However, one thing the UK does share with Europe is that servers will be on at least a minimum wage, relaxing expectations on how much to tip.

More London tips:
• 8 travel myths about London
• Follow these 25 tips in London for a better trip
• Top budget hotels under $100 a night in London

When to tip in London and Britain

Here are a few pointers on how to tip like a Brit — that should save you some money in the process.

Tipping in Pubs, Bars, Clubs & Cafes

If it’s counter service…

If you’re doing the standing, waiting and carrying for yourself, there’s no need to give your server a tip. Many such cafes or coffee shops will have a tip jar displayed on the counter — people will put spare change in them at most.

While there’s no tipping at a pub counter, there is a custom of offering to buy an exceptionally helpful bartender a drink — rather than pouring themselves something, they’ll simply add one pound or so to your total price.

If it’s seated service…

If you’re presented with a check at the end of your visit, leave a tip of around 10% of the bill. Otherwise, if you’ve had good service, just leave them some change on the table.

Related: How to visit a traditional pub in London

No need to leave a tip if you pick up a few gin and tonics at the bar. Photo: Craig Nelson

Tipping in restaurants

Reckon on leaving from 10% to 15% of the total bill, depending on the quality of your service. However, do take a look at the check first. Some restaurants add on their own service charge as standard and you don’t want to pay twice.

You may also get the option to add on a tip if paying by credit card. Don’t feel pressured to do this — many people prefer to leave the tip in cash instead, feeling that it’s more likely to go to the serving staff than the owners.

Related: 10 Tips to save on dining in London

Just round up for the tip in a London taxi. Photo: technicolourcity

Tipping in taxis

Do tip if you ride in a London taxi, but simply by rounding it up to a nice round number, for example paying £30 for a £28 journey.

Don’t round up by more than a couple of pounds — if your journey cost you £29.60, you’d probably still only round it up to £30.

Tipping tour guides

Your guide will probably expect something but do feel free to modify your tip depending on the quality of the service they provided. A tip around £5 is probably about right for a half-day/day tour.

Tipping in hotels

Most of the hotels we’d recommend on EuroCheapo are smaller, family-run establishments where there is no need to tip (although it’s always a nice gesture to leave a little something in the room).

In larger, fancier places you may want to tip a porter who has carried your bags to your room a couple of pounds, and perhaps also some coins for your chambermaid (depending on how much work you’ve given them!).

Related: 5 London hotels in a central location under £100 per night

Tipping in public bathrooms

While you may need to pay to access public toilets, you should never have to tip beyond that. Some bars and clubs use bathroom attendants, who often provide users with an array of beauty products or sweets in the hope of earning a bit of extra cash. Of course, if you take advantages of their services, you should give them a tip. If you decide not to, it’s your chance to shuffle off awkwardly, avoiding eye contact like a true Brit.

Your experience

What are your tips for tipping in London? Tell us in the comments!

The post When (and when not) to tip in London and Britain appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

But for those in the know, there are some superb deals to be found. Book well in advance and there are great offers for many long-distance routes. And if you’re traveling over the weekend, know that you can upgrade on a whim for as little as £5.

First-class bargains for early bookers

Britain offers some particularly good deals on first-class rail travel. Those prepared to book a couple of months in advance and commit to traveling on a specific train may find, especially if traveling outside the main business periods, that a first-class advance ticket costs only a fraction more than regular standard-class travel on exactly the same train.

Upgrade on a whim over the weekend

During the weekends on many routes, travelers can upgrade to first-class on a whim. This tempting treat is available on many mainline rail services across Britain. Holders of many categories of standard-class ticket are permitted to move through the train and occupy seats in first-class cars for just a modest premium (which can usually be paid on the train).

The weekend upgrade deal, called “Weekend First”, is valid on Saturdays, Sundays and on most public holidays on several train lines.

The following 10 rail operators all regularly offer Weekend First deals:

East Midlands Trains
East Coast
First Great Western
Greater Anglia
London Midland
ScotRail
South West Trains
First TransPennine Express
Virgin Trains
CrossCountry

How much is that upgrade?

The exact amount you’ll pay for trading up to first-class comfort varies according to rail operator, and in many cases may depend on the length of the journey you are making. £5 or £10 is typical. On Sunday, we paid a tenner for a Weekend First upgrade on a Nottingham to London service with East Midlands Trains.

Other Weekend First deals we have used include an offer from South West Trains where £5 will buy an upgrade for any length of journey—not bad for a three and a half hour ride from London to Devon.

The most expensive Weekend First deals in Britain are on East Coast where it can cost as much as £25. But if you’re riding East Coast’s premium daytime train from London to Inverness, then it is still a pretty good deal. It’s an eight-hour ride, and on such long journeys the extra comfort of first-class service really comes in handy.

Complimentary extras

Many rail companies in Britain offer complimentary drinks and snacks, sometimes even full meals, to their first-class passengers—but that is generally limited to mainline services from Mondays to Fridays, so the first-class product over the weekend might not include the same range of freebies. That said, East Coast does offer complimentary drinks and sandwiches, even for weekends, so it’s no surprise that East Coast’s Weekend First upgrades may be a little pricier than those of other companies. On our recent ride aboard East Midlands Trains, we enjoyed free tea, coffee and cookies as part of the Weekend First offer.

On many routes, a Weekend First upgrade can also be reserved in advance. On most rail companies’ trains, holders of standard (or second) class BritRail and InterRail passes can also upgrade to Weekend First. Just check with the staff on board your train.

The post Cheapo tips for first-class upgrades on British Rail appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Here are a trio of tips for budget travelers who don’t want to book their rail journeys months in advance.

1. Check for local and regional travel passes.

Global pass options (such as those marketed under both InterRail and Eurail schemes) can be a wonderful value if you are really making long hops by rail across Europe. If your geographical horizons are more limited, it is always worth checking for local passes that cover your intended travel area. The target markets for such passes are often budget-conscious locals rather than well-heeled visitors.

Many areas of Europe have such passes. Here are just three examples from among the hundreds of offers available.

Italy: The Mobilcard Alto Adige allows unlimited travel on selected mainline and mountain railways, buses and cable cars in the Südtirol area of northern Italy. There are various options, but the top-of-the-range seven-day pass is just €28.

Britain: The Derbyshire Wayfarer is a rover ticket allowing unlimited travel on trains and buses in much of the scenic Peak District. Its validity extends beyond merely Derbyshire, for it can be used on journeys from Derbyshire to selected points in five adjacent counties. It costs £11.10 for a day.

Germany: The Bayern Ticket is valid on most trains and buses in the German State of Bavaria (as well as on selected cross-border journeys to neighboring German states and into Austria). It costs €22 for one person for a day (with each accompanying traveler paying just €4 extra).

2. Think about return tickets.

If you are buying tickets as you go, rather than using a rail pass or pre-booking discount rail fares, bear in mind that a return may not cost much more than a single. Here are two examples:

Belgium: The regular one-way fare from Brussels to Bruges is €13.50. But a weekend return (valid from 7 p.m. Friday and anytime Saturday and Sunday) costs just a fraction more at €14.40.

Britain: Roll up at Kings Cross station in London at mid-morning on a busy weekday, expecting to travel at once to Scotland, and you will pay mightily for the privilege of traveling so spontaneously. The single fare to Edinburgh will set you back a hefty £125.70. But for just one pound more you can bag a return ticket from London to Edinburgh.

3. Consider stopovers.

On many journeys across Europe by train, it pays to buy a ticket through to the most distant point and then make use of any break-of-journey privileges that might apply to that ticket.

Take the case above, where we showed how on many long-distance journeys in Britain you can often pay just one pound extra for a return rather than a single ticket. The return half of such tickets is generally valid for a month and it is perfectly possible to stop off along the way. So there is no reason why you cannot break your journey from Edinburgh back to London with a night or two in Durham and then again in York. Indeed you can even vary your route: for example speeding north from London direct to Edinburgh via the East Coast route, but returning back to London via the West Coast – breaking your journey, for example, in the Lake District.

Think creatively about how you can map stopovers into your journey. A Berlin to Vienna ticket, for example, will usually allow you to break your journey at no extra cost in both Dresden and Prague. Do get specialist advice, though, when you buy the ticket. The rules on breaks of journey are famously complicated. With some tickets you may need to specify the place and duration of any break of journey at the time of purchase.

Happy traveling in 2013.

The post 3 Rail Tips for 2013: Consider regional passes, return tickets and stopovers appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

We love this part of England. After the frenetic pace of London, Sussex and the South Downs National Park are invitations to slow down, places to pause and allow our souls to catch up with us.

A house in the East Sussex village of Rodmell, located within the park. Photo © hidden europe magazine

The Lewes Connection

The park was inaugurated last year and extends from the edge of Winchester in the west almost to Eastbourne in the east (though neither Winchester nor Eastbourne are themselves actually within the park boundary). The largest community that lies entirely within the park is Lewes, a modest-sized market town with a population of 17,000.

Lewes is very easy to reach by train. There are two direct trains per hour from London Victoria. The journey time is 65 minutes. Gatwick Airport is even closer to hand, the twice-hourly trains taking just 33 minutes from Gatwick to Lewes, thus making the town a plum choice for long-haul passengers looking for a quiet spot to hole up and recover from jet lag for a day or two.

Bus Links

Lewes is a good base for exploring the eastern half of the South Downs National Park. It lies at the hub of four rail routes and there are also a great range of local bus services including a direct link to Alfriston and the unspoiled Cuckmere Valley. Don’t expect dramatic scenery but rather a delicate beauty that is the very essence of rural England. And yet it is so close to the buzz of London and nearby Brighton.

Downlander Deals

Southern Railway Downlander Tickets offer cheap deals for exploring the area and extend well beyond the new national park. The South Coast Downlander ticket is a one-day pass that extends along the coast from Southampton in Hampshire to Ashford in Kent (for connections with Eurostar). It also includes many bus services in and around Brighton, Lewes and Eastbourne. It costs £10.

For just slightly more (£12.50), the All-Network Downlander also includes travel to and from London and allows the holder to roam at will throughout Southern’s extensive rail network – with the same bus services thrown in.

In Print

Lewes-based author Tim Locke seized the opportunity of a new national park to write an engaging guidebook to his home area. His book Slow Sussex and the South Downs National Park was published last spring. It is the latest title in the “Slow” series from Bradt Travel Guides. This is no ordinary guidebook, but an evocative, often quirky, introduction to the region. We like “Slow Sussex” a lot. The book nicely tempts the readers to spots she or he never knew they wanted to visit. All in all, the book is a splendid introduction to one of the most attractive and accessible parts of England.

The post England: Slow Sussex and the South Downs appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

The future: high-speed from London to Birmingham

Birmingham city center

Earlier this week, the UK government announced the route of a new high-speed rail line (dubbed “HS2”) that will eventually get trains from London to Birmingham in less than an hour – good news for a city that has too often been snubbed by London’s elite. Birmingham’s bid to secure a national football stadium was turned down, the Millennium dome went to London and the UK government declined to support Birmingham’s efforts to be designated a European capital of culture.

A mix of old and new

Birmingham has a lot of which it can be rightly proud and the city is ready to wow visitors. Don’t wait for the new rail link, but go now before the crowds arrive. In time Birmingham will surely become a favored day trip for visitors to London.

The city of canals (yes, more than Venice) has been rescued by designers and architects from the evils inflicted upon it by post-war planners. In the 1960s, Birmingham acquired a reputation for having capitulated utterly to the automobile. Ugly ring roads orbited the city centre and dull concrete Brutalist shopping centers dominated the central area.

Now Birmingham has changed and the city offers an engaging mix of old and new. Canal-side restaurants ooze urban chic, the once rather run-down Jewellery Quarter is back in business and the City Art Gallery boasts the largest collection of pre-Raphaelite art anywhere in the world. Sleek modern trams and local trains connect Birmingham with other cities in the West Midlands conurbation.

Birmingham highlights

Some of our favorite spots in Birmingham include the Anglican cathedral of St. Philip (fabulous Burne-Jones stained glass windows), the back streets of the Jewelery Quarter (including the two cemeteries in that area), the Brindley Place development with its two public squares and canal front, the model village at Bournville (an intriguing planned settlement created by the Cadbury family in the city’s southwest suburbs) and Moor Street station.

The latter is a superb period piece restoration of a once derelict railway site. Take the train from London Marylebone and you’ll arrive in Birmingham at Moor Street. The travel time is just two hours, although that drops to just 1 hour 40 minutes from May 2011. Real speed will come only with the new high-speed route, but that is not due to open for some years.

Travelers heading out from London can easily combine a visit to Birmingham with a stay in Stratford-upon-Avon. The two cities are just 30 miles apart. Services to both Stratford-upon-Avon and to Birmingham Moor Street leave from London Marylebone and are run by Chiltern Railways.

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