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Travel Information

Train Tickets |  Coach Tickets |  Direction from Train Station |  Direction from Bus Station  
Cardiff Airport |  Bristol Airport |  Heathrow Airport |  Gatwick Airport |  Stansted Airport     

Swansea is 300km West of London on the South Wales coast. It is served by good rail and road links with easy access from:

• Cardiff Wales International Airport (1.5 hours)
• Bristol Airport (2.5 hours; public transport from Bristol is usually much easier than from Cardiff Airport)
• Heathrow Airport (4 hours by Coach/Train), the main London airport
• Gatwick Airport (4 1/4 hours by Coach/Train)
• Stansted Airport (4,5 hours by Train; requires to use the tube in London)
• There are other airports like Birmingham airport. We don't have much experience with using those airports.
• London Paddington (3 hours by Train)
• There are good train connections via Newport or Bristol to Birmingham with connections to the Midlands, northern England and Scotland.
• There is a ferry from Cork (Ireland) to Swansea

Train Timetables and Buying Train Tickets

• It is generally cheaper to buy tickets in advance. However, be warned that the very cheapest tickets require you to commit yourself to a specific train. This may well be unwise for obvious reasons.
• General timetable information and information about train tickets is provided by e.g. National Rail.
• Train tickets can be bought online at, among others, by First Great Western.
• The timetable operated by National Rail is rather slow, for a quick overview you might use the German railway timetable which contains most trains in Britain. However, it might not always be up-to-date, especially it might not contain changes due to engineering work, which are frequent especially during weekends.

Buying Coach Tickets

• Timetables and Information on booking can be found at National Express. For airport connections choose Airports from the main GUI.
• There are online tickets available which you have to print out and then show to the driver.
• Note that there exist cheap "funfare" tickets (7 Pounds) from London Victoria station to Swansea.

Getting from the Train Station to the University or Hotels

• The easiest way by far is a taxi (about £7).
• It is possible to walk, but it will take about 45 minutes.
• Buses, unfortunately, will require you to change at the bus station since there are no direct services.
  • See the webpage of the bus company for a route network and time table informations.
  • You can plan your journey using Traveline-Cymru which includes all buses, trains in Wales and some from outside Wales. Use University of Wales Swansea as your destination.
  • For some connections you need to walk 19 m from the railway station to Alexandre House, the timetable from Traveline-Cymru will show you a map.

Getting from the Bus Station to the University

• There is a very convenient connection by bus from Swansea Quadrant Bus Station to the University, either you take line 2/2a or you take line 3/3a. During daytime each line operates every 15 min, during early morning every 30 min, and evenings every 60 min. Lines 2a and 3a directly bring you to Fulton House on campus (see the campus map) on lines 2 and 3 (without the "a") you have to drop of at the main road and walk up to Fulton house (5 min).

Cardiff Wales International Airport

• The airport is served by
  • KLM Cityhopper (connections to Amsterdam, from where you have connections to international and intercontinental connections),
  • Bmibaby (cheap airline),
  • a few other cheap airlines (flying to Ireland, UK destinations, Brussels),
  • some charter airlines flying to holiday destinations.
  • There are as well a few direct flights to Vancouver and Toronto.
• There are three ways of getting from Cardiff airport to Swansea
  • If you are arriving in a group, consider sharing a taxi to Swansea. The cost should be about £60 to £70, as compared to about £20 for taking the train or bus. Given it is much quicker and more convenient, you may want to consider this for groups of two or more.
  • There is a new train service from Rhoose Cardiff Airport to Bridgend, where you can connect with the London trains to Swansea. There is a free shuttle service from Cardiff airport to this railway stations, which serves all trains at this station. It departs from the airport about 20 min before the train leaves.
    • Traveline-Cymru allows you to plan your complete journey from the airport (including the Shuttle bus) to Swansea
    • Unfortunately this train runs only every 2 hours on Sundays (otherwise it runs hourly).
  • The alternative is to take the bus (X91 and some other lines) to Cardiff Central Station, from where you have frequent trains to Swansea.
    • You can use Traveline-Cymru for planning your complete journey.
    • You can find the timetable for the X91 service here (this site behaves a bit strangely in some browsers, unfortunately).
    • The train timetable for trains from Cardiff Central Station to Swansea can be found here and for the return journey here.
    • The main bus station is next to the Central Railway Station.

Bristol Airport

• The easiest way to reach Swansea from Bristol Airport is by train.
• There is a dedicated bus service (Bristol International Flyer, usually every 20 min) from the airport to Bristol Temple Meads station, from where there are relatively frequent services to and from Swansea.
• The airport bus service takes about 30 minutes, and operates every 20 minutes from 05.00 to 22.40. The German timetable German railway timetable allows you to get the complete timetable from Bristol aiport to Swansea.
• Please note that there are two main train stations in Bristol, Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway, where Bristol Parkway has many connections to Swansea. However, Bristol Parkway is quite far in the north from Bristol. It is not advisable to take a taxi or bus. Therefore it is recommended, when choosing railway connections from Bristol Temple Meads to Swansea (by using one of the timetables mentioned in information about trains to enter "Bristol Temple Meads" rather than "Bristol".

Heathrow Airport

• General information on travel from Heathrow to Swansea can be found here.
• There are two ways to travel from Heathrow Airport to Swansea
  • The more convenient way is to take the coach link from Heathrow to Reading and connect there with the trains from Reading to Swansea. You can obtain these connections by using one of the timetables mentioned above (just enter Heathrow airport). Note that this timetable will offer you as well some journeys using the Heathrow Express to London Paddington -- this is a expensive and takes usually longer. Note that trains are currently not very reliable, so for your journey back you need to plan extra time.
  • There are as well frequent direct coach connections from Heathrow central bus station to Swansea. See the information about coaches above (Choose "Airports" from the web site of national express). These are very reliable, but there is not as much leg space as when taking the train.
  • Another alternative is to take the tube (or the more expensive Heathrow express) to central London, and then the train from London Paddington - this is a possibility if you want to visit London. Note that there are no lockers for luggage, there is an expensive service for storing your luggage in London Paddington and other railway stations - your luggage will security screened.

Gatwick airport

• There are trains from Gatwick to Reading, from which you can connect to London.
• There are direct coaches from Gatwick to Swansea (which go via Heathrow).
• If you want to visit London, you can as well take one of the many trains from Gatwick to central London (Gatwick express is more expensive then the other trains). The information above on Heathrow airport concerning lockers applies here as well. It is usually more convenient (and cheaper) to avoid going via London.
• Most information about Heathrow aiport (reliability of the railway network, baggage lockers) apply here as well.

Stansted Airport

Stansted airport is an airport dedicated to cheap airlines. Note however that it is about 20 - 30 £ more expensive to get from there to Swansea rather than from Heathrow airport. The journey takes as well much longer and is less convenient then the journey from Gatwick and Heathrow or the regional airports.

There are two main routes from Stansted Airport to Swansea.

• You can go by train from Stansted Airport to London Liverpool station, then take the "tube" (London Underground) to London Paddington, and finally the train to Swansea. The railway timetables (see above) will give you the complete connection.
• There are as well reliable coach connections using National Express (see information about coaches above) with change at Heathrow (6.5 hrs).

websites: Arnold Beckmann

2006-06-22