The first thing you’ll need for traveling in London is the oyster card. It’s a prepaid, contactless card and is used for all major public transport systems within the city – the tube, busses, trains, overground, … Usually you have to check-in and check-out with it. You should not forget to check-out, because then you’ll have to pay a maximum fee. An exception is the bus system, there you only check-in directly in the bus, you should not check-out (otherwise you pay double)!
It might be worth reading more about the system to find out how you can save money (there is for example a maximum daily rate for busses, so if you only use lots of busses on one day it might be cheaper than using all kinds of systems).
More things you can do with your oyster card:
- You can also register the oyster card to you personally, then you can see all your journeys on a website.
- You can enable auto-top-up, so that you don’t have to go to a shop when your credits get low.
- With the oyster card you can go a little bit into negative.
- When you have a railcard you can add it to your oyster card (in an underground station) to also have your price reduction when traveling using the oyster card.
If you travel often, you might also want to think about a seasonal ticket (week, month, several month, year). Here you’ll find more information about all your options.
More information can be found on following websites:
- tfl.gov.uk – Transport for London
- oyster.tfl.gov.uk – oyster card
- nationalrail.co.uk – train, oyster, finding the right ticket …
- railcard.co.uk – benefits when travelling by train (national rail)
- 16-25railcard.co.uk – travel cheaper by train when you’re between 16 and 25