Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It's Tuesday the 3rd of February.

Is flying really cheaper? That is the title of an online event that's being held on Thursday the 5th of February by Flight Free UK. I'm lucky enough to be speaking to the

director, friend of the podcast, Anna Hughes. Anna is flying really cheaper. Well, mostly yes.

A lot of the time it is, Simon, yes. So, and that's one of the reasons why people tend to

choose air travel over other forms because it's cheaper. But it's not always cheaper. And because we have a perception that it is, we kind of blindly believe that it always is. So what we're going to do in this event is look at the real situations where taking a flight, once you've added all the extras, so you've paid for your

15 pound seat, but you've also paid for baggage, you've also paid to get to the airport, all of

the extra stuff. So we'll look at those scenarios when overall, actually taking the train is

equal or cheaper, and we'll look at why air travel can be so cheap, so things like the tax

situation. And then we've also got some

really good budget tips. So if you are wanting to travel without flying, but you're trying to look for

those cheaper options, we'll have all those tips for you. Well, thank you. I could do with some

of those. My particular grudge, I suppose, is just on Eurostar, because it it is particularly for short notice trips extraordinarily

expensive between London and Paris. You can easily pay £400 return and with no competition

likely until really the end of the decade that will continue. So I'm always going to be able to fly at short notice more

cheaply to Paris than I am to be able to take the train. So I'm kind of falling at the first

hurdle. Can you help me? Well, many people do, because as you say, Eurostar is the first thing that

many people will take to get to the continent to start with. And some of the furs can be eye-watering. There is

the low fare finder on Eurostar, which on the Euristar website, which will show you the £39

pounds fares because that's where it starts. So as with anything, the cheaper fares are

going to be available more in advance. But Euristar does introduce, they do introduce 39 pound fares every so often. So it's,

if you look one day and that particular train is sold out, doesn't mean there won't be

39 pound fares in the future. So you can keep that as a bookmark on your computer. And there's

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