Travel tips for London
These are just a few tips and suggestions to make your trip to London as smooth as possible.
Many visitors to London will arrive in London Gatwick airport (LGW), one of the main airports serving London. The simplest way to get right into the centre of London from Gatwick airport as fast as possible is to take the Gatwick Express train. The Gatwick Express leaves from the South Terminal of London Gatwick airport. If your flight arrives at the North Terminal, there is a free monorail service that runs every few minutes between the North Terminal and the South Terminal.
The Gatwick Express is a normal train that leaves from Gatwick Airport train station at the South Terminal. The benefit of using the Gatwick Express is that it is a direct train between Gatwick and London Victoria station. There are no stops, it is an express service. So with the Gatwick Express train you can be in the centre of London in 30 minutes.
Most people will want to buy an Underground (Tube) ticket so that they can continue their journey around London.
Here’s a top tip regarding buying your Underground ticket. London Victoria is a Very busy central train and underground station. This means that the queues for buying Underground tickets can be very long. And the queues also tend to be very slow because a lot of the people buying tickets are tourists, maybe buying a ticket for the first time in a long time, and they are not sure how to use the ticket machines.
But if you want to speed up this process, you can buy your London Underground ticket from the Gatwick train station. There is a ticket and information area with big red signs above it. From here you can buy train tickets and also London Underground tickets. And the queues at this ticket desk are much shorter than at London Victoria station.