Bournemouth

Introduction

Bournemouth beach

© Aura1

Bournemouth is a city in Dorset, South West England. With about 170,000 inhabitants it is the largest settlement in Dorset and is one of Britain's premier seaside resorts with nice wide beaches and a great seafront.

Sights and Activities

• Real Bournemouth
• Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum
• Beaches of course!
• St.Peter's Church
• Bournemouth Oceanarium
• Bournemouth Eye

Events and Festivals

• Literary Festival
• Gay Pride Festival
• Air Festival

Weather

Bournemouth has a mild maritime climate. Summers are from June to August with average daytime temperatures around 20-22 °C and nights of around 12 °C. Winters are from December to February when it is about 8 to 10 °C during the day and nights are generally above zero. Most of the rain falls from October to January, with spring and summer being the driest time of year. Annual rainfall is relatively low, just under 600mm.

Getting There

By Plane

Bournemouth Airport (BOH) serves the city. Ryanair has flights to/from Alicante, Lanzarote, Carcassonne, Dublin, Edinburgh, Faro, Girona, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Limoges, Málaga, Marseille, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Pisa, Reus (Barcelona and Tenerife-South.
Thomson Airways serves quite a few cities as well, among which several of the above and Antalya, Bodrum, Corfu, Crete, Monastir, Rhodes, Rovaniemi, Salzburg, Grenoble and Ibiza.

By Train

Bournemouth is well served by train. Trains run every half hour or so from London Waterloo (two hours); half of these continue on to Poole (10 minutes), Dorchester South (45 minutes) and Weymouth (one hour). Other trains are those to Southampton and Birmingham, at which you have to change for Scotland.

By Car

The A338 dual carriageway is the main road into Bournemouth. It joins the A31, the major road in central southern England, connecting to the M27 at Southampton. From here the M3 leads to London, and fast access may also be gained via the A34 to the M4 north of Newbury, Berkshire.

By Bus

National Express has buses to other English cities, including London and Brighton. Other cities served are Bristol, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Oxford and Glasgow. Flightlink directly serves Heathrow airport, with connections to Stansted and Gatwich airports.

Sleep

Learn

• Bournemouth University

Keep Connected

Internet

Internet cafés can be found in many cities and towns. All UK public libraries provide access, often branded as "People's Network", usually at no or little charge, though there is usually a time limit. Some hotels/hostels also offer internet access, including wifi, but most times at a cost. Using the internet on your personal phone can become expensive very quickly, with carriers charging 100's of times the local rate for data. To avoid these expensive roaming charges, you can hunt for wifi at a local cafe or hotel, or rent a mobile hotspot via several providers including DATAPiXY, and XCOM Global.

Phone

See also: International Telephone Calls

The country calling code to the United Kingdom is: 44. To make an international call from the United Kingdom, the code is: 00

In case of emergency, call 999 or 112 from any phone. Such calls are free and will be answered by an emergency services operator who will ask you for your location, and the service(s) you need (police, fire, ambulance, coastguard or mountain rescue). You can call this number from any mobile telephone as well, even if you do not have roaming.

Although the number is declining, you can still find payphones in many public areas, especially stations, airports etc. You can usually pay with cash and sometimes by creditcard or, for international calls, special phonecards are still available.

Mobile phones are heavily used. The main networks are T-Mobile, Vodafone, Orange and O2. 3G data services are available, usually priced per megabyte and coverage is usually very good in the UK, however it may lack in rural areas. Roaming on your personal phone plan can be expensive. To manage costs, consider purchasing a local UK SIM card for your phone. Several companies offer local SIM cards including Telestial, and CellularAbroad.

Post

The Royal Mail provides postal services in the United Kingdom. The Royal Mail's store fronts are called Post Office and offer services ranging from sending letters and packages to foreign currency exchange. Use the branch locator to find the nearest Post Office branch. There will be at least one post office in any town/city and there are quite often post offices in larger villages. It's common for a post office to be incorporated into a grocery store, where there will be a small counter located at the back of the store for dealing with post related matters. All post offices are marked with signs that say 'post office' in red lettering. Post boxes can be found at any post office and standalone large red post boxes on the streets or red boxes in the sides of public buildings.
For sending packages overseas, it might be a good idea to check prices and services with international companies like TNT, UPS or DHL.