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The British government has funded http://www.transportdirect.info/ , which should have everything. It's very rare that I need to plan journeys outside London or a couple of other cities, so I've only used it a couple of times. I don't know if it really is complete.

(Also, I find http://traintimes.org.uk/ much nicer than the real National Rail site. URLs like http://traintimes.org.uk/WAT/Putney work (with the code or the full name), and you can add times, dates, etc.)

Speaking of google, you do realize that Google Maps already has routing options based on whether you're walking, biking, or taking public transit?

Google's directions for anything except driving are pathetic in the UK. Where public transport is an option it's missing most routes -- it doesn't even have trains, so to get from Reading to Maidenhead Google suggests a 90 minute bus ride -- with one bus per hour, including a change. The obvious option is the train, there's one every 15 minutes and the journey takes 14 minutes. In London the "transport" overlay shows the London Underground lines, but doesn't show the other rail lines, which are essential for any route planner.

There's no cycling option for Google Maps UK, but since the map doesn't have any bike paths it wouldn't be any good anyway. It doesn't have footpaths either, which can make for some inefficient walking directions.

CycleStreets gives you three cycle routes: a fast (may use busy roads) one, a medium one, and a leisure one (very few roads, take some little kids with you). It also gives the profile of the route, and tells you what kind of road you'll be cycling along (e.g. dedicated cycle path, cycle lane on busy road, road with no cycle path etc).

For general public transport routes over the whole UK http://www.transportdirect.info/ is the best option, although there are better options if you know you need to use a train, or if a local/regional organisation has provided their own route planner. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/ has an excellent journey planner for London, including all public transport (bus, tram, tube, train, boat), cycling and walking.

• London Underground Journey Planner
• Accessible overland train timetables
• Accessible overland train timetables (mobile version)
• Crowd sourced *nice* things in London
• UK journey planner by every means available

It's also useful to know that each post code (zip code) is allocated to a small group of houses (say ten-ish) within the same street.
That's accurate enough to navigate using just the house number and post code. So if you wanted directions from, say, the British Museum (WC1B 3DG) to Buckingham Palace (SW1A 1AA) you'd google this: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=WC1B 3DG to SW1A 1AA

Get yourself a London A-Z (Zed ;) - most of the time dead tree maps still beat electronic (and there's no cellphone reception on the Underground).

Get yourself an Oyster Card. It's a significantly cheaper way to travel.
You don't have to register it if perhaps you're sensitive about personal privacy (just remember you're constantly under CCTV surveillance).

CCTV cameras will watch you everywhere Unless you happen to be the victim of a crime, in which case the cameras will be "switched off" or "pointing the other way".

Mobile data is pretty cheap (assuming you have a compatible phone) - pick up a Three or T-Mobile sim at the airport.

Lastly, no geek can be without their coffee fix: try Monmouth Coffee, Flat White or Cafe Amato.

I disagree. Get http://transportdirect.info/ [transportdirect.info] to plan your journey.
A couple of points

1: transport direct is useful for intermodal planning but it also seems to show incrediblly slow coach routes sometimes even when there is a much faster rail route which can get annoying. Rail specific planners areg enerally easiler for rail planning in my experiance.

2: get the timetables for the routes the planner sends you on, this both lets you avoid routes with unacceptablly low frequencies and helps you replan when trains are delayed. Sometimes if you are quick at changing and have open tickets you can even get there sooner than the planner says.

One or two changes should not pose a problem. More might get tedious.
I tend to worry more about total time and potential time extentions than changes, indeed in some ways i'd rather have a few changes than sit on one train for hours.

One nice thing about basing yourself in london is that being the hub of the UK rail netwosk a lot of places are in day trip reach by train. hell london to manchester is only just over two hours.

generally speaking if you cannot get to where you want to go directly from London then it's really not worth the hassle of fighting the UK rail network

I disagree. Get http://transportdirect.info/ to plan your journey. One or two changes should not pose a problem. More might get tedious.

If you use the train 100s of times a year, you're likely to have occasional problems. A couple of tourist trips, ought to work smoothly.

It might be worth planning your rail journeys on weekdays, as there are reduced timetables on Sundays, and engineering works are frequently scheduled for weekends.

It'll show you on a map where your nearby bus stops are, and when you plan a journey will show you on a map which stops that you need to catch the bus or change at.

This is in spite of the fact that bus services in the UK were privatised in the 80's, and rail was privatised in '94-'95 - and hence are operated by multiple different companies. Indeed bus companies are completely deregulated, and can more-or-less do what they want (except in London).

It'll tell you the route numbers, who operates the bus or train, what facilities are on board if it's a train, station details (including phone numbers for taxis, and the current departure boards for the station). It's not perfect - but it generally makes the same decisions that I would when choosing services. I have occasionally had it make stupid choices, but not often.

As an example, planning a journey for tomorrow from my house in a small town (without a train station) to my parents' house in a small village (with only a few buses a day), succeeded in finding the same options I would have chosen, both if driving or by public transport (bus -> station in nearest city. train -> london. tube across london. train -> nearest city. bus -> parents' village). And the driving instructions were spot-on.

The UK is supposed to have the worst public transport in Europe. But if the UK government can manage this, then surely an organisation with much more technical prowess can. As anybody in Public Transport will tell you, the first thing you need to do to get people to consider public transport is to tell them their options. It helps the environment, the public transport user, and the driver. In short, it helps people. The US government should be getting involved in these kind of projects - helping get this information in the public domain. Because oil is a finite resource, and its price will just keep going up!

http://www.transportdirect.info/
Is fairly useful for the UK, most train and bus companies as well as road routeing and OS maps down to about 1:10,000. Unfortunatly still missing most domestic air routes south of the border

There is a government webpage called transportdirect which I found quite useful. It can take you from A to B in all manners of ways -- be it driving, bussing, trains or ferries.