Visiting London next year - need help!?

Basing yourself in London would be a good move as public transport pretty much all fans out from there. And public transport isn't quite like the American kind if only because there's a lot more of it. In a far more crowded country (which we are), it works better, and hiring a car might be quite an experience for an American driver... a) we drive on the left of the road b) the driver sits on the right c) the maximum speed on motorways is 70 mph d) we DO have cars with automatic transmission but manual transmission with a stick shift is very common and cheaper to hire, but would probably confuse the average American driver totally! Personally my car is manual, I've never driven an automatic, and I could just imagine my automatic reaction in an American car as banging my left hand on the door all the time as I search for the gearstick by feel as I usually do...

Which is another point. Careful when you cross the street in England as everything is going on the opposite side from what you're used to.

London is an expensive city but there are lots of places to stay, and being a bit out of the centre is not a problem again because the public transport is so good. What I would recommend is to google "cheap hotels london" when you have some time to spare and have a search around. Please feel free to email via my profile if you find something and want to ask about the area it's in - sorry I'm not good on this but when you live in a city, you don't know much about hotels in it!

I live in London and I've "done Bath" as a day trip - trains go every 30 minutes from London Paddington station and will take you directly there in an hour and a half. You can search any train journey in the UK on http://www.thetrainline.com/buytickets/? and it usually sells the cheapest tickets, too. Buying on the day means a) possibly standing in line for ages and b) probably not getting the best deal.

Coaches also exist http://www.nationalexpress.com/home.aspx - cheaper but slower.

Everywhere else you mention is closer to London than Bath. For Stonehenge you would have to go to Salisbury (train from London Waterloo) and ask about a bus. You can't get very close to the stones, though. I have but that was 35 years ago on a school trip and since then they've been fenced off to stop graffiti "artists". Winchester you can get to easily on a train from Waterloo. Steventon I don't know about - you may have to get a taxi from Basingstoke (again, train from Waterloo).

For London, I can't do better than recommend http://www.theoriginaltour.com/ as a quick introduction to the key sights. Go for the Original Tour (Yellow Route) and select from that what to go back to later. DO do the Tower of London and a walk around the Buckingham Palace area and the parks around it is always nice, and down towards Trafalgar Square, turn into Whitehall and down to the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

Finally, the piece of advice I always give to Americans. Flights coming over here are usually overnight and you will probably arrive about breakfast time feeling totally zonked because your body still thinks it's the middle of the night and it's hard to get much sleep in a small economy class seat. THEN you've got to stand in line for passport control, baggage reclaim and customs AND get to where you're staying. Trust me as I've done this many times - you will want to collapse into bed as soon as possible and probably not wake up until early afternoon. DO NOT fight it. All of which is to say, do not plan anything for the first day. Go with the flow and it'll be OK the next morning.

Plan it out well and I hope you have a great time.

I'm glad to see that you know there is more to England than London!

Premier Inns offer reasonable price rooms, particularly if you share with your mother! They don't offer "Olde Worlde" charm but are always attached to some kind of restaurant.

There are tours to Stonehenge from London. One of them includes Salisbury (Similar to Winchester - a very nice old cathedral city) and Bath. It's a good idea to attach a tour of Stonehenge to something else. It's worth a visit but it's not as big as you might expect.

You may know Jane Austen's house (& museum) is NW of Winchester in Chawton.

You may find it's worth hiring a car to tour outside London. It will give you great Independence. You could have lunch in a country pub. They are not just drinking establishments. They mostly provide excellent food with a cosy atmosphere. Some offer accommodation.

There's a St Christopher's Inn in Bath that's really cheap. I stayed there last year for two nights and it cost me 40 dollars with a tour to Stonehenge for a few hours included in the cost. It was kind of noisy but if you're not gonna be there long, you can handle it.

In Bath you should go see the roman baths but try to go early because if you go when it's busy, you might as well not go at all because you won't see anything.

There's a Jane Austen Museum in Bath, too, in a house close to where her house was, I believe. It's small but cute and there's tea and crumpets!

For travelling around the U.K. I'd suggest a Britrail Pass, which is excellent value for money.. Our rail network is very dense and frequent and you'll see far more on route. than if you drive

www.britrail.com

www.nationalrail.co.uk (timetable information)

Bath for example is just 80 minutes journey by train from London Paddington and they operate every 30 minutes. Parking in London is impossible and main roads throughout the country tend to be very congested. You can akways hire a car for odd days when you are going into very rural areas not covered by the rail system. Even a place like Stonehenge which is in a rural location is served by buses from outside Salisbury Railway Station

www.enjoyengland.com

well there is the Old Fashioned way- by getting a Reading Books.

there are Many Travel Guides available at bookstores and at the library. There are some travel guides for special areas or places of interest ( re Jane Austin/literature)

Stores like Borders/Barnes & Noble also have Magazines on UK travel- Realm is a very good one

Your library may also have Travel DVDs- like Rick Steve's TV series

RE- places to stay- I almost always have stayed at Bed & Breakfasts-not only are they usually cheaper and better than hotels but you get a chance to meet and talk to a real Local people

RE- transportation- if not driving get a Brit Rail Pass for traveling outside London- these usually have to be purchased Before you go to the UK

http://www.britrail.com/

jane Austin society- usa

http://jasna.org/

UK

http://www.janeaustensoci.freeuk.com/]

If you go to Stonehenge you may like to book a special access visit, either arrange yourself or with a guide, see the link below and you can get inside the Circle - unlike the rest of the tourist crowds who only get to walk around the outside at a distance. .