Coming into London for the Evening

There is a version of this that people from outside London talk themselves out of, and it is the better version. Not an escort driving forty miles to a house in Berkshire. A train in, a table booked, and an evening that happens to be in one of the best cities in the world for exactly this.

Start with the honest part

From the commuter belt, an ordinary outcall does not really work.

The nearest escort to Reading is about thirty four miles away. To Maidstone, twenty seven. To Guildford, twenty four. At those distances an escort is giving up an entire evening’s travel for one booking fee, which is why the answer is usually no, and why our guide on booking outside central London says so plainly rather than pretending otherwise.

That is the whole of the bad news, and it is less bad than it sounds, because the alternative is better.

You are closer than people who live in London

This is the fact that changes the picture.

St Albans is twenty minutes into St Pancras. Reading is twenty five into Paddington. Woking is twenty six into Waterloo. Brentwood is forty on the Elizabeth line without changing. Windsor, Chelmsford, High Wycombe, Basildon and Gravesend are all inside the hour.

Somebody in Bromley or Barnet often takes longer to reach Mayfair than somebody in St Albans does. The trains from outside London are fast and direct in a way the suburban ones are not.

What the evening actually looks like

The shape that works from this far out is not an hour. It is a proper evening, and the length is what makes the journey worth making.

A train in at seven. A drink somewhere with a decent bar, which London has an unreasonable number of. Dinner at a table where nobody is turning you out after ninety minutes. And then whatever the evening was for.

That is a dinner date, and it is by some distance the booking that rewards travelling for. Our post on choosing a restaurant covers what to look for, and hotel bars worth arriving early for covers the hour before.

The last train question, and how to stop asking it

The one thing that spoils an evening planned this way is watching the clock from about ten o’clock onwards.

Book a room. It removes the deadline entirely, it costs less than most people assume midweek, and it converts a dinner date into an overnight, which is a considerably better evening and better value per hour than any of the shorter options.

If a room is not the plan, know the last train before you sit down to dinner rather than during it. See getting around late at night, and London hotel bookings for how the room side works.

Where your train puts you

Worth planning around, because the terminus decides the neighbourhood.

• Paddington from Reading, Slough and Windsor. Puts you in Bayswater, which holds more of the roster than anywhere else in London. See Paddington and Bayswater.
• Waterloo from Woking and Guildford. Short hop to Chelsea and the river.
• St Pancras and Euston from St Albans, Hemel Hempstead and Watford. Ten minutes on foot to Fitzrovia. See Marylebone and Fitzrovia.
• Liverpool Street from Chelmsford, Brentwood, Basildon and Southend. The City, and quiet after six. See the City after six.
• Victoria from Gravesend, Maidstone and Crawley. Ten minutes from Belgravia and Knightsbridge.
• Marylebone from High Wycombe. The station is in the neighbourhood, which is as convenient as London gets.

The arithmetic, since it comes up

An off peak return from most of these is fifteen to thirty pounds. An outcall surcharge, where one is even offered at this distance, is thirty to fifty.

So coming in is cheaper before you count the part that actually matters: several times the choice of escort, no travel time eating the booking, and an evening rather than an appointment. What an evening in London actually costs has the full breakdown.

Give notice

The one thing to do differently. If you are coming in on a specific evening, book it a few days out rather than ringing from the train.

You are choosing a person rather than taking whoever is free, you probably want a longer booking, and you may want a restaurant. All three want a bit of warning, and none of them cost anything extra for it.

The point

If you were coming to London anyway, or would happily invent a reason to, this is not the compromise version of a booking. It is the one the whole city is set up for.

Browse the roster, see every area we cover, or ring +44 20 7846 3480.