Commuting to London from Oxford for 6 months

[sangtao]

Has anyone done this?

Ds currently lives right by the train station in Oxford, and has a really cheap rent of about £400 a month plus bills in a very nice house (a friend owns it) . He needs to be in London four days a week for work for the next 6 months as part of his training. The train is expensive if booked on the day, but if booked in advance can be very cheap. There is a bus too, but is much slower, but cheaper.

He is thinking of staying in his current house as would be close to friends/girlfriend. He wants to save any additional money to be used for travel around South America for a few months.

Depending on where he needs to be in London, I would check out the coaches carefully. They are cheaper, have WiFi so he can get started on email etc, and if they get you closer to where you want to be in London, they can sometimes work better. Don't just think about train versus coach time 'to London' - add on tube time to get to actual London location- and then work out what's best.

Where does he need to be in London? Big difference between just getting the train in and doing that followed effectively by another big commute by tube on top.

That said, I know people who’ve commuted from Oxford to the City for years. It’s definitely doable.

He could take the coach, think it goes into Park Lane area. What is the rail fare? Is a weekly ticket cheaper? Do they offer flexi tickets over a month? Would the additional commuting cost be offset by lower rent and any additional earnings? He may be able to use a railcard discount.