Once you're a Londoner, how will you pay to travel around?

Well...

First thing's first, buying single tickets in London can be very expensive. Instead, get an Oyster card; it’s a smart card that you can use to pay for your travel. You simply top it up with money and then use it by tapping it on the readers. Also, within one hour of touching-in, you can make unlimited journeys for the same price, whether it's a bus, train, the Tube or Overground.

You can also use a contactless debit or credit card instead of an Oyster card, but if you’re coming from abroad, make sure your bank doesn’t charge you a fee every time you make a foreign transaction. We suggest that you get a UK bank account set up ASAP to avoid this but also make life easier! Using a contactless debit/credit card is even smarter than the regular Oyster card as it automatically gives you a weekly cap on spending so that you don't end up spending a fortune. 

Try not to put too much money on your Oyster card before enrolling though; once you become an official UoL student, you will be able to apply for a Student Oyster Photocard that will give you a discount on your travelcards, i.e. weekly and monthly tickets, but NOT pay as you go journeys. End up having a spare Oyster card? No problem, it will come in handy when your friends or family will visit.

You can calculate the cost of a single trip and compare it with prices of travelcards and caps to make sure that you're sticking to your budget and not overspending.