Travel in the UK is not exactly the cheapest. A study found that commuters form the South East were spending over a third of average earnings on travelling to and from London. So that’s around £9,000 a year. Just let that sink in for a sec.
Blogger Jordon Cox proved this point perfectly by saving £7.72 on his train journey from Sheffield to Essex, because he took a flight via Berlin. Casual. Maybe it's all time for us to ditch the dreary UK train journeys for the chance to jet off, and actually save money. Here are your best options:
1. Instead of your Glasgow/Edinburgh season ticket, go to New York. 6 times.
A year-long season ticket from Glasgow to Edinburgh is £2,200, which means you could fly to New York and back to London 6 times for the same price. So, flying to an entirely different continent is cheaper than commuting within the same country. Erm please can you book us onto the next flight to NY?
2. Instead of heading from Bradford to Edinburgh, go to Budapest
Unlike George Ezra, who never actually got to Budapest, you can get a return flight for £81.98. This is over £10 cheaper than a standard single from Bradford to Edinburgh, which is £94.20. So while you’re stuck in Edinburgh, I’ll be relaxing in the Budapest baths…
3. Instead of journeying from London to Cornwall, go to Barcelona
If you fancy a few days away to escape the January blues, it’s cheaper to go to Barcelona than it is to Cornwall. Going from London Paddington Station to Newquay, even on an off-peak return, is £132.30. But you could travel for roughly the same price, on the same dates, to Barcelona – it’s just a £119.98 return. Trip to Spain anyone?
4. Instead of a 1-day London Travelcard, go to Amsterdam
The land of bicycles, tulips and windmills, is actually cheaper to get to than buying a London zone 1-6 travel card. The travel card is £17.20, but you can get the Megabus from Victoria Coach Station to Amsterdam for just under this price, at £13-£15. Sorry London, but I have a coach to catch.
5 Instead of a season ticket from Manchester to Liverpool, have an adventure in Rome. 33 times.
I’m not gonna lie, the first thing I think when talking about Rome is always the Lizzie McGuire movie. But considering it’s also home to the Coliseum and Trevi Fountain, it would be a pretty cool place to visit. You can actually fly to Rome and back 33 times, and it’ll cost the same as a year season ticket from Manchester to Liverpool. I just need a moment to process this. The season ticket is £2,988, making it one of the most expensive journeys in the UK. Instead, you can hop to Italy and back for around £90this February. Not exactly a tough choice.
6. Instead of train-ing it from Canterbury to York, go to Paris and back. Twice.
If you’re looking to save money on your holiday this year, and going for a ‘staycation’, it might not save you anything. A Canterbury to York return is roughly £128.30, but you can go on the Eurostar to Paris and back for £58, which is under half of the price. So allow yourself the holiday, it’s actually cheaper.
7. Instead of commuting to Swindon from London, go to Sydney. 10 times.
Winning for the most expensive train journey, which isn’t really the competition you want to win, is going from Swindon to London. A year long season ticket is £8.280. Yeah, I’m afraid you read that right. But you can fly from London to Sydney for £773 return. This means you can spend around 1/10th of the price of that season ticket on going to the other side of the world - I’m as confused as you are. But does this justify me going to Australia now?
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.