Cheap way to get from London to Paris?

February 14, 2025 12:00 PM

My wife and I are in Europe for six weeks. England at the moment. We want to go to Paris. I’m a bit stunned at the cost to get to Paris by bus, train, or plane. Wondering if there’s some alternative way of which I’m unaware. Car share? Drive away cars? Standby tickets? Any Mefites headed that way? We return to Canada March 24 but are otherwise totally flexible for dates. Any ideas? Thanks!
posted by Joan Rivers of Babylon to Travel & Transportation around Paris, France (12 answers total)

It's about $52 for London to Paris by train on the cheapest days. You can see the least expensive days for the Eurostar train via the link.
posted by zippy at 12:10 PM on February 14 [2 favorites]

Where are you looking? I just looked at easyjet heading out in a couple of weeks from Gatwick to Charles de Gaulle and staying for a week and found a return ticket for £60, which seems exceptionally cheap. Not every flight is that cheap, but if you’re flexible, that helps bring prices down.
posted by penguin pie at 12:12 PM on February 14

Ryanair will get you from a city near London to a city near Paris, for cheap. The flights are one-way, you'll need to book both directions separately. Usually the nearby cities have regular bus or train service to the actual destination you want.
posted by jpeacock at 12:13 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

Skyscanner is my favourite search engine for cheap European flights. In early March it's showing me many options for around 60 quid return per person, Luton to CDG (personal item only - adding a large cabin bag is another 25 GBP per flight). You do need to get to both airports, but they're reasonably served by trains. I would assume the total including luggage and trains will work out around the same as cheapest Eurostar.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:24 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

If cost is the only thing that matters, Flixbus is as cheap as £18, but do you really want to spend 9+ hours on the bus versus 2 hours on the train to save a relatively small amount?
posted by ssg at 12:40 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

It’s not clear to me if you’re looking for a short break away from London to Paris, or if you’ll only go from London to Paris one way as part of a longer itinerary. I went with the latter assumption.

London to Paris by train, ferry, and train is explained in exhaustive but accessible detail on the excellent Seat 61 website here. Going via Brighton, Newhaven, and Dieppe costs about £97, which might be your price floor for a turn-up-and-go situation run by public transport companies (and whoever owns the ferry) that isn’t a bunch of local buses. You can do the trip in one long day, or take an overnight ferry and get a cabin on board for a bit more money; maybe that’s worth whatever you’d be paying for accommodation?

(A cheaper route that does use only local buses is possible, interestingly: around 43 minutes and 45 seconds into this charming Travelling Turtle “Can I travel from London to Paris by local bus in 24 hours?” YouTube video, you can see that it is indeed possible to do the journey from Trafalgar Square in London to Hotel de Ville in Paris for a hair under £60 one way by local bus and ferry alone in just about 24 hours, at least on certain days; that £60 includes the ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe as well. You’d certainly see some quieter corners of France this way!)

If you do indeed have a little time, it may be worth considering the value of enjoying a slower-paced journey through southern England and northern France using local buses and trains, especially if you were going to be paying London or Paris prices for accommodation. The historically-interesting cities of Canterbury, Amiens, Lille, and Rouen are all sort of on the way between London and Paris depending on which way you go, as are a number of battlefields; if you went via Belgium, you could enjoy stops at Bruges, Ghent, and Brussels — or even Luxembourg — before getting regional trains via places like Cambrai, Reims and Sedan to Paris.
posted by mdonley at 2:36 PM on February 14 [2 favorites]

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posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 3:26 PM on February 14 [8 favorites]

Are you in Europe now? Did you by chance look at Eurostar/ferry/plane tickets for next week? I ask because a week-long school holiday just started in the UK so it's possible prices are high until 24th Feb.
Personally I love the Eurostar - super convenient to go from the heart of London to the heart of [insert European city] with less hassle than a flight. I'll always opt for it over a flight.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:39 PM on February 14 [6 favorites]

Yes, if you're in London now, it's school holidays in the UK so prices will be high. If you can find things to do in the UK until the 24th you may have cheaper options to get to Paris, though Eurostar (by far the best way to do the journey IMO) is just pricey unless you book a long way in advance.
posted by altolinguistic at 4:38 AM on February 15 [1 favorite]

I just looked on the Eurostar website - this coming Tuesday the minimum one-way price per person is £172, for the following Tuesday it's £64.
posted by altolinguistic at 4:45 AM on February 15

Actually there's going to be a huge demand, since there are holidays in France, starting today - so the traffic might be more important from France this week, but from England next one... Bus is going to be cheap... But it's an ordeal.
posted by nicolin at 4:56 AM on February 15

Actually, holidays in France started last week, so this week, two out of the three zones are on holidays, including the Paris zone.

I looked up the car share app (Blablacar, and there were a few car shares on Friday, that were not appreciatively cheaper than the coach option. Blablacar also has a coach option: again some choice on Friday, but nothing cheaper than 80€ a seat and the trip is 12 hours one way.

Eurostar is horrendously expensive because they're last moment tickets.

Ryanair doesn't have any London-Paris flights at the moment (or at any moment? that's weird).

Easyjet does have some, from Luton or Gatwick to Paris CDG. They're pretty cheap, £60-80 depending on the day/time, cheaper from Luton than from Gatwick, but you have to factor in the trip to and from the airport.
posted by snakeling at 2:13 PM on February 17