Best rail card for foreign visitor to UK

Liverbird

Hi

I have friends coming over from USA to UK in June.

They will be travelling around the UK using the rail system. Can anyone please recommend the best type of rail discount card for them. (2 adults)

TIA

omelette451

There are many Rail Rover (including all-line ones) tickets that they can buy at any station when they get here - the national rail website has details under the 'special offers' tab. Alternatively there are special 'BritRail' passes that need to be bought outside the UK (there's an office in the US); I don't know much about them but they do have a website and they're quite popular with American tourists. Depending on how much they're actually going to be using the train network they could just buy cheap advance singles, which gives less flexibility but may turn out to be cheaper - just book as we do and select 'collect from FastTicket machine' as the delivery option.

dzug1

Unless they are under 25 (YP railcard) or over 60 (senior railcard), then buying individual tickets as they go (in advance where relevant) is likely to be best.

The various passes do really require an awful lot of travel to make them pay. Their real advantage is flexibility rather than cost.

And Britrail's purpose in life is to fleece the American tourist - best avoided.