kenlawdavis

My wife and I plan to fly from TUC to visit various friends in England and Scotland next year. We will have a Britrail pass so getting around will be easy enough. Since we have a choice of airports to enter the UK, such as Heathrow, Edinburgh, Manchester etc, which is the easiest with regards immigration and customs? I hear horror stories of 2-4 hour waits, mile long lines and staff shortages.

bartas8891

If I was you I'd go to MAN. The train station is at the airport. Manchester is between EDI and LON so it is easy to travel in both directions. In regards immigration and customs I have never waited more than 25 min so I can not really complain. EDI is good too though you have to take either bus or tram to get to the train station.

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,

As you are flying from Tucson ( love the city having been there several times) I would consider the non stop British airways flight from Phoenix to Heathrow ( daily) and queues at Heathrow have not been too bad in my experience ( you do get the occasional horror story but then we hear about 2hour TSA waits at some airports).

You could also consider getting a PHX-LHR- EDI or Man ticket as it might not be that more expensive than PHX-LHR.

Regards

TBS

roberino

The flights into non-LHR from your area (TUS) will typically involve a connection on the east coast (short flight, not much sleep) so I would take the direct service to LHR and connect on a domestic service to a regional airport nearer to where you want to be. This should avoid the worst of the immigration queues.

roberino

Can we clarify, do you mean TUC (Teniente General Benjamín Matienzo International) or TUS (Tucson)?

kenlawdavis

Sorry, that would be TUS as in Tucson.

JOUY31

Moving this thread to the UK & ROI forum. Thanks for your understanding.

Jouy31
TravelBuzz co-moderator

UKtravelbear

Fly to wherver is closest to your destination. Wherever you fly into you will encounter immigration and (to a lesser degree) customs. Saving a few minutes at airpoet A as oppised to B might actually mean a longer journey,

BTW there are no direct trains (as suggested by one poster) from Manchester Airport to either London or Edinburgh (except one service that goes to Edinburgh but that's every every 2 hours)

check www.nationalrail.co.uk for journey times

lhrsfo

If you want direct trains, then BHX would be the choice, but it offers (IMHO) few other attractions. If your friends are scattered around the country it would seem sensible to fly into an airport near one lot of them and fly out of an airport near another lot. Generally non-stops are better than stoppers, so you should consider either flying to or from LHR.

farci

Irrespective of the airport you use please consider renting a car as opposed to a Britail Pass. A 15 day Pass for two people will cost around $1250.

Britain is a small country - a journey from London-Edinburgh is no further than driving across AZ. Of course gas prices are high compared with the US but that cost plus car rental for 15 days if booked far ahead will be cheaper. You will have much better flexibility to visit those really interesting out of the way places that trains do not serve.

By the way - I write this as a train travel enthusiast but - 'horses for courses'.

London_traveller

If the OP needed to get from London to Scotland direct then I'd say fly or get the train. Driving would be a right pain for that length of journey, compared to the other options.

However, if the plan is to start at one end, e.g. London, then stop on the way up then definitely a car. It has the added advantage that if you wanted to add a day in the Cotswolds (for example), it is much, much easier than trying to do it all by train.

If it was me I think I'd fly PHX-LHR-EDI (or GLA), start there and then rent a car to work my way down to London (or equally, do it the other way around, although starting a car journey in London might be a challenge if you're not used to it). One-way car rentals shouldn't be an issue.

kenlawdavis

Our friends with whom we will be staying are located at Letchworth Garden City, Dunbar, Tamworth and Bath. So spread around. We get the flex-pass with Britrail with any 4 days over a month. For we seniors, a first class pass is just over US$400 each. Our friends have been most generous in showing us around their respective parts of the country, thus negating my need to adapting to driving on "the other side of the road."

UKtravelbear

Rather than a 'flex pass' look at a senior railcard or a 2 together as they could be better value using that and booking in advance plus can be used any day rather than just 4 in a month

You can journey plan using journey planner

flatlander

The 4 days in the month pass seems reasonable for what you want to do. London to Letchworth is easily done by buying a cash ticket, don't use a day of your ticket just for that.

I recommend flying into Heathrow. London will be a good base for Bath, and also has trains to Scotland, Letchworth, and Birmingham. You could fly out of Edinburgh or return to London on your way out. An alternative is to fly into Edinburgh, travel south, then leave from London. Edinburgh has only a few flights to the USA, so I would overall suggest to fly direct to Heathrow from Phoenix or nearby.

The many ranting and raving accounts of Heathrow are, overall, overblown - it usually works well and has the direct flights from US west coast that you need for a pleasant journey to the UK. It is by far the best of the London airports.

The trains from London to Bath, Edinburgh or Birmingham are more pleasant than the trains between those places.

Box10

By far, the easiest is London City (LCY) but there is only one route from North America, a British Airways A318 JFK-LCY. The plane seats maybe 40 passengers, all business class.

From Tucson, the easiest may be BA PHX-LHR or Tucson to somewhere to LHR.

Glasgow is a not that big. LHR is not that horrible.