Speaker 3: 9:02

That's right. Yeah, I mean, if there's short staffed, the refreshment services, one service that does tend to get what should you say knocked away. Yeah, yeah, what the actual service will stay in, but it's the yeah, it's the refreshment service or trolley service will be cancelled. Okay, yeah, so if you're going from London to Edinburgh, you you best take your own food and drink.

Speaker 2: 9:26

Exactly and you will find that the plant, especially the main train stations, there's plenty of places to go and buy. You'll usually find that you know you're good for your shops to get coffee, to get drinks, to get magazines and get yourself perfectly stocked up for the trip. And we always recommend they do that because, honestly, you know there's nothing worse than getting on there thinking you're going to have a buy drinks and there's nothing available. So point 10, yeah, about onboard Wi-Fi.

Speaker 3: 9:52

Yeah, it can be hit and miss, particularly as the train's traveling along at a good speed and it dips in and out. So the best thing, the best advice, really is to look after your own needs with your own device or, and if you do need to use the train supply, get yourself a VPN.

Speaker 2: 10:10

Yeah, so that's a, you know, a network that ensures that your connection is private, so that nobody can kind of hack into you when you're surfing online. So and obviously it's worth thinking as well that you know, to be honest, sometimes you're going to lose your signal. I mean because of the just the nature of traveled by train, really yeah that's right yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:29

Yeah. So another tip that we highly recommend is consider booking into accommodation near the train station, especially if you're on shortest days. So if you're doing a whole rail itinerary and you're going from place to place so you might only be spending one or two nights in a particular destination. We do recommend looking at some of the accommodation that's nearer virtual train station. So when you arrive in, bear in mind that you might be kind of late in the day or you might believe in the next day or the day after on an earlier train to go to your next destination. You don't want to be. It kind of goes again to that thinking about how you're going to get tuned from the train station. So, for example, in Edinburgh we always stay at the LD York guesthouse. We have done for years because it's we know where it is. It's an easy walking distance from Waverley station.

Speaker 3: 11:13

That's right.

Speaker 2: 11:14

I did one in north Wales early this year and that was literally stood across the road from the train station and we chose that for your itinerary, didn't we Specifically, so that made, and that made everything much easier and when you travel around Wales, didn't it?

Speaker 3: 11:26

It did. That's called the tracks hotel, yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:29

So that works really well for you. So that's again if you've got luggage, you don't have to start thinking about oh my goodness, I've got to get, I've just arrived at the train station, I've now got to get my luggage to my accommodation. So even if it's you know you're not traveling with a lot of luggage, it's sometimes easy and just feels nice to be able to get your accommodation fairly quickly. Obviously, you can get a cab. There's quite often taxis outside train stations that will take you to your accommodation, but it is worth checking. And then number 12, tip.

Speaker 3: 11:59

Yeah, as much as I advocate train travel, trains don't actually go everywhere in the UK. There's some places not accessible by train and that's you know. There is some of the Cotswolds or Norfolk and it's actually some Derbyshire next to the Canterham font. It's just not so easy. So you do need a mixture and plan advance of combination of buses, taxes and trains. You need a combination.

Speaker 2: 12:24

Yeah, and you can always book a private tour so you can get yourself into someone like the Cotswolds by train and then book a private tour around if necessary, or hire a car or it a push kind of look at what the local buses are like. I mean, places like the Lake District are excellent actually in terms of you can get to the Lake District quite easily into Windermere anyway by train and from that point we tried this last year, we just used all the public transport.

Speaker 3: 12:50

It was excellent and I did in Wales, north Wales, as well.

Speaker 2: 12:53

Yeah, so your recent Traptor Wales, yeah.

Speaker 3: 12:55

I had a combination, and I used trains, buses. I went on a tour as well, so I used a bit of everything.

Speaker 2: 13:01

Yeah, but you, I mean the main way that you got there and back was well, you got there back by training. Then when you got around, you took, you took the bus to multiple bus companies.

Speaker 2: 13:10

Yeah, yeah, so it is possible, yeah, so if you don't want to drive and I guess that might be the reason that you're looking at a train itinerary or you want to do a little bit of drive and then some trains, yeah, it's definitely worth having a look at the different options that you have. So, obviously, listen to last week's episode, if you haven't already, about traveling by road in the UK, but, yeah, so, as I say, we've got plenty of resources and plenty of information about travel and buy train in the UK, so I'm sure this episode will have given you some really some essential tips and things to think about when you're planning your trip. As I say, if you want some itineraries already done for you, you know, look at our ebook, because we've got 10 really good itineraries in there.

Speaker 3: 13:49

That's right, and one thing I will add on to this is station staff in the UK are excellent and very, very helpful. If you're any doubts, any of these train stations, ask one of the staff. They are very knowledgeable.

Speaker 2: 14:03

Yeah, that's, that's perfect. That's a really good tip. So that's all I guess that just leaves us to say for this week, because that covers as much as I can kind of we can think of for train travel, just tip-tip wise kind of a quick episode, and next week's episode I share some free things to do in London. So if you're planning to go to London and looking at kind of budget options, there's some different suggestions in next week's episode 81 about things to do in London. But the show notes for this week will list all of these different tips and we'll give links to our ebooks, links to the different articles and to our train travel category, also a link to the Facebook group if you want to join that. So that will be at UKTravelPlanetcom. Forward slash episode 80. But that just leaves us to say until next week, happy UK travel planning.