Accommodation and travel
Getting to Brighton & Hove is easy. It's just under an hour by rail from London and only half an hour from London Gatwick Airport. The city is also served by a direct rail link from the Eurostar Service at St Pancras, as well as being easily accessible from the major ports of Dover, Portsmouth, Southampton and the local port of Newhaven. National Express coaches regularly service the city, and the UK rail network is another good option for travelling within the UK.
01 Getting to the conference
Trains to Brighton from Gatwick take approximately 30 minutes direct and run regularly. For trains from Heathrow to Brighton, your best bet is to take the London Underground to London Victoria and connect with a mainline train to Brighton. Trains to Brighton from Stansted take approximately 2 hours 30 minutes. The journey involves two changes, usually at Tottenham Hale for an Underground train to Victoria, where you connect with a mainline train to Brighton. Thameslink offers a regular and direct service to Brighton from Luton Airport, which takes approximately 2 hours.
Coaches are a cost-effective way of travelling to Brighton from almost anywhere in the UK or Europe. They tend to take longer than train journeys of the equivalent route, but are generally clean and comfortable, with onboard toilet facilities.
The key railway operators to Brighton are Southern and Thameslink. Trains to Brighton arrive at the mainline station on Queens Road. Regular rail connections also serve Hove and take just a few minutes from Brighton.
Once you arrive in Brighton, the easiest way to get around is on foot, bicycle or public transport. Most of Brighton’s hotels are on or within a short walk of the seafront. The seafront itself is a 10-minute straight-line walk from Brighton train station, or there’s a taxi rank behind the station.
Find out more about getting to Brighton, and getting around, including accessibility in the city, on the Visit Brighton website.
02 Visas and entry to the UK
Please note that all non-UK passport holders are now required to complete an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to travel to the UK from abroad. Make sure you apply for your ETA in plenty of time. Use the official UK government website to avoid extra charges and scams. Currently the ETA is £16.
If you’re coming to the BISA conference from outside the UK, you might also need a visa. Check if this applies to you at www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa.
Once you have been accepted to present on the conference programme, and you have registered and paid to attend, we can provide you with a letter to confirm this. You will make your request for a visa letter as part of the registration process. We aren’t legally allowed to provide general letters of invite to the conference.
If you are applying for a standard visitor visa (please do not assume this is the correct visa for you – use the link at the top of this section to find out), current government guidance states that the earliest you can apply is three months before travel. Therefore, you will need to register and pay for the conference before obtaining your visa. We will issue a refund to any delegate who is turned down for a visa. Please send proof to office@bisa.ac.uk.
Requests for visa letters are made as part of your conference registration. This means that all requests should be made by the 2 March 2026 deadline for speaker registration. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide visa letters for conference observers.
Please ensure you follow the visa application instructions very closely.
03 Accommodation
With so much to see and do all year round, both in the city and into Sussex, Brighton makes a great place to stay and explore. There’s an incredible choice of accommodation to suit every budget. If you’re looking for wow-factor accommodation, then Brighton has no shortage of stylish boutique hotels and B&Bs all offering something different. If you’re looking for budget accommodation, there are a wide range of independent guest houses, seaside B&Bs and big brand hotels to pick from. There are also plenty of self-catering options scattered throughout the city.
We are pleased to offer specially negotiated accommodation rates for attendees through Visit Brighton. The booking website is open for bookings until 25 May 2026 but we advise early booking in order to guarantee your preferred hotel.
Of course, you are also free to look for alternative places to stay.
Top photo by Young Jeffrey on Unsplash