The natural instinct when booking a car is to go with the absolute cheapest rate possible, but rental car companies are notorious for tacking on hidden fees and surcharges (some are worse than others) that can seriously inflate the cost of your trip. The one fee you must ask about up front in Europe is the cost of transferring your personal information to the police in cases of speeding or parking tickets.

I learned this the hard way. I never thought twice about this until a recent trip to the English countryside with my partner and two of our friends. I found a great deal for a two-day rental with Europcar (a nice, big car to fit the four of us)—all told, with insurance, it was around $100. Believe me, this is not bad for London. We had a great time driving through the picturesque villages in the Cotswolds, stuffing ourselves on fish and chips and waking up with sheep bleating in the pastures around our B&B.

Related: Search and compare car rentals in Europe

Speeding tickets!

Then, in the span of six hours, on the same road, everything changed—and we suddenly found ourselves hundreds of dollars in the hole. Our car was photographed twice by speed-enforcement cameras—once going 35 mph in a 30-mph zone, and the other time going 38 mph.

I understand the need for drivers to keep their speeds down in and around country villages, but my partner (who was driving) was hardly channeling Mario Andretti here. Nonetheless, we knew we got nabbed when the flashbulb went off as our car passed the hidden camera. Anyone who has been in this situation in Italy, France, or Germany knows that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.

The tickets I can understand. They were excessive, but there’s really no way to fight them. We were assessed fines of about £60 per ticket, which we paid. (Friends who have received photo-enforced speeding tickets on trips to Italy have ignored the charges when they returned home to the U.S. and apparently been O.K. But I wouldn’t advise that.) We ponied up the $200 and figured we learned a costly lesson.

Hidden fees and surcharges

I didn’t anticipate I’d be hit with more fees weeks later from Europcar. The company charged my credit card twice (without my knowledge, mind you) for what they later told me were “administrative fees” related to the tickets, namely the amount they charge for passing our contact details on to the local authorities.

The amount: a staggering $50 PER TICKET.

Now, I know this is common practice for rental car companies—they maintain that this charge covers the cost of transferring your data to the relevant local authorities. But from a consumer’s standpoint, it helps to be informed of the rules and regulations before you rent, just so you’re aware of the possible tack-ons.

Make sure the amount of the surcharge is clearly stated in the terms and conditions of your agreement. And watch your credit card statements closely in the months after your rental to see if any charges show up without your knowing about it (as it did in my case).

For those who want to learn more about these rental car fees, here’s an excellent article on MSNBC’s website. Educate yourself, or you might find yourself in the same situation I’m in, paying three times the cost of your rental car in profligate surcharges.

The post Renting a Car: Watch out for speeding tickets… and extra charges! appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Fortunately, London has a number of cheap transport options to and from Heathrow, making the journey a much more pleasant—and wallet-friendly—experience.

Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect

Without a doubt, the Heathrow Express express train is the fastest—and most comfortable—way into the city. Heathrow Express departs every 15 minutes from the airport and takes just 15 minutes to reach Paddington station in the city’s West End. (The trains also leave Paddington every 15 minutes going the other way.)

To save yourself even more time, you can buy a ticket online before you leave the U.S. and have the actual ticket sent to your mobile phone—a bar code in the text message will be scanned when you board the train. Plus, another bonus starting this month: Free Wi-Fi on board! What could be better?

Well, the price, for one. A one-way ticket on the Heathrow Express costs a whopping £16.50 online (or £18 at Heathrow); a round-trip ticket will set you back £30 online (or £32 at the station).

A slightly cheaper option is the Heathrow Connect train. It takes slightly longer to reach Paddington (25 minutes), but the price is only £7.90 for a one-way ticket and £15.80 for a return if you purchase online. Watch which train you board—both the Heathrow Express and the Heathrow Connect stop at the same platform at the airport.

The Tube to Heathrow

Heathrow, mercifully, is also served by the Piccadilly line on the Underground. (Why can’t La Guardia be this well connected?) With an Oyster card, which you can buy at the Heathrow Tube station for £3 pounds, the cost of a one-way journey into central London is just £3.80.

The only major drawback is the travel time—allow yourself at least an hour to get to or from the center of the city; sometimes, the journey can even take an hour and a half. Another annoyance: Parts of the Tube are routinely shut down on weekends for maintenance, meaning you may have some difficulty reaching your final destination if it’s not on the Piccadilly line.

Car Service to Heathrow

This is the biggest secret in London when it comes to Heathrow connections. It’s actually how I suggest most of my out-of-town guests go to the airport at the end of their stay—it’s far less trouble than trying to figure out the train schedules and worrying about being late for a flight.

There are numerous car service companies in London that will take you to any destination of your choosing for a flat rate (no tipping necessary). Most companies charge around £30 per trip from central London (anywhere in Zone 1) to Heathrow, which is actually cheaper than purchasing two one-way tickets on Heathrow Express.

It’s simple to find a company if you have a cell phone that works in London. Just text the word “home” to the Transport for London’s information number (62967) and within minutes, you’ll receive a message with the numbers of several car companies near you.

If you aren’t that technologically savvy, fret not. Try calling Bloomsbury Cars, a reliable company that I’ve used before, at 020-7631-1334. They’ll pick up passengers from any location in Zone 1 and charge £30 per trip to Heathrow. The journey usually takes less than an hour.

The post London: The Cheapest Way to Heathrow—Train, Tube or Car? appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

So grab an eco-friendly cloth bag (nothing else will do in London), make sure you have lots of cash, and get shopping—here’s my guide for navigating the busy weekend market schedule and making sure you hit the right spots at the right times.

Borough Market

What it’s good for: Food, glorious food.
When to go: Thursdays (11 AM – 5 PM), Fridays (noon – 6 PM), Saturdays (8 AM – 5 PM)
Location: Underneath London Bridge on the Thames at the London Bridge Tube stop.
Website: www.boroughmarket.co.uk

The lowdown: One of the biggest outdoor food markets in the world, Borough Market is a must for any foodie… well, any visitor to London, really. You can find just about anything here: organic meats, gourmet cheeses, fruits and vegetables, unbelievable pork pies, venison burgers, giant cauldrons of Jamaican curries and paellas, and of course lots of sweets. Prices are relatively reasonable, too. Expect to pay about £5-10 for lunch.

Broadway Market

What it’s good for: A little bit of everything and the best people watching.
When to go: Saturdays from 11 AM – 6 PM
Location: Broadway Market (it’s a street) in Hackney, East London.
Nearest train stop is London Fields on the National Express overground line (from Liverpool St. Station).
Website: www.broadwaymarket.com

The lowdown: What started off as a small neighborhood market has in recent years started to draw in folks from all over the city to pick up vintage clothes, organic meats and cheeses, artisanal cupcakes, and crafts from local boutiques.

It’s small—just one street—but you can easily while away an afternoon snacking and watching the East End fashionistas strutting up and down the road like it’s a catwalk. Finish off the day with a couple pints at one of the two local pubs—Cat & Mutton or the Dove.

Columbia Road Flower Market

What it’s good for: Flowers, plus shopping at independent boutiques.
When to go: Sundays from 8 AM – 4 PM
Location: Columbia Road in Hackney, East London. Nearest tube is Old Street.
Website: www.columbiaroad.info

The lowdown: Noisy, crowded and unmistakably London, this market gives you the best flavor of what market day was probably like in Victorian times. The flower vendors try to out-shout each other with their cockney accents and their impossibly low prices: “Ten roses for a fiver! Ten roses for a fiver! Get ’em before they’re gone!”

The other reason to go is the line of cute boutiques, cupcake shops, perfumeries, and art galleries lining the road, many of which only open their doors on Sundays. Be sure to check out Ryantown, where London artist Rob Ryan sells his quirky wall hangings made of cut paper.

Brick Lane

What it’s good for: Vintage and indie designer clothing, exotic foods.
When to go: Sundays from 10 AM – 6 PM
Location: Brick Lane, East London. Nearest tube is Liverpool Street.
Website: www.sundayupmarket.com

The lowdown: Heaving on weekends and as chaotic as East London gets, with vintage clothes sellers, student fashion designers, ethnic food hawkers and locals with all sorts of bric-a-brac spread out on blankets all vying for your attention.

Two spots not the miss: the Upmarket in the Old Truman Brewery (where most of the clothing is found), and the food vendors in the courtyard behind it—you’ll find everything from Sri Lankan to Mauritian to Mexican (spelled “Maxican” by the Chinese stall owners). Don’t waste your time at the Spitalfields Market next door—it pales in comparison to this raucous party.

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The best way to explore the bucolic rolling hills, sheep farms, and stone villages outside London is not behind the wheel of a car, but on foot.

I had my first experience with country walking last weekend. My boyfriend and I rented a City Car (London’s version of a Zipcar) and drove about an hour to the west to the Chiltern hills, where I’d read there was good walking. We grabbed a footpath map and walking directions at a shop in the village of Hambleden and off we went. Seven miles seemed like a good enough challenge. We’d be back before dinner, no problem.

I should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy from the first set of instructions on our map: “At a right-hand bend, fork left onto the right-hand of two paths (LE38), a gravel drive. Now go straight on, soon joining and following a left-hand boundary bank and ignoring a crossing path.” We must have looked for that stupid left-hand boundary bank for a good 30 minutes.

A quintessential countryside scene.

We eventually got the hang of it, though, and figuring out the directions became part of the fun. Plus, the scenery couldn’t have been more magnificent.

Because the public is legally permitted to cross all private land in the countryside, the footpath cut right through people’s farms, bringing us up close and personal with the cows and sheep. It also took us into beech-tree forests that were so dark and dense, they felt almost primeval.

Here are some tips on taking your own countryside walk:

1. Get a good map

Many footpaths are not signposted, so you need to find a map that includes very clear instructions on how to find your way. In most larger towns, you’ll be able to find one at a tourism information office; in villages, look for a food shop.

The Chiltern Society has 27 different walking maps of the hills west of London. Another good resource is the Guardian newspaper, which published an excellent series of “Great British Walks” this summer.

2. Be prepared

It should go without saying, but don’t embark on a five- or seven-mile hike without proper walking shoes, water and a cell phone in case you get lost. (Some guides even recommend bringing a compass.) The weather in England is famously unpredictable, so plan for the possibility of rain even on a sunny day.

If you do lose your way, look for a well-groomed path (the larger ones are called “bridle paths”) and follow it until you reach civilization. England is a small country—every path leads somewhere.

Admiring a cow from a safe distance.

3. Respect people’s property

When entering a farm, make sure to close and latch the gate behind you. And keep a safe distance from cattle—there have been isolated incidents of people being chased and attacked by ornery cows. Most importantly: Never get between a cow and her calf unless you are looking for a fight.

4. Dress for the conditions

Footpaths can be overgrown with grass and prickly weeds in the summer and fall, and you may have to make your way through dense vegetation or even crops. Long pants and a long-sleeved shirt are recommended.

5. Don’t drink and walk

You’ll regret having that pint of beer with lunch when you’re three miles into an afternoon trek. Save the country pub until after your walk. A great pub in Hambleden is The Stag & Huntsman, which has picnic tables in the large garden out back and serves a delicious pork and apple burger.

The post London Day Trips: Tips for countryside walks appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Instead, save your sterling for drinks at the pub and eat at one of these five stellar restaurants for under £10 a pop:

1.The Albion
2-4 Boundary St., 020 7729-1051

You wouldn’t normally associate Terence Conran, the London designer and developer, with inexpensive. The rooms at his just-opened East London loft hotel, The Boundary, for example, start at around $250 per night. The drinks at the rooftop bar are almost as pricey.

But the restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel, the Albion, is the exception: Almost all of the dishes on the menu come in at under £10. And the food is amazing—the restaurant serves very lovely and refined takes on classic British dishes like Welsh rabbit, fish pie and kedgeree. (Remarkably, traditional British food is making a comeback on menus all over the city at the moment.) This being a Conran restaurant, the design is impeccable, too, right down to the hand-knit cozies for the teapots on the tables.

2. Little Georgia
87 Goldsmiths Row, 020-7739-8154.

I stumbled upon this little gem one day on a jog through a quiet residential neighborhood in Hackney (East London). It’s a little hard to get to, but well worth the effort. When you walk in, you feel like you’re entering a warm Tbilisi kitchen, circa 1940—there are black and white family photos and an old map of Georgia on the walls and a number of Soviet-era phones on the shelves.

Skip the more expensive main courses and focus instead on the appetizers—you can share a meze of six different starters for £12 total. The best bets are the lobiani (bread stuffed with spicy beans and pork), khachapuri (cheese-filled bread) and pkhali (a minced beetroot and walnut salad). My other tip: Bring your own wine (there’s no corkage fee).

3. Song Que
134 Kingsland Rd., 020 7613-3222.

Unbeknownst to most tourists, London has its own Little Hanoi—a stretch of Vietnamese restaurants on Kingsland Road in Shoreditch. The best of the lot is undoubtedly Song Que, a massive restaurant short on style (the décor is bare bones to say the least) but incredibly popular for its delicious beef and seafood pho and summer rolls.

You’ll see all types here—local Vietnamese residents, club kids gearing up for a night out in Shoreditch, and always a handful of tourists who read about the restaurant in their Time Out London guide. This isn’t a place to linger—the staff will rush you out the door as soon as you’re done—but the prices can’t be beat. Expect to spend £10 a person, with drinks.

Gladstone Arms. Photo: Ewan-M.

4. Gladstone Arms
64 Lant St., 020 7407-3962

I’m not going to lie—I trust my Time Out guide. And it says that this may be the “coolest little pub in Southeast London.” I have to agree, not just because of the living-room-like set-up (comfy couches, lots of plants and board games)—it’s also got really tasty English pies made by Pieminister, a Bristol-based company that uses free-range meat and lots of yummy seasonal ingredients. Among the more interesting options are the Matador Pie (beef steak, chorizo, olives, tomato, sherry and butter beans) and the Mr. Porky Pie (west country pork, smoked bacon, apples, leeks, cider and sage). With a pint of Black Sheep bitter beer, your bill will total just over £10.

5. Brick Lane
120-122 Brick Lane, 020 7247-0397

Last but not least is the old standby, Brick Lane, a road stretching through the East End, famous for its Bangali restaurants. Yes, it’s touristy and yes, you’ll have to fight off the touts trying to push you into their restaurants, but it’s an experience worth having in London and the food couldn’t be cheaper.

There are a ton of places on the strip, so choose carefully—cruise the strip and check out the menus first. And if you loiter outside a place long enough, the tout will offer you a free bottle of wine with dinner. One of my favorite places is Preem & Prithi, which serves an excellent balti lamb vindaloo.

The post London: 5 great eats in London for under £10 appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

When I decided to head to Croatia, albeit during high season, I was surprised to find prices higher than I expected: A midrange hotel (as spare as spare can get) runs about €60 to €100, while an entrée at a restaurant will cost €10 to €25.

The good news? There are definitely ways to save, as I’ve discovered this week on the road, and along the Dalmatian Coast.

Here are four tips for keeping your budget in check:

1. Rent a car in Slovenia

One of the first questions I had about Croatia was whether I needed a car. This seemed like an obvious place to save some cash, and if there were adequate buses and trains between the main cities on the coast and ferries to all of the islands, would I really need wheels? The answer is most resoundingly yes, if only for the ability to delve further into the countryside and get away from the tourist hot spots at the ferry docks.

Cars are insanely expensive to rent in Croatia, however. My boyfriend and I decided instead to fly into Ljubljana, Slovenia, and rent a car there—the difference was literally hundreds of dollars over the course of a week. And Ljubljana is a mere hour and a half drive from Istria in northwestern Croatia, giving us a reason to stop by the region famed for its truffles and risottos on the way to the beach.

Which leads me to my next point…

2. Fly into a neighboring country, too.

If you can’t find a decently priced flight to Split, Dubrovnik, or Zadar, Croatia on the Dalmatian coast, try pricing the flights to Ljubljana, Slovenia or Trieste, Italy, from London–the gateway to Europe and home to a number of low-cost airlines.

This worked for us because we are living in London (the roundtrip flight to Ljubljana on Easyjet was $200 each), but the savings can also be big from the U.S., provided you’re willing to do the work to get to an Easyjet, Ryanair or Wizzair hub outside London (at Stansted, Luton or Gatwick airports). Wizzair has the cheapest flights of the three to Split, the most central town on the coast.

Alas, I didn’t know about these flights (or the airline, if I’m honest) until I was already here! Hence the detour to Ljubljana….

3. Avoid hotels at all costs.

I’m simply amazed by how much hotels cost in Croatia during the high season—any halfway-decent hotel will easily cost more than €150, and if you’re heading to resort islands like Hvar, better prepare to pay €250-€300!

A far cheaper alternative—and not really that much more uncomfortable—is to camp or stay in a private accommodation (i.e. a local’s spare bedroom).

Campgrounds are found all along the coast and they are shockingly clean, quiet, and very kid-friendly. (In fact, based on how many kids I heard chattering away in German on the beach, this seems to be the cheap family vacation for Germans and Austrians during the recession this year). Expect to pay about €25 to €30 per person to use the grounds, which include facilities like hot showers, toilets, and sinks.

The other affordable option is a private accommodation. Head for the local tourist offices, as they’ll have lists of residents who are willing to put tourists up for a night at a fraction of the cost of a hotel.

I had my first experience in a pension last night. My boyfriend and I disembarked from the ferry in Zadar at nearly 11 PM and wandered into the Aquarius Travel Agency half-dead, looking for a room. Ten minutes later, we were following a map across a footbridge to an early 1900’s mansion on the water. Our host for the night, a woman named Natalia, showed us to our room.

The room had a very comfortable double bed and loads of character (at least half a dozen religious portraits and crucifixes adorning the walls, along with Natalia’s wedding photo–I gather it was at least 60 years ago). She spoke to us at length in Italian and we nodded, pretending to understand. The cost, dear Cheapos? A mere €20 a night per person.

4. Find a cheap meal.

Actually, I’m still looking for one! Street food (i.e. pizza) is about the best option, though most restaurants have decent plates of tagliatelle and risotto topped with fresh squid and shrimp for around €8-€10.

One of the best values is Mondo, a little spot we found in the Istrian hilltop town of Motovun, thanks to a raving New York Times review. If you ever find yourself in this part of the world, make the effort to get to Mondo. For about $40 per person, we had one of our best travel meals in ages: an unbelievably fragrant truffle and eggplant risotto for me, squid stuffed with Istrian prosciutto and local cheese for him, as well as starters of a plate of prosciutto drizzled with olive oil and beef carpaccio with more truffles, and a bottle of a very drinkable Istrian white wine.

The post Wandering Cheapo Croatia: Four tips for budget travelers appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

As far as prices go, think under 10 pounds. In fact, at one theater, tickets go for 10 pence a head (more on this later)! Here’s how to find the best deals:

Scoring half-price seats for the splashy West End shows-

Chances are if you’re thinking about taking in a show in London, you’re going to want to get the most for your money, i.e. a big-time musical (Billy Elliot, Sister Act) with magnificent production values and perhaps a B-list celebrity star. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just read the reviews and choose wisely as there are more than a few stinkers on the West End. (We’re hearing that Priscilla Queen of the Desert the Musical, for instance, just doesn’t live up to all the sequin and rhinestone hype.)

Tickets for the biggest musicals—especially the most in demand—can run upwards of 60 pounds ($100) apiece. But there are a few ways to save.

1) First, check for discounts online at ticket broker websites. The best aggregator out there is comparetheatretickets.com, which lists all the discounted tickets available from numerous online brokers for every show. For example, a search for Avenue Q tickets on July 23 turned up an 11-pound ($18) ticket in the upper balcony from the retailer Seatem.

Checking out the TKTS offerings; photo by Andyrob

2) Another sure bet for discounts is the TKTS booth in Leicester Square (Tube to Leicester Square, Piccadilly or Northern line), which sells half-priced tickets for most West End shows the same day of the performance. For the best shot at a wallet-friendly price and a non-nosebleed seat, get there when the booth opens at 10 AM Monday through Saturday (noon on Sundays).

Get thee to the theater!

Individual theaters also offer reduced prices for tickets as part of a concerted effort to bring in a younger crowd. As we reported earlier this year, the National Theatre puts on an annual Travelex 10-pound ticket season in which tickets for quality plays like Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice and Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album start at just 10 pounds ($16) apiece. Tickets are sold via the National Theatre’s website. The current season runs through the fall.

Some theatres even give away a limited number of free tickets for people under age 26. Yup, you read that right. Free. At the National Theatre, for example, all you have to do is sign up for an Entry Pass online and your first ticket to one of the theatre’s shows is absolutely free (after that, you pay 5 pounds per ticket, about $8). There are a ton of off-West End theatres with the free-tickets-for-under-26 deal, including the Donmar Warehouse, Hampstead Theatre, Soho Theatre, Arcola Theatre, Bush Theatre, and Gate Theatre.

Stand up for great theater!

You’d be surprised how many venues in London will let you stand and be counted for incredibly low prices. Both the Royal Opera House and the English National Opera sell standing room tickets in the back of the house starting at 4 pounds ($6.50) and 10 pounds ($16), respectively. At Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, you can experience As You Like It as a groundling would have in the 1600s—standing in front of the stage (cost: 5 pounds or $8). The National Theatre also offers standing tickets for 5 pounds for most shows.

Drum roll please…lest we forget those 10 pence seats-

And here’s the best deal I’ve seen in awhile (aside from the free tickets, of course): At the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, eight standing, restricted-view tickets are sold for only 10 pence (16 cents) apiece an hour before the show. Sure, you have to stand and you may not be able to see the entire stage, but 16 cents is one heck of a deal!

The post London Tip: How to score cheap theater tickets appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

On a few occasions, the crowd would respond to an amazing backhand passing shot down the line with a spirited “Hoorah!” This being Wimbledon, though, what I heard most of the day was just polite applause.

Then there’s the queue to even get into the championships. This is the fact that thousands of fans queue up (“line up” for you Yanks) at the break of dawn just for a chance to get tickets to the main courts or a day pass to the grounds. Some hardy folks even camp out over night. For tennis tickets. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge tennis fan, but this isn’t the Rolling Stones we’re talking about.

A “Guide to Queuing”

Queuing is part of the British identity—nobody complains about it, people just do it, and there are unspoken rules about how to do it. At Wimbledon, the organizers even hand out a “Guide to Queuing” that contains protocol for joining the queue.

For example, you are not allowed to reserve a place in the queue for your friend who slept in—he’ll have to go to the back of the line. And if you have to run to the toilet, you’re instructed to “negotiate your position with those around you and/or a steward.”

As I said, Brits take queuing seriously. But they also know how to make it enjoyable. Everyone around me was chatting with their neighbors, sprawled out on the grass in the sun. Picnic baskets came out; some people even cracked open beers (at 8 AM!). Every once in awhile, someone would come down the line selling newspapers.

On the ball for 2010

The championships may be wrapping up for this year, but it’s never too early to start planning for next. Here are my tips for queuing up, and avoiding the queue altogether:

Getting tickets through the ballot

Every year, a select number of tickets for the three show courts—Centre Court, Court 1 and Court 2—are sold in advance through a public ballot, or lottery. Entering is very “old school.” Anytime after Aug. 1, 2009, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

Ticket Office; AELTC; P.O. Box 98; London SW19 5AE; United Kingdom.

You’ll receive an application for the ballot, which you must complete and mail back by Dec. 31. You can’t download it from the website. You also can’t request specific dates or courts—lottery winners are picked at random. If you’re selected, you’ll receive notification by mail and then you’ll have to pay for the tickets online at wimbledon.org. (Prices vary by day and court, from £ 33 pounds ($54) for Court 2 in the early rounds to £ 100 ($164) for the finals on Centre Court.)

Queuing up

You can also try your luck by joining the queue on the day you want to attend. For show court tickets, you really need to camp out overnight to have a good shot. There’s a park near the Wimbledon grounds at the Southfields tube stop on the District Line where campers are permitted to set up their tents. Once you get your ticket in the morning, you can store your camping gear at the Left Luggage facility outside the grounds.

There are 6,000 grounds passes available for general sale each day, too. These tickets give you access to all 16 of the outer courts and are by far the best deal on the first few days of the tournament when you have a good chance of catching top players that haven’t been scheduled on the show courts. (They cost £ 20 pounds or $33 on these days.) Even though the grounds don’t open until 10:30 AM, you need to be at the park near the Southfields tube stop at 7:30 AM at the latest. Once you join the queue, you’ll receive a card guaranteeing your spot (and preventing queue-jumping). Two things to remember: You must pay with cash. And only one small bag will be permitted per person.

The post London: What I learned from Wimbledon (and how to get tickets!) appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.