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Geek Travel To London From the US — Tips?
Audrey23 writes "I am traveling to London from Washington state for two weeks in December for pleasure (use-it-or-lose-it vacation scenario) and was wondering if I should bother bringing my laptop. I know that I would have to change the region code on my wireless amongst other things and the power cord would have to be changed for a UK outlet. Would I be better off not bringing my laptop and just using Internet kiosks (do they exist in London?) or would having my laptop be a better choice to keep in touch, off-load my digital images etc? I plan on hitting the British Museum but was wondering what geeky things to do that are in London that might be worth going to and any tips hints on overseas travel for geeks? I travel quite a bit in the states but this will be my first trip overseas and want to make the best of my stay in merry old England. What words of advice do you travel seasoned geeks have for me?"
Don't call it 'merry old England'.
LOOK TO THE RIGHT
Because everybody in north America drives on the wrong side of the road, you just don't know it yet.
I live in Australia (where we drive on the left) and I once had to work in South Korea where they drive on the right. I was okay as long as I thought about it every time I crossed the road. It was a mistake to talk on the phone to my wife back home while walking back to the hotel from the pizza shop.
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If you're there for two weeks get out of London too! Trains are quite good to places like Oxford, York and the South Coast to see a bit more of England, which are all quite different to London. Oxford is definitely worth a visit, and the steampunk exhibition that's on in the Museum of the History of Science should fill your 'geek' critea.
And the natural history museum is just up the road from the science museum - perhaps the most impressive museum building in the world, built to be a cathedral to science and full of dinosaurs, rocks (including meteorites), a cool earthquake simulator, large mammals, and more dead things in jars than you will ever see anywhere else in your life.
The Victoria and Albert museum is over the road from that too, and has a gigantic old persian rug (and I mean gigantic), and the very impressive cast courts that preserve many european statues and facades which were destroyed in the various conflicts since the victorian era.
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Yes, there is such a thing. Every country can decide what channels are allowed to use. Not every frequency/channel is allowed for free use in every country in the world. Cisco accesspoints, for example, have a configuration parameter to specify the country it is used in, so it won't use channels it isn't allowed to use. Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels.
Where are you staying? If it's a secure place, then bring your laptop for when you're "at home" for planning your day, photos, etc. There are tons of coffee shops and even pubs with wireless, sometimes free. Personally though, I leave it at home and just carry a camera, A-Z and a Lonely Planet guide (along with a small but wind resistant umbrella, etc), but I can see the benefit to being able to check google maps and the TFL. BTW, tfl.gov.uk will be your best friend at figuring out how to get between any places, especially considering that large parts of the Tube close at the weekends for engineering works. Having a laptop with me around always ways on my mind due to the risk of it being stolen - yes, one of my work colleagues had his bag (containing work laptop) stolen from under a table six of us were sitting around, in a pub in Soho.
Other than that, get out an enjoy yourself. London is a walking city, even in December when the daylight is limited and it can be blustery and wet. One of my favourite walks is from parliament, down the South Bank to the Tower: London Eye, South Bank, Tate Modern, Southwark Cathedral, The Globe, St. Paul's Cathedral, Borough Market, City Hall, Tower Bridge, etc. Greenwich is ace. You can get a Soho walking tour from Trafalgar square. The Royal Parks are awesome. There are tons of little villages that have been over-run by London growing outwards. Then there are more free museums and galleries than you can shake a stick at, and always a trusty pub nearby when you want a break.
I second the Science Museum recommendation - an amazing place to visit and it's free! The Planetarium is also worth a few hours.
Err, you haven't been in a while have you. It closed in 2006.
You'll be after the Peter Harrison Planetarium in Greenwich if it's astronomy you're into.
Don't forget the British Museum recently* split into two, the British Museum, and the Natural History Museum - which used to be the British Museum (Natural History). The British Museum, which houses things such as the mummys, Elgin marbles, Rosetta stone and various other things we stole from around the world during our colonial past, is in Holborn, pretty central in London, and the Natural History Museum, with dinosaurs, big stuffed blue whale and a fabulous mineral and gemstone collection is in South Kensington, right next to the Science Museum (as mentioned previously) and Victoria and Albert museum.
Entrance to all of these is free. Some special exhibits need payment however (usually temporary ones).
When you get to the airport, as long as you're not feeling too lazy, don't try to get a taxi to London, it'll cost you $80 or more (it's a long way). Go to the underground, get an Oyster card with (say) £20 of credit on it (you'll have to ask at the manned ticket office for this), that works for all your underground and bus travel in London, much simpler and quicker than using cash. You can top it up if you run out (you can check your balance at the station or register online to top it up automatically).
Have fun!
Jolyon
* - in 1881. That's recently for us Europeans!
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I would also recommend the Imperial War Museum if you are interested in ww1 and ww2.
I second the Imperial War Museum. For bonus geek points, the building in which it is housed used to be Bedlam.
Two other, slightly less well known places:
Hunterian Museum at the royal college of surgeons - incredible array of medical curiosities.
The Wallace Collection - Incredible array of art and armour housed in a splendidly ostentatious yet intimate townhouse. One Sunday a month, the rooms are lit candlelight.
For a Cthulhuesque experience, you can trace the two halves of Babbage's Brain
(*spoiler* one is in the science museum, the other the Hunterian)
...but the Planetarium closed down a few years ago. It was turned into a "celebrity cinema" bit of Madame Tussauds, showing showbiz movies. Philistines.
However, the Greenwich Observatory has their own, new planetarium - it's brand new, and right by the Greenwich Meridian:
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/visit/planetarium-shows/
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
Take a four-way power strip as well as an international power adaptor, it's most useful for charging.
UK is ~240V, so duoble check that your device chargers cover that range.
As far as I know the channels that change between regions in Wireless cards are the extremes, so you don’t have to have problems to connect to the majority of wireless Access points without changing anything.
For electricity voltage you have a change to take into account, in the USA electricity is 110-120 volts 60Hz, in Europe it is 220 volts 50Hz, so you will need a charger that supports dual voltage or one specific for European electricity.
My advice, take your laptop with you if you plan to connect to internet every day, it is practically sure the hotel you stay on will have Wireless for clients, or at least you can find hotspots all over London.
Things to do in London (tourist mode ON)
NOTES for tourists:
In England the cars travel in the left lane, remember this when you cross a street
In England the subway arrives from right to left, not form left to right.
The average temperature on December is 4C (39F) so Wrap up warm
London is a city with a lot of places to go, so take your time to search de web and find the ones that are interesting for you.
I go the other way. After making 10-20 international trips per year I was fed up with dealing with all the plugs.
I picked one plug type to standardise on for all the devices I travel with. I went with the US earthed type because they're the most compact and they don't fall out of the sockets. My laptop, phone charger, etc., all have that plug (and I have a power strip of that type at my desk at home).
Then I carry a little 3-way cube (one plug and three sockets). It's tiny, 2.5cm per side plus the pluggy bits sticking out. picture here
Then I bring the appropriate single-purpose adapter for the countr(ies) I'll be visiting. I hate the multi-plug ones (the kinds with slidey bits to change which plug they go into) because they always fall apart. The single-purpose ones last for years. I use WonPro WA-II series, which have no moving parts, provide proper earthing when possible, and accept any type of plug. pictures here. They cost about $3 each at shops in town and are indestructible.
I plug my stuff into the cube, the cube into the country-specific one, and the country-specific one into the wall. This approach is more compact, more reliable, and way cheaper than the alternatives. From one outlet (often all you'll get in a hotel), I get 3 US-style outlets and one universal outlet.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Last time I went to France I bought a portable hard drive with an integrated media card reader to backup my pictures. The one I got was from Wolverine Data and it worked well. Except for the lack of claws.
Here's a link to their product page
English is not this
Also - don't bother with the London Eye - it's very expensive and mind crushingly dull.
Since you are in London for 2 weeks, consider a trip to Oxford or Cambridge, both are possible as day trips. Cambridge has a great little museum of scientific equipment that I can highly recommend. (http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/whipple/).
Do NOT go to Oxford, or if you do, only go for an afternoon. Once you've seen the university, it is an extremely tedious place.
Go to Oxford and spend that afternoon in The Pitt Rivers Museum and the Museum of the History of Science
Get up to Bletchley Park, home of the UK WW2 code breaking effort. And Oxford is good too (way better than Cambridge, and cheaper to get to).
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Go see the British Library. It's free, and they have a great collection of illuminated manuscripts, Da Vinci sketches, etc. My wife and I really enjoyed it, as it's a well-hidden gem. Really enjoyed seeing a copy of the Magna Carta.
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I'd stay long enough to change planes and head for someplace nice. Try a cheap flight to Malta, or Cyprus. Life's too short to be in England in the winter.
Try the local bitters, see if they have any local breweries, try anything you've never heard of.
Amen to that. In fact try everything that sounds stupid or wierd. Our beers aren't called 'Bud Cool' or 'Rugged Macho' or anything like that, they have quirky names like 'Crop Circle', 'Granny wouldn't like it', or 'Piddle in the Hole'. Try them all, there are hundreds of different hop and malt combinations that make some of them similar to pils, but nicer, through to ones that look and taste like chocolate.
* Get yourself an Oyster Card - you can get one from the tube stations at Heathrow Airport and are valid on most public transport in London including all Underground (tube) trains, all local (red) buses in London, some "overground" (i.e. not tube) trains (from 2nd Jan 2010 almost all trains in London will take it) and some river-boat services (the river boats are not cheap but can be a great way to see the sights along the river). You have to pay a £3 deposit plus whatever credit you'll want to start with, but you can get that back plus any unused credit by surrending the card at a tube station when you leave.
* If you're flying into Heathrow and you don't have too much luggage, then the tube to central London is by far the cheapest option. There are also two "overground" rail services, the non-stop Heathrow Express (15 mins to central London) and the stops-at-local-stations Heathrow Connect (25 mins to central London). Both are rather more expensive than the tube, the Express especially so, and neither take Oyster. There used to be an Airbus services from Heathrow to central London but that stopped a few years ago. National Express run some coach (long distance bus) services to/from central London that call at Heathrow but they will be the slowest option and you may need to book your tickets in advance.
* If flying in to Gatwick, then your best choice is rail to London. There are two services: Gatwick Express is a bit more expensive but faster and has more luggage space. Southern is likely to be a bit cheaper and not quite as fast. Be aware that although the two services are run by the same company, tickets on one may not be valid on the other. Neither will take Oyster as Gatwick is well outside the city boundary of Greater London. In the unlikey event you fly into Stansted (which doesn't have many flights to/from North America) then the same applies to the Stansted Express rail link. There are cheapish coach links from Gatwick and Stansted but they will be a lot slower.
* Wherever you fly into, DON'T take a taxi into London unless you really need to and have LOTS of money! Having said that, if you're not sure how to get to a particular place, London cabbies have to spend several years learning "The Knowledge" and will always be able to get you to where you want to go, for a price.
* I second the motion to go to Bletchley Park. This is outside of London but only about 45 minutes from Euston railway terminus by train. It is an absolute must see for any geek: not only does it have working replicas of the Turing "Bombe" and Colossus machines, but it has subsidiary museums on site of computing and other technology.
* Amberley Chalk Pits museum in Sussex might be of interest to you too, with displays of agricultural and industrial technology, transport and communications (TV and radio museums). It's about an hour and a half from Victoria railway terminus.
* If you're interested in transport, then the London Transport museum at Covent Garden in the centre of London is a must see.
* If you do travel outside of London by train, then unless you're going long distance (more than a couple of hours from London) you won't need t
DO NOT BUY A US POWER STRIP TO USE IN THE UK!!!!!!
Seriously. Remember, the UK uses 240 volts and the US power strips and internal breaker are rated at 120 volts. The strip will most likely not survive the experience. An adapter plug only gets you plugged in. It does not change the voltage. There are adapters that can change the voltage, but for limited wattage.
As for sights - The Imperial War Museum (WWI and WWII weapons and gadgets), the Science Museum (Industrial Arts including lots of steam engines and boat models), The British Museum (lots of historical "stuff" from all over the world), Westminster (no cameras allowed), St Paul's, Windsor Castle, Camden Lock Markets, London Museum (history of London), National Museum of Art, Tate Museum of Art, Tate Modern, Kew Gardens, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace, etc.
Get a multizone (1 thru 6) London Transport pass (Oyster card) and you can go almost anywhere on the tube or buses.
Try out some of the great Indian curry houses, China Town restaurants, a Sunday Roast at a pub.
I spent 4 months working there, sight-seeing on the weekends, and know that there are things that I missed. Take your laptop, get one of the British HSDPA modems if you are running Windows - they don't have drivers for Linux. Take a good digital camera and burn CD's of of your photos each day.
Good luck.