Travelodge Gatwick: one hotel by the airport, and the ring beyond

Travelodge Gatwick Airport Central stands on Povey Cross Road at RH6 0BE, by the airport's north-west corner and next door to the Holiday Inn, about a mile from the terminals. The name oversells the geography, Central it is not, but as a budget bed a five-minute drive from check-in it does the job the price implies: clean rooms, 24-hour reception, and none of the extras that push airport hotels up the rate card.

Rooms run from the standard double through family rooms to the quieter SuperRooms tier, with accessible and pet-friendly options; wifi is free at the basic speed. The Bar Cafe covers the essentials: an unlimited cooked breakfast from 06:00 (to 10:00 on weekdays, 11:00 at weekends, kids under 15 for £1 with a paying adult), evening meals from 17:00 to 22:00, and snacks at reception around the clock. Check-in opens at 15:00 and checkout is noon, with paid early and late options at busy margins.

The mile to the terminals is the price of the price, and there is no free shuttle to soften it. The shared Gatwick Hoppa bus serves the hotel and charges £4.50 per adult and £2.50 per child each way, £10 for a family of four, dropping at stop 9 at the South Terminal and stop 11 at North; heading back out, it picks up outside the North Terminal and from the ground-floor Orange pick-up zone at South. For a couple that is £18 return, which deserves a place in the maths when the room looked £20 cheaper than the competition.

The hotel's own taxi quotes are £15.50 for a standard four-seater and £21 for a six-to-eight-seat MPV, both including the £5 charge taxis pay to collect at Gatwick, so three or four people travelling together often ride for Hoppa money; taxi fares from Gatwick covers the operators and booking. Metrobus's 24-hour local routes run the corridor with app singles from £2.20, the walker's-budget option with luggage patience. Whatever the mode, check the first departure against your check-in time: the buses thin out in the small hours, and a 05:00 bag drop is exactly when you least want to improvise.

The car park is on site, first come, first served, and priced by the 24 hours: £15 from April to September and £11 from October to March, paid at the pay-and-display machine, by QR code, by phone or in the operator's app. Blue badge holders park free in the accessible bays with the badge displayed. For an overnight stop with a car, that is cheap and simple.

What it is not is holiday parking. Nothing can be booked, nothing is guaranteed on your return, and a fortnight at the summer rate would be £210 for the car alone, with no promise of a space to come back to. Leaving the car while you fly is the one job to take elsewhere: pre-booked long stay is built for it, and the park stay fly comparison shows when a night and the week's parking cost less bought together than the Travelodge-plus-anything version.

Travelodge Crawley is the brand's other local bed, in the town centre a few miles south of the runways: normal town hotel, normal town logic, fine before a midday flight with a taxi budgeted, no answer at all for a 06:00 departure. Beyond it, a Gatwick search on Travelodge's own site returns Redhill, East Grinstead, Dorking, Horsham, Hickstead and more, which are separate towns a good drive away, not airport hotels, whatever the results page implies.

The nearest like-for-like rival is the ibis Styles at County Oak, a mile further down the A23 with its own paid shuttle, and the budget comparison between the two usually comes down to the night's rate on the day. The full field, from in-terminal cabins to the walk-to budget beds, is mapped on where to stay at Gatwick.

The honest comparison is with the walk-to options a mile up the road. Premier Inn's hotel at the North Terminal charges more per night, then hands back the difference in kind: no £9 to £18 of bus fares, no taxi to book, no margin for a missed connection, just a five-minute covered walk to bag drop. Two people flying early, once Hoppa fares or a taxi are added, often find the true gap between the Travelodge and a walk-to bed is £10 or less, and that is a cheap price for a morning without moving parts.

The Travelodge wins cleanly in three cases: solo travellers, for whom the transfer adds £9 return rather than £18 or more; drivers stopping one night with the car outside; and anyone flying at a civilised hour who can ride the bus without watching the clock. It is a good budget hotel a mile from an airport. Book it as that, price the transfer honestly, and it will not disappoint; book it as an airport hotel and the £4.50s will find you at dawn.