help understanding london oyster card/ travel card?!

emmah89

hi

im travelling to london in may and i am mega confused!! i fly in to stansted and have to get to hackney. i then fly home the same evening from gatwick. I was looking at getting an oyster card, but i know that stansted doesn't fall into the zones so would have to buy a seperate ticket, but what about gatwick? all i can find is that its on the border of zone 6? help!

dzug1

Gatwick is not on the border of zone 6 - it is way beyond it, like Stansted is.

An Oyster would save you on your journeys within London though - but depending on how many you make it may not be worth the hassle.

shaun40400

ticket for gatwick on the express, one way is the cheapest

balletshoes

I'm confused by the travelcard/oyster card too.

I've read a bit about both, haven't used either. We're going to London at the end of August for 2 days (will probably arrive at Kings Cross around 10am, leaving Kings Cross at around 7pm the following evening, midweek). All of the things we will be doing/travelling to will be in zone 1. We are one adult, one 11-year old.

We do want to do an open-top bus tour, so we're going to go for the hop-on hop-off 24 hour variety. But to make the most of that we might use public transport from Kings Cross to Victoria say, go to the natural history museum on our first morning, then activate the 24 hours we have on the bus tour from around 2pm. Then in the evening (our hotel is also at Kings Cross) we might do a show or go to the cinema, so possibly another return public transport journey to Piccadilly say, that evening. The following day we'd use our 24-hour bus/river tour until early afternoon, then public transport again to do something/get back to Kings Cross for our train home at 7pm.

So what should I be going for? Oystercard or a one-day travelcard each day? Is it worth the extra outlay and the touch-in-touch-out business with the Oystercard, compared with all-day travel each day with the travelcard ticket?

Does the one-day travelcard cover all forms of public transport in zone 1 (ie can I take a combination of tube and bus using this each day?).

dzug1

I'd go for one day travelcards for zones 1/2 (zone 1 only is not available). £8.40 for you, half price for your 11YO. Slightly cheaper if you start your journeys after 0930

It's valid on all forms of (land) public transport in the paid for zones - and for buses in any zone.