By Bus

Every town has a bus service, although these are privatised and you need to contact the right company for information. Away from the bigger towns, bus services may be limited or non-existent.

The breathtaking ‘Long Walk’ from the Great Deer Park to Windsor Castle, which is easily accessible by car, bus, train and on foot.

• Brighton and Hove (Brighton & Hove Buses)
• Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes (Arriva)
• East Kent (Stagecoach)
• East and West Sussex (Stagecoach)
• Eastbourne and Hailsham (Eastbourne Buses)
• Hampshire (Stagecoach)
• Hastings and Bexhill (Stagecoach)
• High Wycombe and Chilterns (Carousel)
• Isle of Wight (Southern Vectis)
• Surrey, Kent and Sussex (Arriva)
• Surrey and East Sussex (Metrobus)
• Southampton area (Bluestar)
• Southampton area (First Solent)

Road Travel

With excellent public transport links, it is not necessary to have access to a car in the South East. However, for ease of accessibility, especially when exploring the countryside, a car can be a very useful thing to have. Many rural attractions are not served by public transport so driving is essential if you plan on visiting a lot of these. Every city, town and village has at least one good car park and many towns that are popular with visitors have a park and ride service, though you may be put off by how much you have to pay for the privilege.

The region has a very dense and easy-to-navigate road network. The M2, M3, M4, M20, M23 and M40 motorways all connect the region, radiating around London from the M25 peripheral road.

However, with high population density comes a high volume of traffic, and there are often delays on the busiest parts of the network. As a rule of thumb, traffic will always be significantly busier during the ‘rush hours’ (commuter periods between 7AM-9AM and 4PM-7PM) than other times of the day. Friday evenings are known to be particularly bad for driving, as weekend holidaymakers combine with commuters to make congestion even worse than normal. You should plan your journey accordingly, or avoid travelling at these times altogether.

The main regular ‘blackspots’ areː

• The M25 is nearly always busy, and there is congestion, sometimes severe, during rush hour virtually every day.
• The M20 (the main motorway between Dover and London) is occasionally clogged up by lorries, often due to French fishery workers going on strike in Calais. “Operation Stack” is the name to listen out for on the radio if travelling.
• The M3 connecting Southampton to London tends to be busy heading towards London in the morning. The reverse is true in the evenings
• The M27 around Southampton and connecting the city with Portsmouth.

Major trunk roads in the region include the A3, A23, A27, A31, A34, A272 and A303. They may act as viable alternatives to the motorways, and are often necessary to reach certain destinations (such as the A23 for Brighton from London).