Durham Transportation

Just outside the railway station (from the southbound platform) is a bus stop rom where there is a "Cathedral bus", which connects travellers to the Castle, Castle and town centre, without having to walk up or down the hills. The bus company uses low (easy access) floor minibuses on Service number 40, the fare is just 50p (all day travel), senior citizens travel free and children under 14 years travel half fare.

Durham Bus station, North Road, also offers services to the outskirts of Durham, and towns and villages in County Durham

We visited Durham on a day-trip from Newcastle. The easiest way to get between the cities is by train, which costs about 4.50 for a single ticket and takes about 15 minutes. We returned to Newcastle from Durham by train but getting to Durham took a lot longer as we wanted to go via the Beamish Museum, which is about 10 miles north of Durham.

It was a pretty long journey to go by this route. We went from Newcastle to Beamish Museum on 709 bus from Eldon Square which cost and took about 50 minutes. Then from the Beamish museum we took the 778 bus to Chester le Street (2 pounds) and connected with the 21 bus to Durham. The first two buses were very slow. Incidentally Chester le Street looks like a nice place but we had only a couple of minutes there as our bus arrived straight away. The bus station n Durham is on North road, a short walk from the centre of town.

The nearest airport is Durham Tees Valley, although whether it can be classed as a truly international airport is debatable. It's not really in Durham, but tucked away in some distant corner of that mysterious area called Teesside. That said, a couple of budget airlines do operate flights from there to cities in France and the Netherlands as well as popular holiday destinations on the Med.

A better bet is Newcastle-upon-Tyne Airport, which has hundreds of flights to destinations in Europe, North America and the Middle East (well...it will start direct flights to Dubai soon). Connections with London and Amsterdam are excellent, so Newcastle is increasingly accessible from all over the world.

Getting to Durham from the airport means taking the Tyneside metro into Newcastle city centre (half an hour), changing at central station for the 20 minute train journey to Durham.

National Express has coaches from Durham bus station to many British cities, including London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Manchester and Liverpool. Again, like the trains, bus tickets depend on when you book, when you travel, and how you book. You can find good deals online if you're early enough, but leave things to the last minute and prices rise rapidly. Still, bus journies are much much cheaper than going anywhere by train...however, they do take longer. For example, the train down to London takes just under 3 hours if things are running smoothly, but by bus the journey is long enough to make an overnight bus possible...there is one that leaves at midnight and arrives in London Victoria just before 7am.

The budget intercity bus company Megabus does not operate from Durham, although you can get very cheap tickets if you're willing to make your own way to and from Newcastle.

Local buses serve Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesborough frequently all through the day, as well as all the smaller towns and villages in County Durham.

Durham is on the main London-Edinburgh line, so there are frequent trains running north to Newcastle (20 mins) and Edinburgh (2 hours) and south to York (1 hour), Sheffield (2 hours), Birmingham (3-4 hours) and London (3 hours).

Prices for British trains are a mystery to everyone. Tickets to London range from £10 to over £100 for a standard seat, depending on when you travel, how far in advance you book, and whether you book in person or online. Often asking two different members of staff can turn up two different prices, and often the better deals are only available if the staff can be bothered to hunt them down for you.

Local ticket prices are set...a return to Newcastle is £5.20 at the moment. Be warned that the last train back is around 10.30pm (on Saturdays, 2am), and taxis back to Durham aren't cheap!

On the most of bus stops all the timetables are missing, so you have no idea at what time does the bus leave. I have asked the driver for information where I can get a schedule and the answer was at the Tourist Information in the City Center, 1 minute walking from the main squere.

The lady at the TI was very helpful and I received everything I needed toghether with the map of the city.

For a city of its size, Durham is very well connected by train to the rest of the country.

As it lies on the main East Coast Line from London to Scotland it can be reached in under three hours from London. Direct trains leave normally on about the half-hour from King's Cross.

Durham therefore makes an excellent stopover if you are travelling from Scotland to London or vica-versa.

You will also find long distance trains coming up from the south-west.

Alternatively Durham can easily be visited as a day trip from Newcastle.

Your train may well have a logo on the outside, showing that it follows the route of the famous "Flying Scotman" train. A nice touch, although I would prefer to travel on the real thing.

During my year in Durham, of course I wanted to travel home or somewhere else every now and then.
The airport to go to is Newcastle airport. From there you can go to Durham by bus or taxi.
The cheapest way is usually to go to London Stansted with Ryanair from one of the many locations that Ryanair flies from. Then, at Stansted you can catch cheap flights with Easyjet to Newcastle.
Also, Ryanair has connections to Dublin from Newcastle and from Teesside.