Renting a car in London (young drivers)

Upvote:4

Just a tip to all, don't hire a car in the UK if you're young and on a budget. The prices are fine for adults, but as soon as you sign a declaration stating you're under the age of 25, your premium, insurance costs, etc. go through the roof, you'll end up paying MORE for the insurance than for the original car/payment (including deposits and insurances).

Upvote:13

First up, driving in London isn't really for the faint-hearted. Especially not for people quite new to driving, who've only ever driven on the other side of the road!

So, if you really do want to drive, I'd suggest when you get to London you hop on the Piccadilly Line out to Heathrow Airport, and pick up a car there. Heathrow is right by the M4 motorway, which you'll want to take to get to Bristol, so it's handy for you. You'll avoid having to drive in London, avoid problems with congestion charges, avoid problems with traffic etc. May even be slightly cheaper!

As for the train, from London to Bristol Parkway (probably the station you'd want for getting to somewhere near Bristol), it's £31.50 one way for a super-offpeak single, valid at quiet times of the day, but on any train you want at those times, or £55 for a super-offpeak return. First Great Western also offer Group-Save tickets, which are basically 2-for-the-price-of-1 at off-peak times. So, assuming there were 4 of you travelling at a quiet time in the day, it'd be £110 for 4 returns, or £27.50 each for the return. That looks quite favourable to your hire car costs, and you wouldn't have to pay for petrol.

(There are also Advanced Purchase tickets, which are only valid on one specific train, no flexibility. Between London and Bristol these start at £15 each way, rising to about £22 each way, when they're all sold they're all sold. Given the cost of a super-offpeak ticket valid on any train when bought as a group, I'd suggest you avoid those and just get a flexible group ticket)

Most festivals offer cheap/free transport from the nearest major station, so you can hopefully sort something out to get from the station to the festival.

As for the young driver bit, some companies will offer it for a very large extra premium, some won't offer it at all, and some will offer it but only if you ring up. Hertz offer it at most locations, for an example, their FAQ on it provides details of how to get the website to quote you for the extra premium too. Hertz look to charge about £31/day surcharge. That alternately gets a fair amount of local bus tickets!

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