I am from the lovely Rural county of Shropshire, and where I happen to live public transport is not something that people can rely on. Not only are the buses about every hour from most places, they take forever to get you somewhere that a car can take you to very speedily.

So on my jaunt a couple of weeks ago to the bright lights of London, I borrowed someone's Oyster card and made the most of the delights of public transport.

An Oyster card is a very simple device and makes travelling around very easy without a car. It's like a pay as you go travel card, and it gives you the best rates for every journey. You can use the Oyster card on buses and the tube and I think some train journeys.

You simply buy the card from the tfl website at: https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/
You can chose the amount that's on the card when you purchase it and then you pay a £2.00 fee for postage. You can also buy them from various stations I think.
I went to London with my husband for 2 days and 3 nights and we used less than £30.00 between us, which saved quite a lot of money, as we went to the Rugby Sevens which is a 2 day event and parking is £25.00 per day at Twickenham!

Once you have the Oyster card you just scan it at certain points on buses and tube stations and it saves fiddling about for the right amount of money (well any bus journey in London seems to cost £2.00 no matter where or how far you are going!)

You can top up the Oyster card at various machine points at stations, an it's very easy (If a Country Bumpkin like me can figure it out it can't be difficult). To top up you just scan your card, enter how much you want to top up and use a credit or debit card to pay for the top up.

I'm sure most London and surrounding area residents must have one of these, but as a visitor I would really recommend them. I borrowed one from a friend and topped it up, but for my next visit I will be getting one of my own. They not only get you the journeys at the cheapest rate available but save a lot of fussing around with tickets and loose change.

What a great little card to have. I wonder when Shropshire will get a similar system, probably when everyone has flying cars!