Aussies coming to the Home Country

train from Birmingham to London

probably bus is cheaper london to stansted but you can catch the train there as well

stansted to manchester is 4-5 hours on the train with a few changes, how long do you have between landing in stansted and leaving manchester?

Thanks for your input. We arrive Stansted at 3.30pm and fly home from Manchester at 8.50pm the following night.

ìf you haven't booked your flight back from charleroi yet if you fly from zaventem you can go direct to Manchester

BTW who are you flying with to OZ from Manchester and how much was it?

I'm not clear on your car travel - are you hiring a car in Birmingham and driving it to London and subsequently to Stansted for your return flight and picking it up on your return?? Because you say "we are dropping off our rental car in Birmingham" - what car?

If you are hiring a car and coming to London I would highly recommend against doing this, get the train to London and save yourself the cost and hassle of hiring and driving a car around London. In addition to the traffic jams on the motor ways and awful inner roads of London you'll also need to pay £10 per day to drive in London as there is a congestion charge and if you fail to pay and get caught you'll be sent a fine for £50 plus about £50 for the rental agents to process it. Public transport is excellent most of the time and is a far more efficient way of getting about the capital than by car.

Check out National Rail to price and plan the travel by train. Travel from Birmingham to London is ~1.5-2 hour trip and train is the best way to get to Manchester from London which is ~2.5 hours.

If you want to go by train to Stansted you should leave from Liverpool St Station and take the Stansted Express which is 45 min trip, one-way £14.50 or £23.50 return (per adult).

Note: they stopped giving out plastic bags at Stansted for your carry-on liquids, take your own.

Thanks guys,

Firstly, we are coming in from Ireland to Birmingham, have a rental car to tour south-west England for 5 days and dropping the car back to Birmingham.

We want to catch up with family and friends in London prior to going over to Belgium and knew it would be crazy to drive to there.

We'll DEFINITELY be checking out the train travel options, especially for the trip back to Manchester (thanks to your excellent help).

BTW, we booked our trip about 3 months ago and the airfares were $2315 (GBP 994) each.

We are flying Emirates.... :)

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<hr>have a rental car to tour south-west England for 5 days and dropping the car back to Birmingham<hr></blockquote>
Why Birmingham - can't you drop it off nearer London (eg Heathrow or Gatwick) both of which are a bit more convenient to the SW than Brum

Ta. Checked out Gatwick. Seems to be easy enough to drive there without too much traffic. What do you think?