British Public transport

[jmc41]

So my cousin is coming over from Canada and wants to get from my parents (St. Albans) to me (Warwick).

The trains appear to be the best option, except it's £51.70 (even on "thetrainline" which after those annoying adverts I swore I'd never use), that's off-peak weekend travel and requires going via London in almost all instances. So it's actually four trains as there isn't a direct underground line from St. Pancras to Marylebone last time I checked. And this is assuming the trip isn't full of replacement bus services - took a mate from Whitam over 6h each way one bank holiday with those.

I looked at car hire, that's £60 excluding petrol because it's the long June weekend so you can't return the car until Wednesday.

So onto buses, £64.20 for national express and it the fast journey is 5h23m (return fastest is 6h15m).

And the government wonders why people drive, it costs me <£30 petrol even paying £1.40/litre.

Anyone got any other cheap sites that might be worth trying?