What is the best way to reach chaotic Heathrow from outside London?

Q Me and my mum need to get from Manchester to London Heathrow in October. Our flight to Cairo departs from Terminal 2 at 3pm. Considering the rail strikes/service reductions, cancellation of domestic flights by British Airways and potential for accidents and traffic jams on the motorway, what would you suggest is the best way of making this trip?

C Ayres

A October is an excellent month in which to be flying to Egypt. After the intense heat of summer, the nation remains warm and sunny while the UK will be getting progressively darker and colder.

Heathrow recommends that you arrive three hours before your flight – which makes it noon at the airport. I suggest you forget the prospect of a morning flight from Manchester. The only airline is British Airways, which flies to Terminal 5 – from where you would need to transfer. Furthermore, if anything goes awry with the BA flight, there is no protection of your Cairo booking because you would have bought the two trips separately. If you arrive late, you will simply be classed as a “no-show” for the Egyptair flight.

Coach services are slow and prone to delay by other road users. The train is the obvious choice: travelling to London Euston on Avanti West Coast in just over two hours, and then onwards by Tube (Euston to Green Park on the Victoria Line, then the Piccadilly Line). Normally I would recommend an Advance ticket on the 8.15am from Manchester Piccadilly – which should land you comfortably at Terminal 2 for noon. But for at least the next four weeks, Avanti West Coast is operating a severely reduced timetable. Advance tickets at reasonable fares are extremely difficult to find at present, and there is also the prospect of further industrial action from either or both main rail unions, the RMT and Aslef, representing train drivers.

In your position I would wait until a couple of weeks beforehand to see if there is likely to be disruption and/or non-availability of reasonable fares on your travel date. If that is the case, then book a hotel at Heathrow. Ideally, make it the Hilton Garden Inn, just across from T2, with a superb view from the bar-restaurant on the top floor. But you will get a much lower price at the Thistle Hotel, which I can usually book for around £80. For an evening meal you could walk for 10 minutes to the nearby excellent Chinese restaurant, called Hong Kong London. Next morning have a leisurely breakfast (the restaurant has an excellent view of the northern runway) then take the driverless Pod link to Terminal 5 and use the free train (not Tube) connection to Terminal 2.

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Q I’m looking to go to Colombia in February 2023, travelling independently. When would you advise booking flights? Also, any recommendations?

“Coopon”

A Delighted to hear you are heading for the big, friendly nation of Colombia – which encapsulates many of the wonders of South America better than any other.

In terms of flights: the excellent nonstop link from London Heathrow to Bogota, the Colombian capital, is likely to be much more expensive than connecting alternatives. Also, I advise you not to start in Bogota, and so an “open jaw” itinerary will be preferable anyway: out to Cartagena, back from Bogota. Expect to pay around £800-£900, and book through a good travel agent.

November will be a good time to look, and early January won’t be too late, there’s always the option of cheap-ish tickets to Florida and separate budget flights from there. I am seeing Heathrow -Miami returns for as little as £400, which you could use in connection with jetBlue and/or Spirit flights from Fort Lauderdale, just 20 miles north.

Recommendations: how long have you got? Start in Cartagena, the most miraculous Spanish city in South America and rival of Havana for title of greatest globally. Go east along the coast to Santa Marta and the amazing “Tayrona National Natural Park” – spectacular coastline, great beaches and hiking in the Sierra Nevada – the highest coastal mountain range in the world. Then fly south to Medellin, a high-altitude, high-energy city in the centre of some superb landscapes. Continue overland to Cali, self-styled salsa capital of the world, and to Popayan (another colonial masterpiece). Depending on your timing, you could even nip across to the Ecuadorian capital, Quito.

Leave the Colombian capital, Bogota, to last – you will need a certain street smartness to enjoy your time here to the full. The once-neglected but now restored Barrio La Candelaria, its historic heart, is the area to stay in and explore.

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Q I have a booking from Glasgow to London Euston with Avanti West Coast for 30 August. Trainline, which I booked with, now tells me my journey “might” be affected by an amended timetable. What’s going on, and how confident can I be of travelling?

Name supplied

A The relationship between Avanti West Coast and the train drivers’ union, Aslef, is getting pretty toxic – and that means, for the next month at least (until 11 September), many fewer trains.

From Sunday 14 August, the train operator on the West Coast Main Line is cutting back its normal service of three times an hour from Manchester and Birmingham to London, to just one each hour. Yet your journey could well be unaffected because the links from Glasgow (and Liverpool) are remaining at the usual one per hour. Or at least that’s the plan. Exact timetables will be published week by week. You should know whether your service is running a few days ahead. If it happens to be cancelled, your ticket will be accepted on the Avanti West Coast service before or after your original booked train.

“Alternatively, you can claim a full, fee-free refund from your point of purchase if you no longer wish to travel due to the amended timetable,” the train firm says. To be clear, this means anyone who has an advance ticket booked up to 11 September can claim an immediate refund now. That includes bookings through Trainline, on which you can get your money back by clicking “manage booking” in your confirmation email.

If you are currently considering travel plans into the autumn, I fear that the current chaotic situation could continue for months. In its announcement, Avanti West Coast blamed “the current industrial relations climate which has resulted in severe staff shortages in some grades through increased sickness levels” – an apparent allegation that staff are throwing sickies. The train operator also blamed “unofficial strike action by Aslef members”. In response, Mick Whelan, general secretary of the union, rejected the accusation of unofficial action on Avanti West Coast, saying: “The truth is that the company does not employ enough drivers to deliver the services it has promised passengers it will run.”

Finally, a reminder for you and anyone else planning to travel on Avanti West Coast this Saturday 13 August: no trains will run due to an official strike by members of Aslef. Some limited services will run on other train operators whose drivers are striking, including LNER and GWR.

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Q I am flying to Dublin just for the day. What highlights would you recommend?

Name supplied

A For anyone living close to a Ryanair airport, a day trip to the Irish capital looks a tempting prospect. I have just priced up a return trip two weeks today from London Stansted and back. Taking the 6.30am flight out and the 9.55pm home gives you 14 hours on the ground in Dublin for £30. This assumes you take only one small piece of cabin baggage (which for a day trip you would presumably do anyway) and make do with whatever seat you are allocated.

First, when you touch down buy a 24-hour “Leap” card for public transport, price €8, from WHSmith at Terminal 1 arrivals (where you should emerge anyway. This entitles you to unlimited public transport. Take bus 41 (every 20 minutes on weekdays, half-hourly at weekends) to the city centre.

Ireland’s greatest cultural treasure is the astonishingly beautiful illuminated Bible known as the Book of Kells, around 1,200 years old and on display in the (relatively new) Old Library of Trinity College Dublin. For an insight into why and how the Irish diaspora spread across the world, EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum provides rich social and political context in a dramatic setting on the north side of the Liffey.

Kilmainham Gaol was where many of those who fought for Irish independence were imprisoned. It is now a sobering tourist attraction. A five-minute walk east is the Irish Museum of Modern Art; and a further five minutes takes you to the Guinness Storehouse, which tells the story of the nation’s most celebrated export.

Your cultural work done, time to head for the seaside and beautiful Dublin Bay. Take the Dart train to its southern terminus at Dun Laoghaire, an interesting port with, a mile’s walk south, quaint Sandycove and the Martello Tower featured in the first chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Then take Dart right around the bay to the other terminus, Howth, a fishing village with some rewarding coastal walks. To reach your flight home, take Dart for three minutes to Sutton station, from where bus 102 runs straight to Dublin airport.

One more point: don’t forget your passport, which Ryanair requires even for flights within the common travel area that covers the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

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