Stansted – Simon Rau Fotografie

Flying to London from other european countries is rather cheap. There are several airports in London and so many airline options. The one I flew to (and not for the first time either) is London Stansted Airport. It is located a one hour drive north of London which may sound rather far, but there are good options to get a transfer to the city center.

I booked my trip only one week before takeoff from Frankfurt International Airport via Ryanair for a total of 71 Euro. For both ways, that is. If you book much earlier you can get there for like 20 Euro at this time of the year. On my way back I talked to the guy sitting next to me on the plane and he got such a deal.

Ryanair has a new luggage rule since beginning of 2018 – if you book the economy class you can still bring a 10kg luggage with you – but you can’t take it with you into the cabine. Right in front of thee airplane, before you take the stairs into the cabine, you have to put your big luggage into a wagon standing there. And they will put it into the cargo space! If you don’t want that, you have to pay extra and updgrade. While this looks like a pure cash crab, it isn’t. It is also to speed up the boarding process – I read that Ryanair had some problems lately with take off in time. Because it took the passengers so long to storage all their luggage and because there wasn’t enough space in the cabine for all of it. I did not pay extra and just took my little camera bag with me. I would only pay extra if I had something really valuable in my big luggage or if I really need to hurry up and don’t want to wait for luggage claim. But even here, I didn’t have to wait for long – it is last in first out – so your bag should be among the first on the conveyor belt.

Earlier I wrote the flight did cost me 71 Euro for both ways. But once you arrive in Stansted how to get to the city center? There are two easy options: Bus or train. Both are good options here. Stansted Express, that is the name if the train, goes every 15 minutes and costs around 15 Euro for one way and takes appr. 50 minutes to Liverpool station in London. Bus costs 10 Euro and takes round about one hour.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — View through the window of Stansted Express

I took the train and it was very convenient! Once you arrive in Liverpool station, you can take the London Underground to get around in the city and start exploring.

Do you like travel adventures, getting there, planes and bus rides or is it more of a hassle and you are glad to finally arrive in your chosen destination?

The Docklands, located in the eastern part of London, are probably not the first place a tourist would go, if they are visiting London. I bet there are a decent amount of people who visited London several times already and were never there. That means unless your airport is the London City Airport which is located right in the dockland district or if you visiting ExCeL. This really huge exhibition centre is also located there.

End of January an american friend and myself went for a four day trip to London. Since we had an event coming up at ExCeL we choose a Hotel close by for the whole stay.

Here are some pictures of our hotel and the surroundings:

We picked „The Good Hotel“ for our stay. Because, who doesn’t want to stay in a good hotel? 😉 And it turned out more than just good! This hotel has a very nice stuff and interior. The rooms we stayed in were pretty small but absolutely clean and in good condition.

This is another view on the Hotel. As you can see it is located ON the water. You need to go over a bridge to get to the entrance. In the background you can see the Emirates Skytrain.