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moving to oxford from california - ideas and travel tips needed please
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Hi,
My fiancee and I both have new jobs pending in Swindon and Leamington Spa working typical commuter hours (M-F from 9-5ish with some flexibility). After careful research, Oxford was the best central location for our relocation which has yet to be determined. Oxford also seems to be quite a nice city. Btw, we're moving from California, so not having gas guzzling cars is a new concept! It's important for us to live in a hip city that has relatively modern amenities, things to do, and generally a nice place to live. If there are other cities that may seem as good or better than Oxford that could give us reasonable commutes to Leamington Spa and either Swindon OR London, please let me know so I can check into it!
I have spent some time reading these boards and picked up a lot of useful tips such as:
• You can buy rail passes monthly, but you they have to be at least 1 month and less than 11 months. Buying monthly + a few days passes can save you more money than buying an annual pass because you can strategically renew each month skipping weekends, bank holidays, and vacation time. In a year, 12 passes will save you about 24 days + holidays. To beat an annual pass discount, you need to save 42 days. So if you take off 4 weeks in vacation, then you can save about 52 days or more. A little more work to save some money.
• Occasionally they have really great sales for a short period of time that can save (in one example) 50% for tickets booked for up to 3 months in advance. Doing so saves you a lot of money, and when you have an annual pass, you don’t really get the opportunity to save money. You can even buy more tickets that you would use, and then you can “change” the tickets which is valid, and still save money even after the admin fee of changing your ticket.
• There are passes and various memberships that give you decent discounts on other train tickets like the occasional trip to London or elsewhere. These discounts are roughly 33%.
• You can actually buy “useless” annual passes from two extremely close train stations for about £100. These annual passes allow you to apply major discounts on the real travel you wish to take, even if you never use the annual pass, especially first class travel (first class upgrades).
• If you do decide to do the annual pass route, do monthly passes until near the end of the year, then buy an annual pass before the fares get raised for the next year.
When looking at the annual pass prices to get a ball park range I discovered the following prices booked with https://www.trainsfares.co.uk/
Oxford annual pass to Leamington Spa: £2312
Oxford annual pass to Swindon: £2052 (train can't go through Reading).
So I've read about people getting discounts via Oyster cards, Rail Pass cards and so on. It seems like it might be best to buy monthly + x days passes to reduce the price a little bit, especially when you consider the vacation times we'll be taking.
Can anyone offer some additional newbie tips? We don't really know the area or what options we may have.
Some other questions:
1. Other than our commuter rail passes, what kind of discounts can we expect to find for occasional travel such as weekend trips to London?
2. From Leamington Spa, my commute from the train station to work is a 5-10 minute drive. I was thinking of picking up a scooter, motorcycle, or even a bicycle to handle that part of the trip as buses apparently aren't so convenient. Does anyone know if there is a parking fee for a scooter or motorcycle? And obviously weather could be a problem for that solution. Maybe a small car that I just leave for commuting? Any ideas for this problem?
3. From Oxford what would some of the best airports for occasional and cheap European travel be. I know from experience that Heathrow is a perpetually delayed airport for both incoming and outgoing flights. Smaller airports such as Birmingham apparently have wickedly good deals for flights to Italy, Germany, Spain, France... etc. We have yet to explore Europe and wonder if there are any tips for that as well!
Thanks so much in advance!
My fiancee and I both have new jobs pending in Swindon and Leamington Spa working typical commuter hours (M-F from 9-5ish with some flexibility). After careful research, Oxford was the best central location for our relocation which has yet to be determined. Oxford also seems to be quite a nice city. Btw, we're moving from California, so not having gas guzzling cars is a new concept! It's important for us to live in a hip city that has relatively modern amenities, things to do, and generally a nice place to live. If there are other cities that may seem as good or better than Oxford that could give us reasonable commutes to Leamington Spa and either Swindon OR London, please let me know so I can check into it!
I have spent some time reading these boards and picked up a lot of useful tips such as:
• You can buy rail passes monthly, but you they have to be at least 1 month and less than 11 months. Buying monthly + a few days passes can save you more money than buying an annual pass because you can strategically renew each month skipping weekends, bank holidays, and vacation time. In a year, 12 passes will save you about 24 days + holidays. To beat an annual pass discount, you need to save 42 days. So if you take off 4 weeks in vacation, then you can save about 52 days or more. A little more work to save some money.
• Occasionally they have really great sales for a short period of time that can save (in one example) 50% for tickets booked for up to 3 months in advance. Doing so saves you a lot of money, and when you have an annual pass, you don’t really get the opportunity to save money. You can even buy more tickets that you would use, and then you can “change” the tickets which is valid, and still save money even after the admin fee of changing your ticket.
• There are passes and various memberships that give you decent discounts on other train tickets like the occasional trip to London or elsewhere. These discounts are roughly 33%.
• You can actually buy “useless” annual passes from two extremely close train stations for about £100. These annual passes allow you to apply major discounts on the real travel you wish to take, even if you never use the annual pass, especially first class travel (first class upgrades).
• If you do decide to do the annual pass route, do monthly passes until near the end of the year, then buy an annual pass before the fares get raised for the next year.
When looking at the annual pass prices to get a ball park range I discovered the following prices booked with https://www.trainsfares.co.uk/
Oxford annual pass to Leamington Spa: £2312
Oxford annual pass to Swindon: £2052 (train can't go through Reading).
So I've read about people getting discounts via Oyster cards, Rail Pass cards and so on. It seems like it might be best to buy monthly + x days passes to reduce the price a little bit, especially when you consider the vacation times we'll be taking.
Can anyone offer some additional newbie tips? We don't really know the area or what options we may have.
Some other questions:
1. Other than our commuter rail passes, what kind of discounts can we expect to find for occasional travel such as weekend trips to London?
2. From Leamington Spa, my commute from the train station to work is a 5-10 minute drive. I was thinking of picking up a scooter, motorcycle, or even a bicycle to handle that part of the trip as buses apparently aren't so convenient. Does anyone know if there is a parking fee for a scooter or motorcycle? And obviously weather could be a problem for that solution. Maybe a small car that I just leave for commuting? Any ideas for this problem?
3. From Oxford what would some of the best airports for occasional and cheap European travel be. I know from experience that Heathrow is a perpetually delayed airport for both incoming and outgoing flights. Smaller airports such as Birmingham apparently have wickedly good deals for flights to Italy, Germany, Spain, France... etc. We have yet to explore Europe and wonder if there are any tips for that as well!
Thanks so much in advance!
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Comments
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hey there - I am so pleased for you that you have found our boards useful. I am going to split out your post from the thread you posted on as I feel it will get more focus this way - hope thats ok!
I'll come back in a bit with some ideas to some of your questions too
regards
VBlah0 -
Hi there mgs2006 and welcome to MSE!
I live outside the city of Oxford, but not so far that I don't know it quite well. I don't travel by train very often, so am afraid I cannot comment on the rail fare part of your post. However, I see that you plan to do your commute by train; how are you planning to get to Oxford station? It is not very easily accessed by public transport from all parts of the city, so do you know yet where you might live?
Oxford station is quite a small affair with just two platforms. The main station in the area is Didcot to the south. Although it may seem further I wonder if living around here (should be significantly cheaper) would be an option?
I guess you are planning to get a car from your post? but be a ware that Oxford is one of the least car friendly cities in the country! However you are quite central to access London and Birmingham in about 70 mins.(Ryanair, Easyjet) and don't disregard Southhampton (Flybe) We find flying budget airlines involves using Stansted and Luton of Birmingham, but realistically(!) there is not an airport less than an hours drive. However plus points are just a few minutes to countryside and great walks and village pubs.0 -
I agree with the thought process regarding luton and stansted airports and didcot rail station, in addition - have you considered living in one or other location and only one of you commuting the distance? it could save on things like the cost of the "commuting" vehicle which you mention (horribly expensive way of doing thing imho). by the time you have bought, serviced, mot'd, taxed, insured, fuelled, parked etc it might be cheaper to consider running an account with a local taxi firm or paying a colleague to collect you and deliver you back to the station each day. you say its a five to ten minute drive - realistically how far is that to walk? (sorry - old style hat on!)
regarding travel into london there will almost definitely be offers and pre booking on apex deals is always worth doing and offers hugely discounted travel. often 50% savings. there will also be voucher style deals advertised in the local press from time to time.
access to europe can also be via eurostar and eurotunnel from london or kent (they are trains that goes thru a tunnel under the channel from the south coast of the UK to the north coast of france)Blah0 -
Leamington Spa which we visited and saw, we thought was too far from London and a train commute to Swindon appeared to be 2 hours each way. And there are really not much signs of civilization south of Leamington Spa and north of Oxford -- at least on that trainline. Very tiny towns. So we decided we wanted to be closer to London.have you considered living in one or other location and only one of you commuting the distance?
Swindon from our internet research doesn't seem to rate good at all (upmysteet.com). Again, commuting from there to Leamington Spa is simply too long.
Our plan is to find a place to live within a short walking distance to the station, even if accommodations are more expensive.However, I see that you plan to do your commute by train; how are you planning to get to Oxford station?
I did a quick check of Didcot. It may be too small for us there as well. My fiancee is also thinking about going to Oxford for her PhD sometime in the future. We definitely want a place we can settle down and buy a house, etc.
I tried on https://www.thetrainline.com to plot train trips to Swindon and Leamington Spa from Didcot and both failed outright -- tried different times as well. Maybe it's not recognizing the station.
Thanks for all the help so far
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Hi,
Well great to see that you have moved here to the UK from California. I am sure you always get asked the question "Why on earth did you move here from California" as I did when I moved back here to the UK.
Now I am considering moving back to California. I was wondering if you knew whether there is any resource like MoneySavingExpert in the US? I have found MSE invaluable in so many different areas of spending.
Also I am debating moving to California though from a financial point of view the figures seem to support staying over here if I want to earn more so I am slightly conflicted! Plus there is so much hassle over there being a non US citizen and visas, green cards and that whole thing.
Got any advice or feedback for me?? :-)
Thanks in advance
John.
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