Oxford on a Budget: 11 Ways to Save Money

Can we guess something about you?

You wanna go to Oxford, maybe because you’re a Harry Potter or His Dark Materials fan, but you’re wondering whether it’s worth living off of instant noodles for 6 months because of it, right?

Because Oxford isn’t just beautiful.

It’s also famously expensive.

Don’t worry though, we’ve got good news for you.

We did a trip to Oxford on a budget, and in this post we’ll show you how.

These are the 11 things we did to save money.

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Here’s a little bit about our journey, if you are new here! If you know us, feel free to skip this part.

After leaving our old life in Scotland in March 2022 (it rains too much there), we travelled full-time for almost 2 years. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Well, it was. If you think that carrying overpacked backpacks in 45°C heat around streets that aren’t even on Google Maps is fancy. And that’s just 1% of all the fun we had! 😆

During the 2 years we volunteered in Italy and Bulgaria (free travel while learning new skills, anyone?), explored other amazing European countries and backpacked Southeast Asia. Btw, even our secret wedding was more of an expedition than a wedding. 😅

And, of course, we researched and planned everything ourselves, because you gotta keep the budget low, right? If you are like us, you’ve come to the right place, because we want to share all the useful travel tips and info with you!

Excited? Good. Let’s get into it so you can go on your own epic adventures too!

Our Oxford trip at a glance

Here is some basic info on our Oxford trip, so that the rest of the post makes sense to you:

• How long did we spend in Oxford? 3 days
• When did we travel? October (2025)
• How did we get to Oxford? By flying into London (and then various public transport, because we did the journey 4 times)
• Where did we stay in Oxford? At the coolest budget accommodation, The Mad Hatter

Oxford on a budget

We totally get if you’re freaking out over the cost of an Oxford trip.

We’d had Oxford on our bucket list for ages, but when we started planning the trip and saw the prices of everything? 

We nearly bailed on going.

Oxford is pricey, but if you’re smart, you can find ways to save money.

We always do – we even did a Lapland holiday on a budget! And had our wedding beforehand, also on a budget!

So you could say we’re pretty good at discovering money-saving tricks and hacks.

These are the 11 different ways how we save money in Oxford.

Choose when you travel well

We visited Oxford in the second last week of October and we’ve got a few tips to give you about that:

• While October might be considered shoulder season, the end of our trip matched with the start of October break in England, meaning everything was much more expensive. Always check public and school holidays before booking a trip.
• What vibe do you want? Do you want Harry Potter autumn vibes, like we had? (Warning here: it was awfully cold [for Mirka. Daniel is Scottish] and also rained quite a bit). Are you hoping to see Oxford covered in snow? (That must be so magical!) Or would you rather visit in summer, the liveliest (but also busiest) time of the year?
• While there were still tourists about, the city wasn’t crowded with them. In fact, we ended up alone in many awesome places – even Harry Potter locations that usually have masses of people lining up for them!

Honestly, going in October helped us save some money (and we would have saved more, if it wasn’t for the October school holidays), but the 2 main things for us?

1. The autumn atmosphere. A university city like Oxford just goes with autumn – it’s such a vibe! It’s also back to Hogwarts time, so perfect season for Potterheads.
2. The lack of crowds. We are the kind of people who are always looking for ways to avoid crowds, whether it’s doing a super early morning tour in the Vatican Museums (that was epic. Had breakfast inside the Vatican Museums!) or visiting a Disney-like castle after hours. Being alone in usually crowded, popular places in Oxford was something we couldn’t put a price on.

Pro tip: if you have the freedom of travelling to Oxford anytime, go with the vibe first. Think about the season you’d like to see the city in – what do you imagine when you think of Oxford? Sunshine and green grass? Colourful leaves and falling rain? You decide.

Then check the prices of the two most expensive things: flights and accommodation, during your chosen time and take it from there.

Stay outside the city centre: budget accommodation tip

If you’re thinking: “Duuhh guys, everyone knows that, but I don’t wanna be miles away from the beautiful city centre we actually came for!” here us out.

We struggled with finding good, budget accommodation in Oxford, because there was very little available when we started looking, 4 months before our trip.

But then we found The Mad Hatter, which was:

• Super cool – it’s all Alice in Wonderland themed
• In a great area – away from the busy centre, but still within an easy walkable distance (18-min walk to Christ Church College, for example)
• Unbelievably cheap – it cost us just £95 per night for 2 people

Now, here is what you should do when looking for budget accommodation in Oxford:

• First, check The Mad Hatter – it’s well-rated, tried and tested by us, and you might be able to get a great deal there, like we did
• If The Mad Hatter guesthouse isn’t available, or it doesn’t suit you, search for budget accommodation on Booking.com
• Make sure to sign up for the Genius loyalty programme on Booking.com to get the cheapest prices (it’s free)
• Grab our free guide on how we filter accommodation on Booking.com to find the hidden gems. This is our own 5-step system that we use every time to find great stays on a budget

Getting to Oxford on a budget

We travelled to Oxford via London, flying with budget airlines, Ryanair and Wizzair, with hand luggage only.

Saving money on flights to London

This is such a travel hack: we always save a lot of money (and energy and time, to be honest), by flying with low-cost carriers with carry-on backpacks that are included for free.

If you’re now thinking: “OMG, how do you do that though??”, we get it.

Our full Oxford/London trip was 5 and a bit days (we slept at the airport on the last day and travelled home early the next morning, so it doesn’t count as a full day), and we still managed to pack into two small backpacks – even keep space for buying things in England!

We can help: here are 10 tips on how to pack light.

In fact, a short Oxford trip is a perfect opportunity to give our packing light challenge no. 2 a go – if you dare!

Saving money on travelling from London to Oxford

Good news: there are multiple options for travelling between London and Oxford.

Bad news: the information is confusing and takes a while to figure out.

But, more good news for you: we wrote a full post about the different ways to travel from London to Oxford, where you can get all the money-saving tips (COMING SOON).

Money and time saving hack we don’t mention in that post?

Travelling from London Luton airport to Oxford.

Because we looked at both:

• Travelling to central London from Luton airport and then catching a bus or a train to Oxford
• Travelling to Oxford directly from Luton airport

The result?

The direct bus worked out better.

Yes, we had to waste time waiting at Luton airport, because the buses to Oxford aren’t that frequent.

But it would have taken us around the same time to travel to London, and then from there to Oxford, except it would have meant more stress about making our connections, and it would have cost us more money.

So, we landed at 10:50. 

Chilled at the airport for 2.5 hours.

And then took the 13:15 National Express directly from Luton airport to Oxford bus station, arriving at 15:20.

2 money-saving tips for you:

• Book National Express early in advance to secure the cheapest fare
• If flying into a different airport than Luton, check whether there is a similar direct option to Oxford, to save money, time and your sanity

Walk whenever you can

The city centre of Oxford and its main attractions are so compact, we never had to use public transport there.

Everything will depend on where you stay, but if you find a great place like we did?

You will be within a walking distance from all the major sights, meaning you can save money on public transport.

And, to be honest, Oxford is a place where we really didn’t mind walking – it was so picturesque.

A smart tip: when choosing accommodation, consider these two things:

• Staying further away in cheaper accommodation, but spending more money and, more importantly, your limited holiday time, on travelling every day by public transport
• Staying more centrally where yes, you spend more on the accommodation, but you can walk places 

Be selective about paid attractions

A quick way to blow through your Oxford budget?

Paying entrance fees to all the cool places around the city.

It all adds up.

For instance, when we visited, a self-guided tour of Christ Church College was £18 for an adult!

Even more shockingly, in 2026, the price increased to £22.95 (on a weekday. Weekends are even more expensive)!

These are the paid activities we did in Oxford, and how we managed to save money on them:

Christ Church College

• The famous Harry Potter location is super popular, and, as a result, super pricey, so first, decide whether you definitely want to visit (we’ll talk more about this tip later)
• Check out the options of guided tours, special tours & events, but keep in mind that the self-guided tour with an audioguide is the cheapest option
• You will save money by booking in advance, online or in the Visitor Centre. Plus it guarantees you entrance – the college does sell out
• Tickets are cheaper on a weekday than during weekends, so plan your itinerary accordingly

We opted for the self-guided tour, because, to be honest, we prefer to explore at our own pace, and, frankly, not to be bothered by other travellers who often get on our nerves during group tours.

We booked in advance and visited on a Wednesday, letting us get the cheapest tickets possible.

Bodleian Library

The two places we wanted to see at the Bodelian Library were: the Divinity School and Duke Humfrey’s Library, also known as the Hogwarts Hospital Wing and Hogwarts Library.

We took a 60-minute tour that combined both of these locations, but, looking at the official website, that tour isn’t available anymore.

You need to take a guided tour to access these places (including the Radcliffe Camera, which is only accessible on weekend tours), so the best advice we can give you:

• Check options of Bodleian Library tours online
• Consider which parts of the library you’re desperate to see
• Book online in advance, because tickets sell out and you don’t want to be rushing around on the day trying to buy them in person (on-the-day tickets are limited)

New College

• New College gets a lot of mixed reviews, because it can seem rather underwhelming, especially if you visit it after visiting Chris Church College
• If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you might be willing to pay the entrance fee to see the famous Malfoy tree from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire alone, even if you don’t care about the rest of the college
• The best way to save money here is to consider whether visiting New College is worth it for you at all
• You don’t have to prebook tickets, just show up and pay at the visitors entrance – so you can decide even last minute, whether it’s worth your money

Oxford Botanic Garden

• Oxford Botanic Garden is another place where we would advise you consider well whether it’s worth it for you
• The entrance fee is pretty high, especially if you only spend 30 mins walking around the garden
• To be honest with you, when we visited, in October, a lot of the garden was in a pre-winter state, so pretty meh to look at
• Double-check this when you go, but when we visited, the ticket price wasn’t any cheaper when bought in advance online, so we just bought on the day in the visitor centre – that way you can decide based on weather, which in the UK is infamously challenging (flexibility is important for outdoor activities like this!)

For us, Oxford Botanic Garden was one of the top places to visit, because of His Dark Materials, but if that means nothing to you, do think twice about spending money on it (unless you’re particularly into plants!). 

Btw, you can grab our full 3-day Oxford itinerary – you’ll especially enjoy it if you’re a Harry Potter or His Dark Materials fan.

How to save money on visiting Oxford colleges

Oxford college fees can easily add up, but there are a few money-saving tricks you can use.

A warning on Oxford colleges

First, a big warning and a general tip, though:

Check for closures when booking/planning a college visit.

Remember that these are working colleges with students and staff, so not all areas are accessible at all times to the public.

One thing that we saw over and over again: people not checking the dining hall opening times and trying to get in as students were having their lunch!

Make sure you check this information in advance and plan accordingly – you don’t wanna miss out on seeing, for example, The Great Hall at Christ Church College, because it’s closed for 2 hours for lunch and you have another tour booked elsewhere so can’t wait.

Money-saving tips for Oxford colleges

These are the 4 ways how you can save money when visiting Oxford colleges:

1. Consider cheaper or free colleges. There is a lot of talk online about the less popular colleges, and to be honest, we would have loved to visit those too, if we had the time. But on a limited 3-day itinerary, we wanted to make sure we saw the main ones – after all, they are popular for a reason.
2. Attend an evensong at a college. This is one of our favourite discoveries in Oxford! While a church service, you don’t have to be religious to attend, and, best of all, it means you can get into the colleges after hours and for free! Admittedly, you won’t be able to roam around, but it’s still a super cool experience, and, honestly, enjoyable even for atheists like ourselves.
3. Stay at a college. Did you know you can actually stay at Oxford colleges, even as a non-student? We really wanted to do this! The issue is dates are limited to the times when students aren’t there, and you don’t always get to stay on the main campus location. Plus, this might be important for you, it’s adults-only.
4. The last option is one we read about online, but didn’t try. People recommend pretending to be a student interested in checking out the college to get in for free. We’ll leave that suggestion for you to consider, together with the ethical implications and your ability to pull off a university student look.

Combine paid attractions with free things to do in Oxford

Yes, Oxford sights are expensive, but there is a lot you can do for free!

As you can see, we actually only did 4 paid activities – the rest was free, letting us do this trip to Oxford on a budget.

Here are the things we did in Oxford for free:

• Check out the Carfax Tower 
• Stroll around the Oxford Covered Market
• Browse the super cool Scriptum shop (warning: might result in a purchase, the things there are so cool!)
• Visit the University Church of St Mary and look up at the starry ceiling
• Attend an evensong or two
• Spend hours exploring Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the unique Pitt Rivers museum 
• Wander around the Gloucester Green Outdoor Market
• Try not to buy anything at the famous Blackwell’s bookshop (fun activity here: you can still see the first bookcase fitted in the shop in 1879! Can you find it?)
• And, obviously, just walking around and soaking up the otherworldly atmosphere of the city

Wait, there’s more – these are the free activities we had on our list, but didn’t manage to cover:

• All Souls College
• Ashmolean Museum (Britain’s first public museum!)
• Weston Library (part of Bodleian Library)
• Godstow Abbey & The Trout pub – for His Dark Material fans. This location was a bit too far for us to cover on the 3-day trip

Save money on food in Oxford

Eating out every day for 3 meals adds up fast, which is why we never do it.

Here is how we saved money on food in Oxford:

• We made our own breakfast at the accommodation. Our go-to breakfast when we stay in a place without a kitchen is porridge pots. You just pour water into them and use a spoon that is in the room for coffee to eat with. No mess, cheap to buy in a supermarket and filing.
• For lunch, if we’re in a hurry, or for dinner, if we’re tired and can’t be bothered eating out, we often get meal deals in the UK. If you’re not familiar with them, it’s the holy grail of eating in the UK: you get a main (like a sandwich), a drink, and a snack, for a set price – much cheaper than if you bought the 3 items individually. If you choose your 3 well, you can save more money than you spend! You can find meal deals in almost all supermarkets (our favourite is Tesco, for their price vs range).
• Prices in UK supermarkets are often cheaper if you have a loyalty card. If you can’t or don’t want to create a UK account for a couple shopping trips, just ask another customer to borrow theirs at the till. They’ll get some loyalty bonuses, like points, and you’ll get a cheaper price, so it’s a win-win.
• Another money-saving hack we often use is having a bigger breakfast, for example at a hotel, and then skipping lunch. This not only saves money on one meal, but also time, because you don’t have to break up your sightseeing with 1.5hrs in a restaurant. (We didn’t use this strategy in Oxford, but thought we should include it since it might help you).

Awesome places we ate at in Oxford on a budget

We do mostly live on supermarket meal deals in the UK, but there were a few places we ate out at that we want to recommend, because they were great and affordable:

• Najar’s Place: Lebanese wraps, paninis and snacks. Super tasty, but popular, so expect to wait. Also no seating, this is just a little sandwich hut, so grab-and-go situation (consider weather before buying).
• Love Coffee Co. High Street: cafe with cakes bigger than your travel bucket list. Delicious food and coffee, friendly, efficient staff and great prices.
• Ramen Korner: yummy ramen and katsu, which is Mirka’s go-to in the UK. This was a random discovery when we needed comfort food after a day of freezing outside in rainy weather.
• The Alternative Tuck Shop: popular sandwich shop, so expect great sandwiches, but big queues, if you come during peak times. No seating, grab-and-go style (consider weather).

Aside from grabbing coffee or hot chocolate to-go, these were the only 4 places where we ate out at.

We did have more on our list of affordable eats in Oxford, but we cannot vouch for these, since we didn’t try them (notes came from checking reviews and other info online – we do research a lot!):

• Meal Plus Oxford: this was near our awesome accommodation, The Mad Hatter. Asian food including katsu chicken, prices good for Oxford standards, highly rated, apparently big portions.
• The Spires Cafe: people rave about their all-day breakfast, prices good for Oxford, friendly staff, tasty-looking food, made from scratch.
• Rick’s Diner: handy if you end up staying at The Mad Hatter (or in that area). Breakfast, but also burgers, wraps and pancakes.

If you end up eating at any of these 3, will you let us know please? Actually, if you find another great budget place in Oxford, let us know too – we’re hoping for another trip there!

Don’t do what we did

While this is unlikely to happen to you, you never know. Weirder things have happened, like that time we thought we had zombies in our hotel room.

While in Oxford, we took a trip back to London.

Yep.

We came to Oxford via London on Tuesday.

And then on Wednesday we travelled back to London. And then a few hours later back to Oxford again.

No, we’re not mad.

We just went to a theatre show in London.

If you’re now wondering whether it didn’t waste us a lot of time and money – yes, yes it did.

And we regretted it big time, because the theatre show, The Hunger Games On Stage, turned out to be completely rubbish.

Before you start questioning our sanity, this is why we made such an expensive mistake:

• We were desperate to go to a theatre show, having moved out of the UK 3 years prior, to go full-time travelling, and not having been to the theatre ever since (plus London theatre is awesome!)
• When checking what shows were on, nothing stood out to us (we did consider Wicked, but decided against it. We did see it a year later, from the front seats, for a super cheap price)
• Then we came across Hunger Games On Stage. As big Hunger Games fans, this felt like a sign
• It was a brand new show – it was just launching when we went to Oxford, so it was hopelessly sold out
• We managed to grab 2 of the last 3 tickets left for night 3 of the show’s opening dates (see what it looked like)
• That meant they were expensive (£80 per person) and the timing didn’t suit us – we had to go to London from Oxford in the late afternoon, and then travel back after the show, getting to Oxford at 1am

We are known for doing crazy things (like travelling full-time. Or getting married in secret. Or spending 57 hours travelling from Asia to America to see 2 gigs), and this was also fun, we have to admit.

But we did regret the extra money and also the time we could have spent in Oxford instead.

Lesson from this: don’t make a dumb mistake like us, trying to cram more into your trip than you should.

Plan around what you actually want to see

We have to admit something.

This advice doesn’t come from our personal experience in Oxford, because we don’t do this anymore.

Years of travelling taught us this money-saving travel hack:

Don’t just check whether an attraction is worth it.

Check whether it’s worth it for YOU.

Yes, sometimes it’s hard to figure out based on info and reviews online, especially if you want to avoid spoilers.

But most of the time you can tell whether a place will be your vibe, or it’s just a tickbox exercise (side note: yes, Hunger Games On Stage was the exception).

We saw this a lot in Oxford.

So many people pay the expensive entrance fees, for example to Christ Church College, just to take photos of the famous Harry Potter locations, even if they don’t actually care about HP at all.

Trust us: it’s not worth wasting the money and time for a TikTok video.

When creating your itinerary, one of the best ways to save money is filling it with experiences that really matter to you, not ones that some travel blog listed as “must-see”.

Not everything needs to be “on a budget”

This is just a little reminder, because we know it’s easy to feel guilty about “splashing out” in expensive destinations, when your bank account is screaming at you: stick to the budget!!

The way we do this?

Off-setting.

We splash out on some things (e.g. Christ Church College entrance fee. Or a bad theatre show), but then save elsewhere (e.g. getting a meal deal instead of eating out. Choosing the cheapest transport from Oxford to London).

Remember, while you don’t wanna go broke, the point of the trip is to enjoy it, experience things, and create memories you’ll remember forever.

Just use the money-saving tips from this post, to save money on other stuff, and balance it all out.

Save on travel insurance

Travel insurance is annoying, because you know you should have it, but it feels so annoying, spending all this money on it, when you never end up needing it.

We know that feeling! When we were going full-time travelling, we knew we had to be covered, but seeing the cost of long-term travel insurance was really making us consider risking it!

But then we discovered that True Traveller can insure us for around £1 a day, and we knew we found the hack.

And then they turned out to be totally awesome when we made a claim too, so now we don’t worry about travel insurance anymore.

We just go to the True Traveller website, pop our trip details into the quote generator, and get the price in a few seconds.

Give it a go: it costs you nothing, but it might save you a lot of money.

How much we spent on our Oxford trip

We don’t often include actual prices in posts, because they change so much: from season to season and year to year.

But to give you an idea of how much we spent, doing Oxford on a budget, while enjoying more expensive activities (and a mad London side quest), here is our trip cost breakdown.

Just a note, this includes an extra night in London, on our way back from Oxford.

Item	Cost (£)
Accommodation	£396.48
Transport	£237.27
Activities	£261.00*
Food	£169.95
Total cost	£1,064.70

Now, if you do a bit more math:

• Daily cost: £1,064.70 /5 days = £212.94
• Cost per day per person: £106.47 

£106 per person per day is amazing, if you consider we visited two expensive locations: Oxford and London.

Just shows you what using smart, money-saving tips can do!

*Remember, this cost would be A LOT lower, if we didn’t spend £160 on the terrible Hunger Games On Stage theatre show. Actually, transport would be lower too, because the cost here includes going to London and back for the theatre show, from Oxford!

We hope all these money-saving tips showed you that you can also do Oxford on a budget.

If you have any questions, feel free to give us a shout on our Instagram.

And if you wish someone could help you plan an awesome, cheap Oxford trip? You can book a call with us and we can do exactly that!