London, ON
 

I am very, very new to this messagage board, but just found that I am to be traveling to London, week in and out...

Rather go through Toronto or Detroit coming from lower 48?


Any suggestions on what to do while in town?

Since no one has answered yet, I'll try to help.

If you're flying in from MCI, you can get flights from Toronto to London, Ont. on Air Canada. Not sure if there is flight availabilty from Detroit to London, so Toronto is probably your better option. It'll be a short flight from YYZ to London, on an AC Dash-8. Keep in mind that if you arrive in Toronto on another airline other then AC (although I think UA also lands at the same terminal as AC but check with UA to be sure), you'll have to change terminals to get the London flights. Other option is to fly into Detroit, then rent a car (checking first if it's okay to take a rental across the border) for the 1 1/4 hour drive from Detroit/Windsor to London on the 401 highway in Ontario, after crossing over the Ambassador Bridge into Windsor.

If driving up all the way from MCI, I'd think it's a shorter distance to come in via Detroit, then as above across to Windsor and along the 401 to London.

Hope this helps a bit. Perhaps others will offer more suggestions.

As an afterthought, you might check to see if NW has flights from Detroit to London, Ontario. Could be wrong on this, but I vaguely remember seeing something about that in the past.

bj-21.

Blackjack - Thanks!

I will be flying, and there are in fact flights from MCI to Detroit and then Detroit to YXU on NWA. Someone I talked to mentioned that it would be better to take that route, since I would have to do through customs in London, rather than in Toronto (and subsequently have to change terminals).

I do appreciate your assistance, and thanks for your reply. We'll see how the travels go!

To get to YXU,
A) Fly MCI-YYZ, drive 1.5 hours
B) Fly to MCI-YYZ-YXU
C) Fly MCI-DTW, drive 1.5 hours
D) Fly to MCI-DTW-YXU

Cheapest option would probably be MCI-DTW, quickiest and easiest will probably be MCI-DTW-YXU. All depends on your versitily, price concerns and FF program.

Prowell, I've been making this run 2-3 times a year for the past 15 years from ORD, MDW, AND MKE. Flights into YYZ are probably the easiest if you're driving to London. Both are about the same distance, but travel time can can vary by time of day. But if you fly thru DTW, you have to drive through Detroit, Customs and Windsor in that order before hitting the 401 freeway to London. This can be time consuming, but its usually not too extreme. Budget at least two hours from DTW. I figure 45 minutes to get from the airport to the 401....then about an hour and twenty minutes from the freeway entrance to the London exit.

You can run into traffic getting out of YYZ and metro Toronto as well, but basically you're on the western edge of the metro area driving further west. You don't have to go through the city core. With a few exceptions, the drive to London generally only includes a delay during afternoon rush hour and you can typically easily make it from the rental care area to the London exit in an hour and a half.

If you do decide to go through Detroit and drive, you should cross at Port Huron/Sarnia rather than at Detroit. It's a shorter drive, and there is usually less back-up at Port Huron than you might hit at Detroit, especially during rush hours, and on weekend evenings.

Any suggestions on what to do while in town?[/QUOTE]

London is basically a college town (which is where I went to school - The University of Western Ontario), ala Ann Arbor, Madison, etc. Not much going on off campus, except in a small stretch downtown on Richmond Street. If you enjoy sports, UWO has good teams in most sports and the local minor league hockey team, the London Knights, were the Canadian champions last year. Not much of an arts scene that I remember, or fine cuisine either, but then again, I was only a college student back then. I was just back there this summer, and was amazed at how cheap things still are (food, drinks, hotels etc.)

The winter can be very cold, windy and snowy. Which brings me to my other point - definitely fly into YXU if you can (and I would do this via DTW, avoiding the customs/immigration hassle at YYZ). The drive to London (from either Detroit or Toronto) can be brutual during winter. I've seen many multiple car accidents along the 401. The last thing I would want to be doing is a 1.5 drive thru white-out conditions (which happens alot along the 401). Also, YXU is a small, quiet airport, easy to get to from the city centre, and the customs/immigration lines will be non-existent. The lines in YYZ can get long and crazy.

Hope you enjoy your time in London - I have very many fond memories . . .