Somewhere to stop on the way to Heathrow

[usernotfound0000]

We have a late afternoon flight from Heathrow in August. Travelling from West Yorkshire. We would have time to go down in the morning but to remove anxiety I would rather travel the day before and stay in a hotel. So any recommendations for somewhere on the way? Was thinking Milton Keynes maybe? We'd need to kill a few hours in the morning and wouldn't really want much more than an hour to travel onwards to Heathrow.

MK has nice parks but still quite a way to Heathrow. Windsor? St Albans?

Are you travelling by car or train? Richmond is nice and near Heathrow. A walk along the river or perhaps a visit to Kew Gardens if you have time. Alternatively, if you stay near Paddington you can get the Heathrow Express very easily. Kensington and Notting Hill are both close to Paddington on the Tube.

Should have said, we are driving. So want to stay somewhere close ish to the main roads if we can. I'll look at St Albans.

If you cut across to the M40 (rather than stay on M1), Waterperry Gardens is just off junction 8A near Oxford.
Or if you want more of a town / village stop, there’s Marlow or Cookham.
Or Cliveden, if you are National Trust members.

I would choose Windsor - it's very close to Heathrow and there are interesting things to do and see.

Other than for convenience of it being a certain distance along the way, I would not recommend Milton Keynes unless you either want to spend the morning skiing in the snow dome or walking round a shopping centre that's seen better days

As others have suggested, I'd take a look at St Albans

Another shout out for Windsor here. Depends what terminal your f,Yang from though. We stayed at Premier Inn Terminal 4 the year before COVID. Was really nice

The M25 in the 10 mile? section approaching LHR can very often be nose to tail almost stationary traffic with potential for delays…if it helps.

😂 I've never been but always good to have an honest review!

We do this a lot- we always stay at either the Clayton in Gunnersbury or the premier inn in Chiswick - both have good secure car parks and the premier inn is one of the smartest I've been in . We don't stay in Windsor because having lived there we are aware we never get any sleep due to flight path .

I was swayed by the reasonable prices of the premier inn in MK but maybe there's a reason why they are cheap! Will take a look at these other suggestions, thank you 🙏

runneymede hotel is nice and on river - very close to Heathrow so might be ££ but worth a look

Why not just stay at Heathrow? We usually use the premier inn at terminal 4 - can sort car the night before and often do bag drop too so in the morning there's time for a leisurely breakfast and wander over to security.

Sorry I completely missed the bit about needing a hotel - I thought you just wanted somewhere to spend some time 🙈

Our reason for not wanting to stay there is that our flight is at 5pm and I'm not sure what we'd do until then with 2 kids! I thought at least if we stayed somewhere where we had done the bulk of the driving, we could find something to do for a few hours before heading to the airport.

Even more reason you should stay in Windsor town centre - you can visit the Castle.

I'd look for somewhere near Saville Gardens and spend some time in the great park.

Another vote for St Albans. I do the commute a lot and should take 50’mins unless traffic is awful.

MK is too risky if there's a traffic problem....Windsor is very close

Another vote for windsor or thereabouts. Lovely to walk in the great park or into Windsor Town itself. Please ty to do, a wide variety of hotels on offer and quick amd easy into Heathrow.