Finding a cheap hotel in London en route to Stansted airport

So due to the magic of EasyJet, I have a $50 flight from London to Tallinn in exactly a month. One problem though, is that the flight is from Stansted Airport, which is basically not near anything — meaning, it’s about 30 miles northeast of London. That’s basically like living in Oakland and flying out of San Jose: doable, but not ideal.

Now, normally this wouldn’t be a problem as there’s a convenient train that leaves every 30 minutes from downtown London (Liverpool Street Station). Only one glitch, though: my flight leaves Stansted at 06h45, meaning I have to be there at 04h45. The first train is at 06h00, so there goes taking the train.

After briefly considering simply sleeping in Stansted Airport, I then had the idea of staying in the town of Harlow, the nearest cheap hostel, but that would have involved a 3 am mile-long walk from the hostel the Harlow City Centre to catch a bus to Stansted airport to make my flight in time.

At this point, I consulted with Marie Javins, who suggested looking for a hotel near Victoria St. Station so that I could just take the £8 ($15.50) bus that runs all night to Stansted.

Then I discovered the Holly and Ivy House Hotel — where I booked a room earlier today for £27.25 ($53) including a student discount. This puts me in Central London, and pretty near Waterloo Station, where I’ll be coming in on the Eurostar from Paris earlier that day. The Holly House Hotel is around the block from where the bus picks up from.

I’ll only be sleeping in this hotel for a pretty short time, but it’s a pretty good deal.

Still, Marie said it best: “Wanna open a capsule hotel at Stansted? I reckon there’s money in it.”

If you make discount airport parking reservations then you can save some money on airport parking that you wouldn’t be able to without a discount airport parking service–why pay full price when you can save on airport parking if you plan ahead?