Heathrow (LHR; 17 miles west of London) is London's busiest international airport, and one of the busiest airports in the world.
Unlike airports in the United States, European airports tend to be well-connected to the cities they serve by a wealth of transit methods besides personal cars, and Heathrow is one of the best-connected airports in all of Europe.
A taxicab from Heathrow to London will cost £75-£95 and take about 70 minutes -- or longer if traffic is bad, which it frequently is. You can get to town much faster and for much less money. If, for practical reasons, you absolutely require a car and a driver for your ride into town, you'll find information on hailing a ride at the bottom of this post.
Faster but more expensive than the other trains from Heathrow, Heathrow Express (www.heathrowexpress.com; 0345/600-1515) zooms to Paddington in 15 minutes every quarter-hour.
Business First is a waste of money for 15 minutes; Express, the cheapest option (purchasing online or on its app is cheapest, but there are also vending machines at the stations), is plenty plush. It uses commuter-style carriages with free Wi-Fi and departs every 15 minutes, but it dumps you out at Paddington station, on Central London's western side, where you'll still have to hop the Tube system or a taxi to continue, adding to the expense.
Cost: £17-25 per person single (one-way) for Standard class. You can sometimes find £10 tickets if you buy 45 days ahead. You can save money off one-way (single) tickets by purchasing a round-trip (return) ticket for £39. Children aged 15 years and younger travel free in Express Class when accompanied by a paying adult, or they can travel unaccompanied for free if they have proof of air travel such as a valid flight booking or boarding pass. Buy tickets at Heathrow Express or at ticket machines in the lobbies near train platforms.
Destination: Paddington station
Opened in 2022, the newly built Elizabeth Line, which has a phone signal throughout and plenty of room for your luggage, takes you from Heathrow to Paddington Station in 28 minutes, but unlike the Heathrow Express, it continues to travel across Central London and makes several more stops, giving you more transfer options.
You can remain on the Elizabeth Line to continue at any other station it calls on in central London, including Bond Street (for Marylebone and Mayfair), Tottenham Court Road (for Bloomsbury and the West End), Farringdon, Liverpool Street (for the City), Whitechapel (for East London), and the Canary Wharf business district. All Elizabeth Line stops have lifts, and all of them connect with various Tube lines so you may continue your journey to your final destination (a separate fare may be required), or you can take the lifts upstairs to find a taxicab on the street.
Elizabeth Line (on official maps, it's represented by two parallel purple lines; take a photo tour of the line here) has multiple platforms at Heathrow Airport, which are clearly marked but might require some walking in underground tunnels to reach. The Elizabeth Line uses Transport for London's roundel logo (a circle with a horizontal line through it), but it uses the custom colors of purple and blue, as opposed to the red-and-blue roundel of the regular Tube.
The Elizabeth Line is the method that Frommer's recommends because it has the best balance of cost and convenience.
Cost: £13.30 at all times for adults; £6.65 for students 16 and older; 95p for kids 11-15; free for kids 10 and under. You can check fares on Transport for London's website
The slowest but cheapest train from LHR is the Piccadilly Line (in solid purple on the Tube maps), which takes a slow 75 minutes to plod to the West End in an old-fashioned Tube carriage with very little luggage space and an ever-increasing number of fellow passengers. It's safe and it's cheapest, but it's not the most comfortable.
At Heathrow, look for signs for the London Underground, which are plentiful and clear. The Tube uses Transport for London's roundel logo (a circle with a horizontal line through it) using the red for the circle and blue for the line.
Cost: £5.60 at all times if you use contactless mobile phone/ credit or debit card payment (which is explained here); £6.70 if you pay in cash. You can check fares on Transport for London's website.
Destination: Underground stops across Central London, including South Kensington, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park Corner, Green Park, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Covent Garden, Holborn, Russell Square, and King's Cross/ St Pancras
Cost: £10.50 last-minute for adults, £7.85 kids 3-15, plus £1.50 booking fee for online reservations. Prices go as low as £5.20 for extreme advance purchase online, plus booking fee. You're allowed two pieces of luggage per its baggage policy, otherwise the fee per additional piece is £10 (reserved online) or £15 (bought on the spot).
Destination: Victoria Coach Station, located a few hundred meters south of Victoria rail station. You will have to walk to the rail station with your luggage to catch the Tube.
On Friday and Saturday nights, the Tube from Heathrow runs all night on the Piccadilly Line (see above).
If you need to get from Heathrow to London on Sunday-Thursday nights, Night Bus N9 goes to and from Trafalgar Square and Heathrow Terminal 5 (rail transfers between Heathrow terminals are free), taking about 75 minutes.
Buses do not accept cash, so for the Night Bus, you must use contactless credit/debit, a mobile phone equipped with contactless payment, or an Oyster card purchased from a Transport for London vending machine at the Underground stops in the airport.
Cost: Night bus: £1.75 adults; Night Tube: £5.60
Destination: Both will take you to Trafalgar Square or nearby Leicester Square
Rough hours of operation: When regular bus or rail services cease operation for the day
Average travel time: 60+ minutes
Because of traffic and price, taking a metered taxi (£70-£100) to the city the way you might do at home does not have our hearty recommendation. The train-taxi or train-Tube combo (i.e. taking a train to the city and a taxi or Tube for the "last mile" to your destination) is often faster (although on rails, you'll have to contend with your luggage).
Uber drivers (there is no Lyft in London) can only be hailed once you leave the terminal, and then they pick you up at the pickup point indicated on the app.
All other road transport should be booked at least a day ahead, if possible. Door-to-door car service (generally £70-£100) is cheaper than a metered taxi and can take 45 minutes to 2 hours. You can book cars ahead, which often saves about 25% off the price of a taxi: Check each airport's website for a current list of the latest approved companies. Addison Lee (www.addisonlee.com; 020/7387-8888; book via its app) is an established minicab company; the website Minicabit.com surveys companies for the best prices. Also try sustainable Green Tomato Cars (www.greentomatocars.com; book via its app); Chaufferit (www.chauffeurit.com); and Carrot Cars (www.carrotcars.co.uk; 020/7005-0557), which serve all airports.