Hampton by Hilton Gatwick: the shortest walk at the North Terminal

The hotel occupies Longbridge House at RH6 0PJ, on the North Terminal's doorstep, and connects to the terminal's first floor by a covered walkway you can cross in about two minutes, the airport's own figure. Only Bloc and YOTELAIR, which sit inside the South Terminal building itself, put a bed nearer a check-in desk; on the North side nothing is closer, with the Sofitel and Premier Inn both about five minutes along the same frontage. What that buys is certainty: no shuttle timetable, no forecourt, no weather, just a corridor between your alarm and the bag drop covered in the North Terminal guide.

The North Terminal is easyJet's terminal, which makes the Hampton the closest bed to the biggest airline's earliest departures. A South Terminal flight still works from here: two minutes into the terminal, then the free shuttle across in another two, around the clock, for about 15 minutes door to desk. Arriving by train from London means the same hop in reverse, since the station sits at South.

The 194 rooms follow the Hampton formula: doubles, twins and configurations with sofa beds, connecting rooms and cots for families, free wifi throughout, and a fitness room downstairs. It is a simpler building than its full-service neighbours, non-smoking to the last e-cigarette, and it does not take pets; the Hilton across at South is the on-airport option that does. Check-in opens at 15:00 and checkout is noon.

Breakfast is the brand's whole argument. A free hot breakfast comes with every rate, and it changes the arithmetic between the North Terminal's hotels more than any headline price does: a couple comparing rooms should add two breakfasts to every rival's rate before deciding, and a family of four should add four. Beyond breakfast the kitchen ambitions stop deliberately at a lobby bar and lounge with drinks and light bites; for a proper dinner, the terminal two minutes away carries the restaurants, covered in the North Terminal's restaurants, and the Sofitel's four venues are a short walk along the frontage when the occasion justifies them.

The hotel's site quotes covered self-parking at £60 per day, and the number is best read as a signpost rather than an invitation: this is terminal-doorstep land, where parking is priced like the short stay car parks because effectively it is one. Nobody should build a trip on it.

Drivers have two sensible shapes instead. For a night before flying, pre-book an official space and treat the room and the car separately; every parking option at Gatwick sets out the car parks and the pre-book discounts. For a night plus a week or two away, price hotel and parking bundles, which pair walkway hotels like this one with the official long stay compounds at package rates. Either way the £60 stays unspent, which is the point.

The Hampton is the efficient middle of the North Terminal's three walk-to hotels, and for a lot of travellers the quietly correct answer. Book it for the early easyJet departure where the two-minute walk converts directly into sleep, for family mornings where a hot breakfast for everyone is already paid for, and for any trip where you want the walkway hotel experience without the Sofitel's rate card. The breakfast maths is the recurring theme: the more of you there are, the better this hotel prices against its neighbour.

Its limits are just as clear. There is no restaurant for the evening, no pets, no useful parking, and nothing about it is a treat; it is a well-run corridor to a check-in desk with a good breakfast attached. Solo travellers hunting the lowest rate will often find its Premier Inn neighbour undercuts it once breakfast is skipped, and anyone making an occasion of the night before should look at the Sofitel up the frontage or the Hilton across at South. The whole field is at every hotel at Gatwick compared.