One of the best things about visiting London is that it is an incredibly easy city to travel in. Between the walking and using the Tube, you pretty much have the city at your fingertips.

Something I did notice, though, is the lack of gas stations in town. After three full days in London, I have yet to spy one anywhere.

At first this made a lot of sense to me since most people don’t drive as they do back home. I figured I was just used to seeing a gas station on every street corner back in America.

This would be valid reasoning except for the fact that there are a lot of cars in London. The narrow streets are filled with black cabs, tour buses and other European vehicles zooming and merging across lanes that seem tight for a bicycle let alone a compact car.

(As a side note, some streets in London have lanes dedicated to taxi use!)

Surely this meant that there had to be gas stations somewhere in London, even if I can’t find them. I did a little research and found out that in the past 40 years, about 30,000 petrol stations, or forecourts as they are also called in the U.K., have closed across the country, leaving about 8,600 stations left.

This has forced a lot of residents to commute to find the cheapest petrol since a lot of these stations use competitive pricing because of product’s scarcity. According to BBC News’ fuel price calculator, the average price for unleaded petrol is about £1.30 per liter (In dollars, that is about $2.20).

A small car here could probably hold about 40 liters, which amounts to £52, or $88.30! That’s pretty expensive.

Should I have been an Englishwoman, I think I would stick to the underground.