Through our travels through, we’ve picked up quite a few pieces of useful knowledge (some learned the hard way, some serendipitously taught to us), and I thought that it would be useful for others who might be traveling similar paths for me to share them. Thus, Amy’s Tips was born! Here, I will write what is probably lesser known pieces of knowledge that we have accumulated. These will especially be useful for off season travel. Most travel guides are written for the high season, and there were disappointments when we found that certain attractions were not operating because of the low season. I shall start with London/Bath/Oxford! Here, in particular, I will include American translations of some British words that confused me

1.Cell phones in the UK: I can’t speak for other mobile phone providers, but O2 has a great pay as you go SIM card plan: Each time you “top-up” (that’s what they call buying a designated amount of credit for your SIM card), you get a certain number of free international minutes per month. This is great for calling home. The minutes do not carry over to the next month if you don’t use them, though. For example, if you top-up with 10pounds, you get 50 minutes free for the month, in addition to the 10 pounds of credit that you can use to call within the UK. If you top-up with 15 pounds, you get 100 minutes free in addition to the 15 pounds of credit, etc. Receiving calls and calling UK phone numbers is a certain number of pence (equivalent to the US “cents”), and it is more expensive to call mobile phones than land lines (about twice as much). Receiving texts is free.
2.Don’t buy a SIM card from a Vending Machine in the airport! Patience will save you 10 pounds! Brian and I bought a SIM pack for 10 pounds, but even after we thought we activated it, it wouldn’t allow me to call out. We finally found an O2 store in Trafalgar Square and asked. It turned out that we had only paid for a SIM card, but with no top-up voucher. If you buy it from an O2 store, they give you the SIM card for free when you buy the top-up voucher. Beware!
3.Economy airlines (easyjet, ryanair) usually depart pretty early from the London Stanstead Airport. To get to London Stanstead, you can either take the Stanstead Express. This usually isn’t the problem, as the Stanstead Express runs pretty early (first departure on a Sunday was at 5:10AM). The problem is getting to Liverpool street, the departure point for the Stanstead Express. The first train on the Tube (the subway) is around 7AM. What to do? We had an 8AM flight with approximately an hour on the Stanstead Express. A 7AM tube train to Liverpool was not going to cut it. We had to ask about three people to finally get a solution, the N11 bus from Victoria! It runs about 2 to 3 buses an hour between midnight and 5AM and goes to Liverpool Station in about half an hour. *note: when asking ticket tellers around the UK for information, they rarely know very much about any form of transportation other than what they are responsible for (ie, a Tube ticket teller will not be able to tell you much about the bus or other trains, the overground train teller won’t be able to tell you too much about the bus, or even a train from another company). In our experience in asking locals about transportation as well as reading guide books, we have gotten contradictory information, so just be careful in getting information. It is best to go directly to the people who run the mode of transportation that you are interested in to get the most accurate information*
4.Another option to tip number 3 is to sleep in Stanstead airport. There are a lot of tips on how to do this on the WikiTravel entry for London – Getting in.
5.Yet another option to tip number 3 is to take a “coach” (US: Bus). There is a National Express coach from Victoria straight to Stanstead Airport (takes about an hour and a half). This can bypass the whole getting to Liverpool problem. In general, coaches are a much less expensive way to travel through the UK (to Bath, to Oxford, etc), and usually depart from Victoria Bus Station. We were very lucky in booking a hotel in Victoria so we could just walk to the bus station. There is a coach from Victoria to Stanstead (about an hour and a half), and a coach to Oxford (for 9 Pounds only! With free internet on Board! Look for the green coach that says “Oxford Express, Travel in Style”). There is one National Express Coach from Bath back to London at 6:30PM for about 17 pounds. Other times will involve a stopover in Bristol. This might change for the summer. Our guide books had told us that there was one every hour, which we found to be not true. If the bus is booked and you don’t want to take the Bristol bus or pay 47 pounds for the train, you can consider taking the 13pound ~ 1 hour train ride back to Oxford from Bath and then taking one of the many coaches that go from Oxford to the UK (virtually one every twenty minutes to an hour, travel time about 2 hours). This comes out to be much cheaper than the 47 pound train!
6.More notes on the coach: The National Express has many bus lines running all over the country and is the most accessible from coach ticket booths, as is the Oxford Express, but there is also the Megabus (megabus.com) that you can only book on the Internet that is possibly cheaper (no internet, though). We didn’t have internet so we couldn’t book it. You can give it a try! *of course, taking the bus also runs the risk of sitting behind two really grumpy men… but I hope that doesn’t happen to you!*
7.Getting to Stonehenge: It’s tough getting into Stonehenge, you need to take a train to Salisbury and then a bus to Stonehenge. We wanted to get there from Bath. There is a direct bus from Bath to Salisbury, but adding up all the train and bus fares, we found it was cheaper to take one of the tourist vans from Bath that takes you straight to Stonehenge (14pounds. We even got a discount because they convinced us to take an earlier tour with fewer people! 12 pounds!). This gives you an hour to walk around. Unfortunately, that’s not enough time to walk around the trails in the area and to other mysterious sites, but it was very cold up and windy that I think, at the time, it was better that we didn’t The bus driver also points out various sites along the way!