I always drive myself to the airport. That can be a bit of a hassle, but these days, I no longer worry about where I’m going to park when I fly out of Heathrow International Airport. Over the last few years, I’ve travelled frequently on business and I’ve gained enough experience of the parking companies at Heathrow to consider myself a bit of an expert.

Almost all of the places where you can pay for long-term parking at Heathrow have CCTV cameras and security patrols. You can arrange your parking with most of them beforehand on the internet and their check-in procedures are a breeze these days. When selecting which company you’ll go with, it’s best to think about how much time you have on the day of your flight and how much money you want to spend on parking.

If you don’t mind spending a little extra, valet parking is the way to go. MBV Valet Parking will meet you at the airport at an arranged time and park your car for you. You call them when you land and your car will be waiting for you outside the terminal. You can even get it cleaned while you’re away.

The quaintly named Pink Elephant Parking and Parking Express are both easy to find on the airport grounds. Pink Elephant is closer to the terminals and their frequent shuttle only takes a few minutes to reach terminals 1, 2 and 3, and between 5 and 10 minutes to Terminal 4. Parking Express takes 15 minutes to reach the main terminals and slightly longer to get to Terminal 4.

My two favourite places to park are the Q-Park and Airways Crawford. At both locations, you car is parked for you and they will have your car ready for pick up when you return. It’s nice just to pull up, drop off your keys and head to the terminal. Airways Crawford is good if you are coming into Heathrow from the M4, but it’s not particularly close to the airport. Q-Park is easy to find and nearby, and has shuttles that take only 7 minutes.

If you are flying out of Terminal 4, or if you’re coming from the south and want to avoid traffic on the M4, Park and Fly is a good place to park. They have a shuttle that runs between 05:00 and 23:00 (on demand after those hours) which takes only a few minutes to get to Terminal 4.

Purple Parking is a fairly standard parking company about 15 minutes from the main terminals and with shuttles on demand, which means you don’t have to stand around waiting, like some other places.

You can usually save a few minutes by making your parking arrangements beforehand online. I never like to spend more than 5 minutes thinking about it, and I find these are the best websites for getting the job done quickly. On average I travel out of this airport twice a month and have tried every single available option, some have been inconvenient and cheap others a breeze but a bit more dear.