But what about the train-ferry combination, the one many may recall fondly from their childhoods? It is still feasible, but these days it is not a streamlined option. You’ll need to purchase train and ferry tickets separately and finesse train station-port transportation on your own. The journey will also take 10 hours, so it’s best to leave that option to your memories. Instead, here are some more affordable ways to get from London to Paris and back again.

Related: 

• 50 Ways to save in Paris
• 21 Simple tips to save in London

Affordable Travel From London To Paris

Here are the most viable and cheapest ways to get between these two European centers.

Air: Fast but not so efficient

Though flying between London and Paris is by no means our recommended mode of transportation — the distance is simply too short to warrant the hassle, not to mention the carbon expenditure — there are a few ways to get between these two dynamic capital cities by air. These days the Paris-London route is used disproportionately for passengers connecting on to a long-haul destination, with the exception of business travelers flying in and out of London City Airport. That said, we did find one-way fares starting at $38 searching a few months in advance, but of course that doesn’t include all of the rail or taxi fares in between the airports and the city center.

• easyJet flies from London Gatwick to Paris-Charles de Gaulle.

• From London Luton, easyJet flies to Paris-Charles de Gaulle. You can find one-way fares three months in advance for as low as £30 (about $38).

• From London Heathrow, Air France flies to Paris-Charles de Gaulle with fares as low at £77 ($99), while British Airways flies to both Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly for as low as £47 ($60).

Rail: Comfortable and quick

The only direct train linkage from London to Paris these days is the Eurostar, which travels between London’s St. Pancras International and the Gare du Nord in Paris 15-17 times per weekday. The trip usually takes 2 hours and 15 minutes, with maximum speeds of up to 186 mph. However, Eurostar started rolling out brand new trains in late 2015 that can make the journey in only 2 hours at speeds of up to 200 mph.

The experience feels a bit like air travel, with its security checks and passport control in both directions. Because the UK is not part of the Schengen Area, passengers go through passport control prior to boarding their trains. Traveling from Paris to London, passengers first exit France through French passport control and then enter the UK via British passport control. In London, passengers will officially enter France in the station, submitting passports to French passport control before boarding their train to Paris.

From London, return Eurostar London to Paris fares begin at a very reasonable £41 round trip ($52) (between midday and midnight on a Monday; anytime on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday; and between midday and midnight on a Saturday). Booking nonrefundable tickets as far as possible in advance (up to 120 days) is your best bet for finding this low-cost fare. The cheapest tickets sell out first, so the earlier you book, the more you save.

Bus: Long but super cheap

The bus is usually the least expensive way to travel between Paris and London. It also takes much longer than a flight or the train. BlaBlaCar Bus and FlixBus are two major bus lines traveling between the two capitals. French BlaBlaCar Bus takes between 7.5 and 9 hours. The FlixBus journey takes between 9 and 10 hours. Both lines advertise free Wi-Fi and electrical outlets.

One-way FlixBus (formerly Eurolines) fares begin at £25 ($32). The FlixBus terminal in London is Victoria Coach Station; the Paris terminal is Bercy Seine.

BlaBlaCar Bus (formerly OUIBUS, and before that, iDBUS), a subsidiary of French train company SNCF, is a more comfortable option, with good legroom. Fares begin at around £25 for a one-way journey — promotional one-way fares and overnight trips can dip even lower. The BlaBlaCar Bus terminal in London is Victoria Coach Station; the BlaBlaCar Bus Paris terminal is Paris-Bercy.

What’s your preference?

How do you prefer to travel from London to Paris? Have any tips on ways to save on any of the transport options listed above? Share your tips with us in the comments section!

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Instead of heading to the airport for a budget flight or booking multiple train tickets, the London to Amsterdam service will make the journey smoother than ever.

So how will this new route work?

Details on the London-Amsterdam train route

You will now be able to hop on the train at St. Pancras in the heart of London and ride straight to Amsterdam Central Station in a little less than four hours (3 hours and 41 minutes to be exact). The London to Amsterdam route will use the new e320 trains that we’re launched in 2015 and feature free Wi-Fi and plugs for your devices at every seat.

After you go through Passport control at St. Pancras International, you can sit back and relax until you get to Amsterdam. Order a croissant and coffee or a sandwich and glass of wine in the cafe car. Travelers will be happy to know they won’t have to switch trains in Brussels or anywhere else along the way on their trip to Amsterdam.

How to get €35 tickets

Budget travelers can rejoice as well because tickets for the new London-Amsterdam trip start at €35. Seats for this special promotion go on sale on February 20th, so mark your calendar if you want to score this super cheap deal. There will be two trains a day heading out from London at 8:31 am and 5:31 pm. Arrive in Amsterdam just in time for lunch with the morning train or an evening cocktail with the late afternoon train. Check eurostar.com for the latest updates.

Hotels in London and Amsterdam

Make your journey even easier by booking a hotel within a quick walking distance of St. Pancras International in the King’s Cross neighborhood or Amsterdam Central Station. You’ll never have to worry about being late for your train. Since it’s an international trip, just make sure you show up at least 30 minutes before your departure time (45 minutes on holidays and weekends) for the check-in and Passport control.

More travel tips for Europe
• The cheapest way between London & Paris: Planes, trains & buses from £10
• Should you fly or take a train around Europe?
• French Train Tips: How to find cheap TGV tickets

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There are regular comfortable EuroCity trains from Prague and Berlin; sleek, fast RailJet services from Munich and Vienna; for those with the stamina for very long journeys by day, it is even possible to travel to Budapest by direct train from as far away as Zürich (11 hrs 15 mins) or Hamburg (14 hrs 20 mins).

South towards Serbia

It is moving south from Budapest that demands a more sustained engagement with the timetables. There are perilously few trains across the border between Hungary and Serbia. Just two direct services run each day between Budapest and Belgrade—one by day and the other by night.

Take the day train if you are minded to come this way, for this is a journey well worth making. Leon Trotsky nicely identified the appeal of the route when—as he traveled south in 1912 preparing to report on the Balkan Wars—he observed in his diary that “although the railway from Budapest to Belgrade proceeds mainly in a southerly direction, from the cultural standpoint one moves east.”

The landscape is nowhere startling, yet it has a quiet beauty. Running south from Budapest to the border there are prairie-like grasslands, productive farmland, forests and occasional saline depressions. These are the landscapes of Sándor Petöfi’s poetry. An hour or two out of Budapest, the train stops at Kiskölrös, the town where Petöfi was born.

Entering Serbia

The first community in Serbia is Subotica, a place that packs a few surprises. It is famously multilingual and multicultural, a hallmark of Serbia’s semi-detached northern province of Vojvodina which has six official languages. Subotica is well worth a stop for its extraordinary feast of art nouveau architecture. Look out for the overly fussy town hall and the more restrained synagogue with its striking triple-tier dome and green glazed tiles. Beyond Subotica, it is a pleasant run south through Novi Sad to Belgrade.

Crossing borders

If you are traveling from Budapest to Belgrade, bear in mind that you’ll need to use one of the twice-daily long-distance trains to cross the border—although there is also a useful thrice-daily branch-line service from the Hungarian town of Szeged to Subotica.

The daytime train on the Budapest to Belgrade route is called the Avala. The journey takes about eight hours in each direction. Belgrade need not be the end of your journey. There are good onward connections to Podgorica in Montenegro and Skopje in Macedonia. This month has also seen the reinstatement of the direct train from Belgrade to Thessaloniki in Greece—only for it to be suspended again almost immediately due to flooding. However, the railway authorities in the region are evidently working day and night to restore damaged sections of track, so the through rail services that run south from Belgrade to Macedonia and Greece should be operating normally again by early next month.

Find out more about train times in the latest issue of the European Rail Timetable.

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Born again: The first edition of the new European Rail Timetable.

New beginnings

Now there is good news. The title has been saved and the timetable will once again be published on a monthly basis from March 2014. A new company—called European Rail Timetable Limited—has taken over the venture, and it certainly comes with a good pedigree. John Potter is the man at the helm; he worked for many years on the timetable when it was published by Thomas Cook.

An experienced team

John and his team have, between them, over 100 years of experience in working with timetables from around the world. Speaking about the renaissance of the title, John tells us that he hopes that the new timetable “will continue to inspire travel around Europe and beyond, as the timetables produced by Thomas Cook did for over 140 years.”

A sample page from the new European Rail Timetable from the section on Finland.

The timetable

The new timetable maintains the general format of before, with continuity of the table numbers with which many travelers are already familiar. And the very useful schematic maps are still there. Each issue will contain bang-up-to-date schedules for rail services across Europe: from Portugal to Russia, from Greece to Norway. Rail services on European islands (eg. Britain, Sardinia, Mallorca, etc.) are also included. As in Thomas Cook days, each issue will include summary tables for another part of the world beyond Europe. For the debut issue, China is in the spotlight.

The first issue of the new timetable will be rolling off the presses at the end of this week. You can order a copy on the company’s website.

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Starting on December 15, the TGV is kicking off a brand new Paris to Barcelona bullet train route, meaning in a little over six hours you’ll be whisked from Paris’ Gare de Lyon to the heart of one of Spain’s most vibrant cities. It’s such a big deal, French president François Hollande and Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy held a joint press conference (in Madrid ironically) to celebrate this new milestone of Franco-Spanish relations.

Board with a chocolate croissant in the morning and arrive just in time for tapas and cava at your favorite bar before you even finish flipping through your guidebook. Even better, gone are the train changes or other inconveniences when crossing the border between France and Spain. The journey will be hassle-free with no need to move from your seat until you pull into the station (unless like us, you may need to get up for another glass of wine). The route will also use duplex trains, so travelers will get excellent views of the gorgeous countryside from the top level ensuring a perfect Instagram moment.

So, what about the price? This is where Cheapos will get really excited. Tickets are starting at only €59 for one-way fares! When you factor in free carry-on luggage, no airport transportation costs, and an easy arrival in the center city, it’s an easy choice when it comes to the “train versus plane” argument.

If prices stay this low, we expect many Cheapos will be reporting back to us about this exciting new route.

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Thalys is one of those quintessential European brands — very grounded and yet very cosmopolitan at the same time. We raised a smile when Thalys burbled in a press release that the cafés on Thalys trains are more than merely spots to grab a cuppa. In Thalys-talk those bistro cars are “symboles de convivialité et d’échanges interculturels.” Now you know! With Thalys you get culture and conviviality with your cappuccino.

Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam

Thalys trains run non-stop from Paris to Brussels (and vice versa) up to two dozen times each day. They dash between the two capitals in just 82 minutes — not bad for a run of some 200 miles that takes in a great sweep of Picardy and Flanders along the way.

Thalys has a monopoly in direct train services between Paris and Brussels, as indeed they do on a number of other routes (such as from Amsterdam to both Brussels and Paris). About half of the Paris to Brussels services continue north beyond Brussels to Amsterdam — along the way stopping at Antwerp, Rotterdam and Schiphol Airport.

Daily direct services from Paris to 18 destinations

Other Paris-originating Thalys services fan out from Brussels to serve other destinations across Belgium and neighboring Germany. Here is a summary of direct Thalys links from Paris (all are direct trains via Brussels):

Bruges: 1 per day
Brussels Zaventem Airport: 1 per day
Cologne: 5 per day
Duisburg: 2 per day
Düsseldorf: 3 per day
Düsseldorf Airport: 1 per day
Essen: 3 per day
Ghent: 1 per day
Liège: 5 per day
Oostende: 1 per day

In addition, Thalys has a once-daily service from Paris to Liège via Mons, Charleroi and Namur (so not serving Brussels).

Seasonal services

Thalys also runs a limited number of additional seasonal services geared to the holiday market. These include summer Saturday services from Amsterdam (via Brussels) to the south of France and winter direct trains to French ski resorts.

Passengers board a Thalys train in Liege. Photo: HiddenEurope.

On board

Thalys trains offer two classes of service, referred to as Comfort 1 and Comfort 2. All seats in both classes are fully reservable. This is not, on the whole, a turn-up-and-ride rail service. You need to book in advance.

Travelers in Comfort 1 accommodation making any journey of 50 minutes or more receive a complimentary meal service appropriate to the time of day. Expect a decent three-course spread on midday and evening journeys and lighter snacks at other times. Good French wines and classic Belgian beers are also served without charge in Comfort 1.

Comfort 2 passengers can make their way to the bar for a snack, sandwiches and beverages — but you do have to pay.

Fair fares

Thalys services open for booking three months prior to the date of travel and — as so often across Europe — it pays to book early for the best deals. Fares are keenly priced, with a one-way ticket from Paris to Cologne starting at €35. There are some especially good deals in Comfort 1 at off-peak times.

Thalys also offers great value through fares from London, using Eurostar to Brussels and connecting there with onward Thalys connections to the Netherlands and Germany. One-way fares start at €59 in Comfort 2 (with Standard Class on Eurostar) and €109 in Comfort 1 (with Standard Premier on Eurostar).

Pass holders

We are great fans of the Thalys product. This is a rail operator with a great network served by premium high-speed trains. If we have just one negative comment, it is that holders of Eurail and InterRail passes should think twice before opting for Thalys.

Rail passes are not accepted at all on the seasonal Thalys services to the Alps and Provence. They are accepted on other Thalys trains, but only for international journeys, and the rail pass supplements are hefty — sometimes even more than an advance-booking ticket for the same journey. Here are some examples of the supplements payable by holders of global InterRail and Eurail passes:

Paris to Amsterdam €39 (2nd), €62 (1st)
Cologne to Paris €36 (2nd), €51 (1st)

If you have a pass with more restricted geographical validity, one that covers only part of your intended Thalys route, then even higher supplements kick in.

Alternatives to Thalys

Thalys offers comfort and speed. But if you have a rail pass, you have the flexibility to take detours. Even in markets where Thalys has a monopoly in direct train services, there are always other options. You will need to change trains along the way, but you can then avoid those hefty Thalys supplements.

From Brussels to Amsterdam, for example, just take the regular cross-border service to Den Haag. The latter route runs every two hours. At Den Haag, you can hop onto the next Dutch local train for the short onward journey to Amsterdam.

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