Black cab day trips leave the city altogether: six hours to Windsor and back, or nine hours through the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. The cab is yours for the whole day, and it collects you at your own address.
Six hours door to door with about three of them at Windsor: ninety minutes at Windsor Castle and ninety at St George's Chapel on the published route. Entry is not in the fare.
From $936 per group, up to 6
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Nine hours through Cogges Manor Farm, Asthall, Swinbrook, Burford, Shilton and Bibury, with farm entry inside the fare. The only tour here quoted per person rather than per cab.
From $656 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
The series villages in one nine-hour run — Bampton, Asthall, Burford, Shilton and Swinbrook — with an hour at a working farm and a guide who covers how filming was managed.
From $1,286 per group
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
The same product stretched to a whole day and pointed out of London. All three leave the city: one runs six hours to Windsor and back, and two run nine hours into the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. In every case the cab is yours for the day, it collects you at a central London address, and it brings you back.
The driving is real. A Cotswolds day is roughly two hours out and two hours back, which leaves about four to five hours in the villages. Windsor is closer and gives you about three hours there out of six.
Asthall, Swinbrook, Shilton and Bibury are not on a railway and the bus service between them is not a tourist product. A car of some kind is the only way to see more than one in a day, and a hired one means somebody in your party spends the day driving.
It is perfectly possible and it is cheaper. It is also a train, a change, and a walk at each end, and it puts you at Windsor Castle at the same time as everybody else.
A private cab means an extra half hour in Burford because you liked it, or leaving Bibury early because it was raining. A coach tour cannot do that and a train timetable certainly cannot.
Two of these three hire the cab rather than the seat, so a family of five pays once. The Cotswolds day tour is the exception and is quoted per person — check that before you compare the three.
Two very different days, and the decision is mostly about how much driving you are willing to do.
| Windsor | The Cotswolds | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 6 hours | 9 hours |
| Driving | About 3 hours in total | About 4 hours in total |
| What you see | One castle and one chapel | Five or six villages |
| Admission | Windsor Castle entry, bought separately | Farm entry included; lunch is not |
| Fare | $937 for the cab | $657 per person, or $1,286 for the cab |
| Best for | A first visit with limited time | A second visit, or anybody who wants countryside |
| With children | Workable | A long day |
If you have one spare day and have never been to London, neither of these is the right answer — spend it in the city. These are days two and three.
Pick your date and check which entry fees you still need to buy.
Check AvailabilityYou get the cab and its driver-guide for the whole day, pickup and drop-off at a central London address of your choosing, and on the Windsor run bottled water, fuel and parking inside the fare. Both Cotswolds days include entry to a working farm.
You don't get Windsor Castle admission, which is excluded and stated twice on that listing. You also do not get lunch: the Cotswolds itinerary sets aside an hour at a village pub and the meal is not in the fare, and on one of them the lunch stop is flagged as an extra charge.
Buy the Windsor tickets first. The Royal Collection Trust sells timed entry to Windsor Castle and it sells out. Six hours does not stretch to a queue.
Budget for lunch. On any nine-hour day, and on the six-hour one if you want to eat at Windsor rather than back in London.
Check the fare basis. One of the Cotswolds days is per person and the other is per group. That is a difference of several hundred dollars for a family, in either direction.
Take the earliest start you can get. Nine hours with four of them driving does not leave slack, and the light goes early from November.
Anybody on their first day in London. Spend it in the city. A two-hour run through the landmarks tells you what you want from the rest of the week; a nine-hour drive tells you about Oxfordshire. What the shorter runs reach is on what a tour stops at.
Families with small children. Four hours of driving is a lot. The six-hour Windsor day is the outer limit worth attempting.
Anybody counting the money carefully. These are the dearest fares here by some distance, and a train to Windsor plus a castle ticket costs a fraction of it.
The guided black cab tours of London and every route inside the city are set out on Black Cab London Tours.
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead on every day trip listed here.
Check Availability