Trips to the UK

I've been doing some thinking and costings on getting back to the UK for our flight from Gatwick to the USA later this Spring and thought I would share this as the obvious is not always the best.

My first thoughts would have been to drive the car and take the Roscoff to Plymouth ferry
 ( around £250 ) then drive to Gatwick and leave the car parked there, however Avril is not the best of sailors and as we needed still to drive for several hours once we were in the UK I looked into driving to Calais and taking the Eurostar to Folkestone  However from here in Brittany this is around a 7 hour drive plus around 25 euros in each direction for tolls plus the cost seems to have gone up a lot since the last time I used it ( around £180 )

I ended up booking a Ryan Air flight from Dinard to Stansted with a coach trip back to Victoria and Gatwick Express train from Victoria to Gatwick.

I won't go through all the costings as it was complicated in that I needed hotel accommodation due to an early flight from Gatwick but allowing for everything, ie: travel costs, petrol, parking etc I saved around £200 by flying which was the easiest and cheapest way.

This is something for others to think.about rather than just assuming that the closest ferry is the best way to go.
I normally pay around £250 return to take the car on an overnight crossing with a cabin and a return during the day without a cabin. In this instance I paid a total of £122 for the flight for both of us including all of Ryan Air's ( hidden! )charges and taxes, as I could hire a car for a week for about £88 I shall be thinking twice in the future before taking the ferry!