The West End in London rivals Broadway in New York for its range of high-quality, big-budget stage performances. But currently (and for the foreseeable future), you pay two American dollars for just one pound. Since tickets for London's musicals cost about £50 to £60, accessing much of that world-class entertainment is problematic.

But you don't have to pay that much. Exactly as in New York, most London productions (save the ones that are sold out for weeks on end) offer discounts, if only you know where to find them. Several websites round up the going deals, present them to you, and then give you the necessary discount codes and links to book them yourself.

One of those sites is Theatremonkey.com (www.theatremonkey.com), which lists half-price promotions and meal-and-a-ticket packages. The site BroadwayBox.com (www.broadwaybox.com/london), which is mostly about New York, also brings some West End discount codes to the masses.

Some other ways to save?

• Given a lead time of a few weeks, lastminute.com (www.lastminute.com) sells many shows for half price, as does LOVEtheatre.com (www.lovetheatre.com; click "Special Offers"). Booking fees of a few pounds usually apply.
• Matinees are often slightly cheaper than evening shows.
• Ask at box offices about standing room tickets. Not all theaters have them, but the Donmar, the National, and the Old Vic, to take three examples, do, and they sell for under 10 pounds. These are usually only available if the show's seats are sold out.
• Seats at the very back of the theater might cost a quarter to a third of what the seats in the front do -- but bring opera glasses.
• Some older theaters sell what are called restricted-view seats. You may have to crane your neck at times to see around the edge of the balcony or a pillar, and if the staging has actors at the extreme sides of the stage you might not be able to see them momentarily, but you'll be in the room. Such seats cost about a third what top-price seats do. Theatremonkey.com posts audience members' opinions about which theatres have decent restricted-view seats and which are too terrible to consider.
• If you're a student and can prove it with I.D., some box offices may offer you discounts of 20% to 40%.

Finally: You can always choose to see a show mounted in a smaller theatre away from the West End, which Londoners call the "Fringe." There, prices can start as low as £5 and go to around £30. Many of Britain's top talents make Fringe performances a part of their careers, and in fact, many playwrights test their work there before the big-time of the West End.

If all else fails, you can buy same-day, half-price tickets to a range of shows (including dance) at the TKTS booth (www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/tkts) on the south side of Leicester Square. Like the Manhattan booth that inspired it, tickets are half-price there, but unlike the New York booth, it accepts credit cards, not just cash, adding to its convenience.

Happy theater going, mates!

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Labels: london, theater

It may be time to consider that once-in-a-lifetime transatlantic crossing between England and New York City on the Queen Mary 2, one of Cunard's grand ocean liners, and the last ship to ply this legendary route.

That's because the price of airfare to London has shot up so much that it's approaching the luxury level you would pay to take the ship instead. This month, round-trip, midweek airfare to London from America's east coast costs around $1,200. But a one-way ocean crossing from Southampton to the U.S. is being sold for as little as $1,400 (that's for an inside cabin both this summer and parts of summer 2009), and the cruise line's fuel surcharge is currently only around $50.

If you take a one-way transatlantic ship crossing, that still leaves a one-way flight (either to London or back from there) to complete a round-trip journey. The cheapest one-way airfare available from New York is that of Air India mid-week (about $350 including taxes right now, about $570 on Aer Lingus, $830 on Virgin Atlantic). Those prices, plus $1,450 for the ocean crossing, will total around $2,000 to $2,300 for a trip of a lifetime. (Add about another $250 for a water view).

If you book ahead, you can qualify for an early-bird discount on the ship's fares and pay $1,395 next summer. There's no telling what airfares are going to do between now and then, but it's a safe bet that the price of fuel isn't going to plummet anytime soon.

In the winter, airfares are much lower, but the ship doesn't cross the Atlantic Ocean then.

Cunard's Queen Mary 2 is a liner cut from the classic mold. Picture a lofty, old-fashioned six-day journey full of evening dinners at which diners wear tuxedos and gowns, couples ballroom dance until late, and chefs serve as much food as you can eat -- it is a cruise, of course.

Yes, it's still more expensive than the plane, but the plane doesn't give you that grand experience, and now that we are finally in a period where both airfare and the cruise are priced in the same ballpark, it's worth considering splurging on a ship crossing.?

Also, taking a cruise back from England eliminates the stress of paying overweight baggage fees to the international airlines -- you can load up on European souvenirs since cruises don't obsess about luggage weight and other such limitations.

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Labels: cruise, london

Jason Cochran, author of countless articles and books on Orlando, London, and San Francisco, appeared on my Travel Show (www.wor710.com) this past weekend and summed up, in 90 seconds per city, the current state of travel to those popular destinations. I thought you'd like to learn his views.

To Orlando, a slump -- a big slump in tourist numbers -- is expected in September and October, immediately after Labor Day. There will be countless "deals" (best accessed on Priceline and Hotwire), especially for the economy hotels in the town of Kissimmee, that community immediately adjacent to Disney World (and sometimes closer to the theme parks than other hotel-heavy areas of Orlando). Rooms will be widely available for $35 and $40 a night at Kissimmee properties, as compared to the $100-and-up that you'd pay for even a "value" hotel on Disney's grounds.

London: Travelers concerned about the high cost of visiting London should bear in mind that most of the city's top attractions -- the National Gallery, the Tate, the British Museum, and the British Library, among others -- are now totally free of admission charges, helping to offset the high cost of London accommodations. The smart traveler will book B&B accommodations (widely available for £80 ($160) per double room) or Britain's new Travelodge (www.travelodge.com) or Premier Inn (www.premierinn.com) economy motels (about £85 per room). Even smarter travelers will seek out rooms in the homes of private families renting, generally, for £60 ($120) and £70 ($140) a night per room, or rooms for considerably less (£15 and £20, $30 and $40 per person) at the many hostels of London. One meal a day should be of inexpensive sandwiches sold at outlets all over the city, or inexpensive meals selling for £5 and £6 ($10 and $12) per person at the stalls found in the many outdoor markets of London.

San Francisco: Is about to get walloped. Despite optimistic predictions of Mayor Gavin Newsom several months ago that San Francisco would withstand an economic slowdown, numerous financial and other firms have already closed and many others are presently closing in the downtown district, and hotel rates in particular are broadly "negotiable" starting in the autumn months. In San Francisco, timing is everything: conventions sometimes fill the city and push up hotel rates, and the smart visitor should always consult the city's convention calendar (to be found at www.sfcvb.org/convention) to avoid those dates when the city is full. At all other times, they will encounter ever-lower hotel prices. In choosing your property, keep in mind that the difference between a two-star and three-star hotel is often the absence of an on-site restaurant at the former; in all other respects, the quality of rooms is usually identical, and the smart tourist will seek out the two-star hotels. In a city of so many superb restaurants, who needs a restaurant in the lobby of your hotel?

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Labels: accommodations, london, orlando, san francisco

Here's an oddity that may possibly save you 5% on your next visit to London (hey, every little bit helps!).

If you'll go to Visit London's special offers section (www.visitlondon.com/offers/currency/) you'll see a deal from Thomas Cook. If you download the PDF file, print it, and take it with you when you exchange your currency at any Thomas Cook store, and you'll receive a better rate.

A small item in one of those free daily newspapers tipped me off to this savings, and though I can't guarantee it will work, I'd be surprised if a company with the reputation of Thomas Cook weren't sincere. If the voucher is honored, it'll mean you'll save the 5% in exchange fees that you would otherwise pay to every other exchange desk, kiosk, or bank in London, or the 3% you'd pay for using an ATM machine.

There are 10 Thomas Cook offices in London: at Marble Arch, Great Russell Street, Hammersmith, Wembley, Old Brompton Road, St. James's, Victoria Place, London Wall, Wimbledon, and Islington.

Thomas Cook also claims that when you change your currency with Thomas Cook, you'll receive a special offers booklet offering such savings as two-for-one admission to the Tower of London, which would alone save you at least £15.

A note to Garry, one of our London readers: can you check this out? In exchange, I'll send you a free copy of Pauline Frommer's London.

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Labels: london, money

A great many savvy U.S. travelers were able to cut their airfares to England last summer by flying on Zoom Airlines (www.flyzoom.com), the trans-Atlantic carrier that was formerly engaged in operating those flights from Canadian cities only. It was then that Zoom began New-York-to-London flights at prices undercutting the usual ones by at least $200.

Next month, Zoom will commence twice-weekly flights from San Diego to London/Gatwick for $365 each way (a big saving over what the usual London-bound carriers are charging), and in June it will do the same from Fort Lauderdale. The inventory of cut-rate fares to London will suddenly expand, and you really ought to periodically check the news at Zoom's website. (Zoom will also be continuing its New York-originating service to London, and the prices will again undercut the normal levels).

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Labels: airlines, deals, london

Evidence continues to accumulate that the most cost-effective means of visiting London, Paris or Rome is to schedule at least a one-week visit there and to stay in an apartment, not a hotel. An example is the current offer by Rentalo.com (one of the several major worldwide apartment rental firms) of one-bedroom apartments in the center of Paris for as little as $134 and $135 a night.

In a 17th century building on the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, two blocks from the Louvre and the Seine, a one-bedroom apartment with kitchen and living room features cable TV capable of receiving CNN, and high-speed Internet, for $135 a night (plus a small cleaning fee, if you desire to have a maid come in). Why so cheap? The apartment is in a five flight walk-up, and therefore only for vigorous people, who will be thrilled once upstairs to look out "sur les toits de Paris" ("over the rooftops of Paris"). Your landlord will usually require at least a one-week stay, but has been known to rent in slow periods for as few as four nights.

Elsewhere in Paris, a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment sleeps six (vai a king bed in the bedroom and two double sofa beds in the living room) on a quiet street near the Place de la Republique, a three-minute walk from a metro (subway) and a supermarket. The kitchen here includes a washing machine, dishwasher, iron, microwave, coffeemaker and toaster. And the price is $134 a night, with a three-night minimum.

It can't be sufficiently stressed that the rental of apartments in major European cities is an effective way to cut the cost of your European vacation. In addition to using Rentalo.com for finding these apartments, you can also go to Homeaway.com, to VRBO.com (now owned by Homeaway), to EVRentals.com, Zonder.com, and numerous local rental firms found by accessing information on the city in which they are found.

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Labels: accommodations, apartment rental, europe, london, paris, rome, websites

The Sunday travel section of the New York Times gets more irrelevant and absurd with every passing week. In its edition of April 20, 2008, in an article suggesting how to spend 36 hours in London ("36 Hours London"), the opening words of the article -- think about it -- are "Check into the Cadogan Hotel . . . " Rates at the Cadogan Hotel start at £295 ($600) for a double room.

Then, in its weekly survey of practical travel matters by Michelle Higgins, who invariably uses examples taken from the top tier of utterly unaffordable hotels, the Times' down-to-earth adviser doesn't disappoint. Offering a lifeline to the suffering American tourist, she eagerly points out that the organization known as Leading Hotels of the World has announced a "guaranteed dollar rate" of $490 a night for a room with a queen-sized bed at the Raphael Hotel in Paris. To get this stunning bargain, you must provide a "discount code" and pay in full when booking.

Just when it seems that the Times' travel section can't get worse, it plumbs new depths. When will top editors at the Times restore reality to their Sunday travel section?

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Labels: london, new york times, paris

Often, on a "re-positioning" cruise leaving a U.S. port, you end up in such faraway places as Rome or Athens, from which you must then book an expensive one-way flight home. What's special about the April 20 departure of the Norwegian Jewel (of Norwegian Cruise Line) from Miami is that it takes 15 days to reach London, England, from which the one-way airfares back to the U.S. are rather low. And the 15-day cruise itself costs as little as $649, which comes to $43 a day, about as low as cruise prices ever go. $43 a day for cabin and nine sumptuous meals daily!
Embarking from Miami on Sunday, April 20, 2008, you first spend seven full nights simply at sea on your way to the Azores, where you stop for one day, then spend another day at sea on your way to Lisbon. From Lisbon, you go to various ports in Spain, then go up the side of Europe to Waterford, Ireland, then to St. Peter Port (Guernsey), England, and finally to the port for London. The entire 15-day trip, as earlier pointed out, can be had for $649 per person in an inside cabin.

Note that the ship leaves about a month from now, which means you've got to act fast. But if you do snare a $649 cabin on this excellent and nearly-brand-new ship (launched in 2006, it has 11 restaurants, 13 bars and lounges, 3 swimming pools, a spa), you'll enjoy a remarkable sailing of the south Atlantic for less than you might have spent staying at home.
The $649 rate is currently offered by CheapCaribbean.com (www.cheapcaribbean.com), whose cruise department is reached online and at tel. 800/201-8310.

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Labels: cruise, london

Remember Zoom Airlines (www.flyzoom.com)? That's the cost-cutting Canadian airline that's been crossing the Atlantic for years from Canada, but last summer did the same for the first time from New York City to London (Gatwick). Zoom has recently announced that this coming summer, it will not only be flying to London from New York, but from Fort Lauderdale and San Diego as well. And on scattered dates throughout the summer, it will be offering prices that undercut the other London-bound carriers by several hundreds of dollars.

There's no pattern for those ultra-low fares, and you simply have to go to Zoom's website and pull up various dates to find the bargains. In June, for instance, there are numerous scattered dates when Zoom will be charging only $225 each way from Fort Lauderdale (including fuel surcharge), plus taxes of about $161 per round-trip. If you'll look for other dates when it returns from London for $225 one-way, you'll have made the round-trip for a total of $611, including fuel surcharges and all taxes -- and that's a phenomenal summer price.

On other dates in both June, July and August, it will be charging $245 one way (including fuel surcharge), on still other dates $295 and even $495 (like on the travel-heavy July 4th weekend). By simply avoiding the $495 and $295 dates, and flying for $225-to-$245, you'll be able to undercut standard fares by a whopping amount. The same holds true for Zoom's flights from New York and San Diego to London.

You'd be wise to go right away to Zoom's website and learn how to use it. For London bound flights, Zoom will become the first, true, cost-cutter across the Atlantic, and a superb source of bargains.

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Labels: airlines, deals, london

The big travel news this week is an unusual winter sale on British Airways for both air (to London) and accommodations (in London). What the Brits have announced would be a real steal even if it were limited to the specially low winter airfares that BA is offering on roundtrip tickets to London: starting at $378 out of New York or Washington, D.C., $478 from Los Angeles or San Francisco (15 other departure cities are available at similar or in-between prices).

What makes the deal truly spectacular is that those prices include -- repeat, include -- a free, two-night stay in any of nine three- and four-star London hotels. That's a huge bonus in this age of high European prices and a weak dollar, when even three-star properties in London are charging as much as $200 a night for a double room.

And these aren't in the boondocks, but in such prize locations as Covent Garden, Kensington, and Chelsea, with many of the hotels belonging to prominent chains such as Jury's Inn, Holiday Inn, Marriott, Premier Inn, and Comfort Inn. Do a fast web search and you'll discover that many of the above names charge an average rate of $204 in winter. Deduct that savings from the airfare and suddenly the real cost for flying the Atlantic round-trip can amount to a mere $174.

The catch? You must book by January 24 (that's less than a week from now), and the bargain is good only for travel from January 22 through March 23.

Buried in the fine print is the note that, if you are a www.ba.com member (you can always sign up just before booking), you can get an additional $20 off. Also in that fine print are a weekend surcharge of $30, a Saturday-night stay requirement (for the roundtrip air portion; you can pick any nights of your stay on which to invoke the free hotel room), and those unavoidable various airport fees and government taxes of $165 to $240. Also, only two people traveling together get two hotel nights free; solo travelers can also book the deal, but get only one free hotel night.

There does not, however, seem to be any restriction that confines you to stay at that hotel beyond your freebie nights, after which you can either opt to continue your stay there, search out even cheaper accommodations, or take off from London to explore more of Great Britain or Europe -- the only restriction being a maximum stay of 11 months.

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Labels: deals, london, packages

For a quick look at a travel phenomenon, go quick to www.travelodge.co.uk, the website of the British Travelodge chain (not to be confused with Travelodges in the U.S.). In Britain, Travelodge is the equivalent of Motel 6, astonishingly cheap, in semi-industrial settings (sometimes) next to a gas station or a fast food shop, but in some few instances in perfectly proper areas in London. And for stays from February 7 to February 24, it's offering rooms throughout its system for £19 pounds (about $38) per room.

The sale kicked off at 6am this morning, but I'm rather certain that all sale-priced rooms will have sold out by the time you read this post. But I mention the oddity simply so that you will keep Travelodge in mind for use on your own trip to Britain later in the year. My daughter, with her family (husband and two children, 8 and 4) stayed in two different bargain-priced Travelodge hotels during their visit to Scotland this past summer, and reported having a totally pleasant experience.

Travelodge in Britain was born in 1985, and only recently began coming to the attention of American travelers. It now operates 318 Travelodge hotels throughout that country and will be opening 40 more this year. Even when the £19-per-room sale isn't on, Travelodge hotels frequently offer rates of £29 ($58) per room for bookings made at least 21 days in advance (such reservations must not only be made and paid in advance but are non-cancellable and non-refundable).

I think you'll get a kick out of looking at various pages on the company's website. It shows that someone in Britain is fighting back against the extraordinary price structure that now prevails in that country -- a level of prices made worse by the current weak value of the U.S. dollar.

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Labels: accommodations, great britain, london

Tipped off by a reader's response to one of my posts, I've now made the acquaintance of a superb website for finding inexpensive rooms in private London homes, many of them extremely well located. It strikes me as one of the best organized and easily-used services of this sort. London Bed & Breakfast Agency (www.londonbb.com) provides lodgings in a range of private homes and guesthouses for rates that run as follows: in category "C" houses, £25 ($50) per person per night; in category "B" houses, £28 ($56) per person per night; in category "B+," £33 ($66) per person per night; in category "A" houses, £47 ($94) per person per night.

It's obvious that a sizable number of rooms in private homes are now being offered in Britain's capital, responding to the crisis in costs caused by the sharp rise in the value of the British pound (£1 now equals at least $2.05 -- and more than that when you add commissions tacked on by the money-changers). Spend a few moments with www.londonbb.com, and you'll find the solution to that problem, provided you're willing to stay in category "C" homes. Many of them have posted photographs of their rooms and facilities, and look quite suitable.

It's reassuring to find a website for B&Bs that doesn't greatly favor its upscale properties and pass off the less expensive ones as oddities, gives equal treatment to the "C" category option, and provides a highly descriptive write-up of each one -- accompanied in many cases by a descriptive photograph.

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Labels: accommodations, london

The deep winter is the optimum time for visiting Britain's capital. And the sharpest rates for doing so (airfare only) are from 1-800-FlyEurope (www.1800flyeurope.com). I've tested all the cut-rate carriers (like Canada's Zoom Airways), all the major airfare search engines, all the "aggregators," and no one presently has fares to match what 1-800-FlyEurope is offering: $337 round-trip from New York, $447 round-trip from Los Angeles, with intermediate prices from other gateways. Even that miracle-working new Danish website, Momondo (www.momondo.com), doesn't come remotely close to what 1800flyeurope is offering.

Am I missing something here? Though there may be some miscellaneous taxes that these prices don't include, they do include fuel surcharge, and those other figures can't add that much. I'd be grateful for our readers' comments, which will immediately appear under this post.

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Labels: deals, london

The savings generated by a decision to locate yourself a half-hour away from the center of London, can often save you as much as $900 in a single week. As proof of that, you might want to go to the website of the charming Avalon Cottage (www.avalon-cottage.com) in the Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames, literally 30 minutes by subway from central London.

For other low-cost digs in the very same charming area, consult www.visitrichmond.co.uk, and click on "stay." You'll find 32 properties whose rates go down to as little as £25 ($50) per person, including breakfast -- and that kind of price can no longer be found in central London.

The advantage of staying in a nearby town less than 30 minutes away is also found, as I pointed out in a recent blog, near the hideously-expensive Venice, with some of the highest hotel and guesthouse prices of Europe. This awesomely beautiful city of canals is chock-a-block with tourists in every month other than November through February, and its rates when it is full are fearsome. In a response to my blog, a reader wrote of the charm of historic Padua, less than 30 minutes from Venice, and pointed out that he often took the 7:30am train to Venice from Padua, arrived at 8am, spent the entire day touring Venice at his leisure, and then returned to Padua in early evening for dinner. The savings from such a course can literally amount to hundreds of dollars less than you'd pay for room and meals in Venice.

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Labels: accommodations, london

London has five major airports, and three of them accept standard coach flights from the United States. Heathrow and Gatwick are well-known; Heathrow, however, has acquired a dismal reputation as overwhelmed and falling apart, with dreadful rates of luggage loss, and Gatwick is hardly state-of-the-art. But shiny new Stansted (www.stanstedairport.com), located in the green countryside north of the city, is gaining traction as a popular landing field. Last week, American Airlines (www.aa.com) kicked off daily flights from America (New York-JFK) to Stansted.

The bright side of AA's Stansted flights is that they are often slightly cheaper than flights to Heathrow. But even with all things being equal, and assuming your quoted base fare is the same between a flight to Heathrow and one to Stansted, the flight to Stansted currently comes with lower mandatory fees: £75 versus £81 at Heathrow.

Add to that the fact that American Airlines will likely, over the coming months, periodically slash fares even further for its Stansted route in order to drum up business, and you may be able to score a deal on flights to the United Kingdom.

Stansted is also a much easier airport to navigate than is Heathrow. Lacking the size and import of Heathrow, its security clearances are much quicker. It's not uncommon to go from airplane to front curb (or vice-versa) within 30 minutes, whereas Heathrow is plagued with delays, long walks, and interminable lines. Four of London's five airports have rail links directly to the city, and Stansted's station goes from underneath the terminal to Liverpool Street station. The trip takes about 45 minutes on a commuter train (£15) or about 75 minutes using the discount easyBus (www.easybus.co.uk) service (as little as £2 with pre-booking).

When pricing flights to London by Internet search engines, make sure you include Stansted (code: STN) in your searches, or else you may never be shown the prices to that less crowded and potentially less expensive airport.

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Labels: airports, london

Responding to my comment that prices in the British Isles have become "offensive" (and much higher than the often-reasonable prices on the continent), reader Mary Miller has written as follows:

This past spring I took a trip to England with two of my 20-something children. All the advice says that England, particularly London, is out of reach of the average traveler. But we did it the budget way and looked on it as an adventure and challenge to make it affordable.

In London we stayed in LSE [London School of Economics] university housing that was available during the spring break. We paid about £34 per person per night, and this also included a full breakfast and access to laundry facilities. We were in Bloomsbury, close to three tube stops, and the bus stop was a block from the hotel. We ate semi-fast food for lunch, often Pret a Manger or something from a Tesco [Supermarket]. Sometimes we had a picnic in the park.

We had lovely dinners at little Italian restaurants or pubs. Before the trip I had done lots of research and found discounts available to those who used the trains or had a tube pass. We had several two-for-one entrance coupons to major tourist destinations, such as the Churchill War Rooms and the Globe Theatre tour. We bought theatre tickets at the Half-Price booth. The exchange rate was not pretty, but we managed to buy souvenirs and a suitcase full of books.

I wouldn't trade this trip for anything in the world. I was able to share my love of England with my two kids and we had a terrific time.

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Labels: london, tips from readers

When I last reported about the benchmark price for a winter trip to London, as charged by the company that sets that benchmark Go-Today (www.go-today.com), it was $579 for round-trip air from a number of east coast U.S. cities and six nights with breakfast daily at a modest London hotel. So slow is the current travel market to Europe that it was obvious the price would come down -- and it has. Go-Today has just announced that a winter trip to the British capital, leaving between January 8, 2008 and February 24, 2008, and consisting of round-trip airfare and a room for six nights with breakfast daily, will be $499 per person. Expect further price reductions, or an extension of the period of validity for that bargain rate, as we move deeper into the autumn.

What's more, and equally important, the $499 price is available not simply from New York, but from an unusually large number of other cities: Chicago, Baltimore, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and of course Newark and Boston. Air-fare add on from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Houston, Miami, Orlando, Philadelphia, Seattle and Tampa: only $40 per person more! (One wonders why they didn't simply set a uniform price from the entire U.S.A. to London.)

Because $499 covers everything but your lunch, dinner, and sightseeing costs, and because many of the best attractions of London are free of charge (the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Tate Modern, many others), a trip to London remains affordable despite the weak value of the U.S. dollar, as long as you purchase your air and accommodations in this manner. We'll keep you up-to-date on further price reductions, as well as on the trans-Atlantic airfare price war that will undoubtedly break out with the start of winter. In the meantime, to book the $499 bonanza, go to the website or phone tel. 800/227-3235.

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Labels: deals, london

On the continent of Europe, prices are high but manageable. The American tourist will often discover that they are no worse than the rates of America's priciest cities: New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C.

The tabs in England are a different matter altogether -- they're positively depressing (which means, considerably higher than on the continent). A friend of mine, traveling with his partner and her parents, decided to rent an apartment in London after figuring out that a week in a flat for the four of them would cost about half of what two double rooms would have been at a Premier Inn (a reliably inexpensive, but bland, hotel chain).

He found a high-quality, extremely-comfortable and well-furnished "flat" (apartment) through VRBO.com (www.vrbo.com), though Rentalo (www.rentalo.com) and Coach House London (www.chslondon.com) also provided good leads. What's more, the apartment came with a free laundry room, one and ½ baths, a perfect location in the center of London half a block from a Tube (subway) station, and a full kitchen. This last feature, he found, was the key to avoiding pricey restaurant bills. They ate about half their dinners at home -- either take-out or home-cooked after a relatively inexpensive trip to a nearby grocery store.

In all, the four of them paid a total of £1,276 ($2,552) for a 9-night rental, which works out to £141.78 ($284) per night -- the equivalent of paying £70.89 or $142 per two people in a standard double room. The comparable price was that of the Premier Travel Inn Southwark (www.premiertravelinn.com) which, for the time period when they wanted the booking (July high season), was charging £125 ($250) per night for a double room. (For this autumn, Premier Inn charges around £95-£99 -- but apartment rates will have dropped as well.) In addition to the convenience of a kitchen and free laundry and such in the apartment, their total, meal-included expenses were at least 50% less -- and they found that even cheaper apartments were available.

If you're a group of three or four traveling together, consider an apartment rental in London.

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Labels: accommodations, london

It's sad but necessary to sound an alarm about the virtual breakdown in luggage service at London's Heathrow Airport, largest of the three airfields -- the others are Gatwick and Stansted -- serving the British capital. Baggage-handling has so overwhelmed the staff assigned to it, that even a British publication, The Economist, candidly admits (August 11, 2007, page 11) that "thousands of bags are lost each day". That report is confirmed by numerous persons sounding off in the U.S. press about the nightmares they've encountered at Heathrow.

The notion of scheduling a one-hour connection to another flight at Heathrow has become ludicrous. The prospect that your luggage will be taken from one flight and placed on another within one hour is even less likely. A two-hour connection is still dicey, and only a longer interval is reasonably safe.

It will come as a surprise to some that Heathrow is not owned by the city of London or the British nation, but by a private Spanish firm, which purchased it last year (and borrowed to do so). Since it is highly unlikely that these entrepreneurs have the funds or the will to make major improvements, the crowds, the lines, and the baggage mishandling are all bound to continue. An airport that was designed for 45 million passengers a year is now handling 67 million passengers a year, and things will undoubtedly get worse before they get better. Try to avoid it.

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Labels: airports, london

If you're planning a trip to London, you'll want to take advantage of two British websites I've already mentioned on this blog: LateRooms (www.laterooms.com) and lastminute.com (www.lastminute.com). Both websites find hotels that have gaping vacancies and are therefore willing to slash their prices for certain imminent dates.

A typical recent gimmick of lastminute.com is a collection of "Top Secret Hotels" offering 75% discounts at four-star properties that can't be named until after you have made the booking ("In order for us to bring you these exclusive deals we are not allowed to tell you the name of the hotel, until you've completed your booking," the site reads). Since the hotel is guaranteed to be of four-star quality, this involves no great risk and results in a price of only £46 ($92) per double room at a hotel normally charging four times as much. Typical recent offer on Laterooms.com: a single room with bath at the exclusive Kensington Close Hotel & Health Spa, normally charging £158.63 ($317), for £69.33 ($140, a discount of nearly 60%).

Incidentally, both Laterooms.com and Lastminute.com also supply discount rates at Irish and Scottish hotels and in key capitals on the continent. Using them can go far toward making your next European vacation entirely affordable.

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Labels: london, websites

So help me, I'm receiving a number of messages from readers who have cut their London meal costs by purchasing microwavable dinners at Tesco, and then borrowed use of a microwave at their guest house to heat them up. It's a sign of growing desperation as visitors rebel against the high cost of British suppers.

And what is Tesco? It's the largest supermarket chain in the U.K., always featuring a department with frozen dinners costing around $4 (a tenth of what you'd spend for a restaurant meal). Its various London branches are usually only a few minutes from your hotel, as are branches of its competitor, Sainsbury's. Even Marks & Spencer now operates London supermarkets, and all of them sell frozen dinners.

What else you need is a sympathetic guest house proprietor or hotel front desk clerk willing to find you a microwave. And incidentally, what works in London should also do the same in other European cities.

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Labels: budget, food, london

I am standing in the pit, my elbows and chin upon the stage. Behind me the other so-called groundlings are shouting lusty comments to the actor playing Lorenzo, who replies in kind. We are watching Merchant of Venice as Shakespeare meant it to be presented, in a duplicate of the very setting that he helped construct, and near the very same location; and it is a culmination, for me, of a lifetime of theatergoing, intensely moving, even awesome.

In one of the most compelling sightseeing attractions of London -- a full-sized, authentically built, wooden replica of the Globe Theatre on the banks of the Thames near the Southwark Bridge -- a modern audience can now understand the stagecraft of Shakespeare as they could never know it before: the intimate interaction between the Bard's characters and his audience, the entrances and exits through curtained doors, the comic relief, the loud asides directed to onlookers packed about a protruding stage, who are often inches away from the actors on it.

You take the underground to the Mansion House station near the riverside docks, from which the Globe is a ten-minute stroll away. On my own last trip, it never occurred to me that on a Tuesday afternoon in late August (the Globe's performances are in daylight only at 2 and 7 p.m., from May through mid-September) I would need advance reservations. But when I showed visible dismay at the ticket seller's statement that the house was full, she quickly advised that I could go in as a groundling (she actually used that word) in the central open pit, for exactly £5 ($10). Groundlings are the low-income viewers standing jammed against the stage, who earlier paid only one penny (the cost at that time of a loaf of bread, or two pints of beer) in 1599, when the original Globe opened.

Your time as a groundling will undoubtedly be as enjoyable as mine was. And sunk in reveries, knowing that your consciousness of art and drama has been illuminated, you later ride back aboard the underground to Leicester Square and equip yourself with a £15 ($30) evening balcony seat for a modern non-musical play of the London stage.

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Labels: london, theater

I am often asked to name what I regard as the single best bargain in all of travel, and I answer right away: it's the $499 that Go-Today (www.go-today.com) will be charging for a round-trip flight to London and six nights with breakfast daily at a modest London hotel, from November 1 to December 13, 2007, and again from January 8 to February 24, 2008. Astonishingly enough, that price is not simply from New York but from Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, as well; and the add-on price is only an equally astonishing $70 from Los Angeles or Seattle. Though you add $149.90 in government taxes, the usual fuel surcharge is included in the price.

Once you arrive in London, you discover that an extraordinary number of sightseeing attractions are free of charge, even though they display major achievements in history, art and culture. The British Library is free of charge and displays the actual Magna Carta and musical scores in Mozart's own hand. The National Maritime Museum, free of charge, has the blood-stained uniform in which Admiral Lord Nelson died. The Science Museum, free of charge, displays a computer designed in 1950 by Alan Turing. The Natural History Museum, free of charge, is probably the most beautiful museum facility in the world. The ability to sightsee for free in London, and yet to experience some of the world's outstanding sights, partially offsets the cost of London's meals.

Call me crazy, but I think all of us should try to get to London at least once a year -- it does good things for our outlook on life.

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Labels: london

I get a lot of questions about meeting local residents in the course of vacation travels. How do you that? One brief suggestion is to visit a major museum on that day or two per week when local residents take advantage of evening hours (when they're off work) to come visit the collection. As an example, the awesome Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is heavily attended on Friday and Saturday nights by lively, culturally-active New Yorkers of all ages, and conversations can be struck up in front of a Velasquez or Degas. The same at Los Angeles' remarkable Getty Museum (now the key attraction of that city) and dozens of other U.S. museums during their periodic evening hours, and also at London's National Gallery. In Britain, a visit to bulletin boards in the University of London area off Great Russell Street will also reveal all kinds of free lectures attended by dynamic residents of London who are more receptive, in that setting, than in any other, to impromptu conversations.

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Labels: locals, london, los angeles, new york city

If you're among the pressured types that make frequent trips to London, then you'll want to know about two British websites called www.laterooms.com and www.lastminute.com (the latter not to be confused with an American site called www.lastminutetravel.com). Both sites find hotels that have gaping vacancies and are therefore willing to slash their prices for certain imminent dates. The straightforward nature of this service is shown by the fact that occasionally, the sites will report that there are no bargains to be had during busy times in the British capital. But just as frequently, when you insert the dates of your stay and the kind of hotel you're seeking, you'll find remarkable hotel savings.

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Labels: accommodations, london

Determined to stay at a hotel on your next trip to London? The drop in the dollar against the pound is bad news not simply for the American traveler but for the British hotels that cater, among others, to Americans. And some of those hotels are therefore frantically discounting their rates to Americans in order to hold on to that important segment of their business. If you will go to www.londontown.com, you'll immediately see that many important London hotels are discounting their rates by as much as 40 and 50 percent for Americans, which more than overcomes the current adverse exchange rate.

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Labels: deals, london

I'm not sure that the full impact of recent exchange rates -- $2 for a British pound, $1.35 for a single Euro -- has yet sunk into the psyche of Americans planning a European trip. Or that they've considered the radical new tactics that a cost-conscious trip there will require.

Because the average guesthouse room -- I'm talking a modest guesthouse and a double room -- is currently renting for £100 in London and for at least 100 € on the continent, the cost for lodgings is therefore $200 a night per couple in London and nearly $150 in Europe. Multiply those costs by 14 nights, and for a pair of Americans traveling together, the average two-week trip can start off with a $3,000 tab for lodgings alone.

So what's to be done? It's clear to me that the cost-conscious American must, from now on, seek out not hotel accommodations, not even guesthouse accommodations, but so-called "private homestays" -- a low-cost, $40-per-person room in a residence whose owners are simply supplementing their income by renting out an occasional room. If you'll go to www.happy-homes.com or www.athomeinlondon.co.uk, you'll find such $40 per person accommodations in London. You'll find the same for Paris at www.goodmorningparis.fr or www.bed-and-breakfast-in-paris.com; and in Rome at www.b-b.rm.it.

For years, many of our Frommer's travel guides to Europe have laid a heavy stress on alternative, non-hotel accommodations, and my daughter's recent series (Pauline Frommer's London, Pauline Frommer's Paris and Pauline Frommer's Italy) is especially full of internet services for private homestays, university accommodations, hostels, and guest-accepting convents and monasteries. And you can bet that I'll be returning to the private homestay in future issues of this daily blog.

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Labels: accommodations, budget, england, france, guesthouse, italy, london, paris