Getting to Anfield: Directions, Transport & Parking
Anfield sits three kilometres north of the city centre with no station of its own, so here is every honest way to reach the ground, where you can park, and how much time to leave before your slot.
Anfield does not sit on a train line. That one fact trips up more first-time visitors than anything else about the trip, because a football ground this famous feels like it should have a station at the door, and it does not. What it has instead is a compact tangle of bus routes, a short taxi hop from town, and a residential grid where almost every kerb is spoken for. Get the plan right and you are at the Tour Centre with time to spare. Get it wrong and you are jogging up Walton Breck Road watching your timed slot tick away.
The ground is about three kilometres due north of Liverpool city centre, in the Anfield district of Merseyside. The stadium tour meets at the Anfield Tour Centre on Anfield Road, postcode L4 0TH, next to the Main Stand and the Paisley Gateway. Everything below is written for that address and for a normal, non-match visit, which is when the Liverpool Stadium Tour runs at its full length and its calmest. If you would rather settle a date and slot before you work out the journey, the sibling guide on opening times and the quietest slots pairs neatly with this one.
How long it takes to reach Anfield from the city centre
Journey times from the middle of Liverpool on a normal day. Match-day traffic pushes every mode towards the top of its range, so add half an hour when a fixture is on.
How do you get to Anfield from Liverpool city centre?
From the city centre the quickest reliable option is a taxi or ride-hail, roughly ten to fifteen minutes and about six to eight pounds. Scheduled buses take fifteen to twenty minutes for a couple of pounds. There is no direct train to the ground, so any rail journey ends with a connecting bus or a walk of a mile or so.
Three kilometres is an awkward distance in a city. It is a little far to walk comfortably before a tour, close enough that a taxi barely registers on the meter, and served by buses that are frequent but not always obvious to a visitor. The table below lays the realistic options side by side, with honest times rather than best-case ones. Traffic on the approach roads is light on a quiet weekday morning and heavy on a match weekend, so the higher end of each range is what you should plan around if the fixture list is busy.
| Option | Where you catch it | Typical journey | Rough cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taxi or ride-hail | Anywhere in the centre | 10 to 15 min | Around GBP 6 to 8 | Small groups, tight schedules |
| Bus 26 or 27 | Liverpool ONE, Queen Square | 15 to 20 min | A couple of pounds | Solo and budget travellers |
| Walk | North out of the centre | About 40 min | Free | Dry days, time to spare |
| Drive and park | Own car or hire | 15 min plus parking | Fuel plus car park | Non-match days only |
| Train then bus | Merseyrail Northern line | 25 to 35 min | Rail fare plus bus | Arriving by mainline rail |
For most visitors the honest recommendation is simple: if there are two or more of you, split a taxi, because the fare divides down to bus money and you arrive within a few minutes of leaving the hotel. On your own, the bus is the local's choice and costs a fraction as much. Save the walk for a dry morning when you have booked a later slot and fancy seeing a slice of the city on the way. Whichever you pick, cross-check it against the best time to visit so you are not fighting match-day traffic in the first place.
Which buses go to Anfield, and where do they stop?
The everyday buses are the 26 and the 27, which run from the city centre up to the ground and stop on Walton Breck Road and Anfield Road, a few minutes' walk from the Tour Centre. The 17, 68, 14 and 19 also pass within walking distance. On a normal tour day these scheduled services, not any special shuttle, are how locals reach Anfield.
The 26 leaves from the Liverpool ONE bus station on the waterfront and the 27 follows a similar spine north, both threading through the centre before climbing towards the stadium. Between them they give you a bus every few minutes across the day. You tap on with a contactless card or a paper ticket, and the fare is a flat couple of pounds within the city zone. The stops closest to the ground sit on Walton Breck Road behind the Kop and on Anfield Road beside the Tour Centre, so you step off almost at the gates.
If you are not sure which route reaches your part of the city, the Merseytravel journey planner maps every service and live time in one place, and it is the source worth trusting over a generic maps app for Merseyside buses. One honest caution: the numbers and exact stops can shift when roadworks or events reroute traffic near the ground, so check the same morning rather than relying on a printout from home.
Can you get to Anfield by train?
No station serves Anfield directly. The nearest Merseyrail stops are Sandhills and Kirkdale on the Northern line, both around a mile from the ground, so a rail journey finishes with a connecting bus or a twenty to twenty-five minute walk. Mainline arrivals come into Lime Street, which is central, then continue by bus or taxi.
This is the part that surprises people. Liverpool has an excellent local rail network, the Merseyrail underground loops beneath the city, and yet none of it drops you at the stadium. If you are coming from further afield on the national network, you arrive at Lime Street, the city's mainline terminus, and from there you are in the centre and back to the bus or taxi options above. National Rail carries the live times for those long-distance services.
| Arriving at | Onward to Anfield | Rough time |
|---|---|---|
| Lime Street (mainline) | Bus 26 or 27, or a taxi | 15 to 20 min |
| Sandhills (Northern line) | Walk, or a connecting bus | 20 to 25 min |
| Kirkdale (Northern line) | Short walk or bus | 15 to 20 min |
| Moorfields (city underground) | Change to bus in the centre | 20 to 25 min |
The practical takeaway: treat the train as a way of reaching Liverpool, not a way of reaching the ground. Once you are in the centre, fall back on the bus or the taxi. Sandhills is worth knowing about for one reason only, which the next section covers, and that reason applies on match days rather than tour days.
What about the Soccerbus and match-day buses?
The Soccerbus and the 917 express are match-day services, not tour transport. They run only around fixtures, the Soccerbus shuttling from Sandhills station and the 917 running from near Lime Street. Because the stadium tour is closed or shortened on home match days, most tour visitors never use either one.
It is worth being clear about this, because visitors read about the Soccerbus and assume it is the way to the ground. It is not, at least not for a tour. The Soccerbus runs from Sandhills for every Premier League and cup match, starting about three hours before kick-off, with the last bus out roughly fifteen minutes before the whistle and return services for about ninety minutes afterwards. The 917 express runs direct from Commutation Row near Lime Street every ten minutes on a match day and reaches the ground in around a quarter of an hour.
Both exist to move tens of thousands of supporters on the handful of days a year when the stadium is full. On those same days the standard tour is restricted or cancelled, so the two rarely overlap. If you are pairing a museum visit with a match, or you have decided to weigh up a tour against a matchday, these shuttles matter. For a normal behind-the-scenes visit, put them out of your mind and use the scheduled 26 or 27, or a taxi.
Is there parking near Anfield for the stadium tour?
Yes, but it is tight. Stanley Park Car Park on the corner of Utting Avenue and Priory Road, postcode L4 0TQ, is the main option on non-match days, first come first served, with fifty accessible spaces. Every surrounding street is a residents' permit zone, enforced hard on match, concert and major-event days.
On a normal tour day, meaning a day with no home fixture, Stanley Park Car Park is your closest bet. It sits across the park from the ground, a five to ten minute walk that brings you out near the Tour Centre, and it takes cars on a first-come basis rather than by booking. Spaces are limited and disappear early on sunny weekends, so treat an early slot and an early arrival as one decision rather than two.
The streets themselves are a trap. Liverpool operates a residents' parking scheme across the whole area around the stadium, and enforcement is active on match days, concert days and other major events, when roads may also close before and after the event. Liverpool FC's official parking guidance is blunt about it and steers match-day visitors onto public transport altogether. Accessible parking on match days is allocated in advance by ballot through Supporter Services, not on the day.
| Where | Location | Non-match day | Match day | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stanley Park Car Park | Utting Ave / Priory Rd, L4 0TQ | Best option, first come | Permit and reserved only | 50 accessible spaces |
| Residential streets | Around the ground | Permit-restricted | Enforced, avoid | Tickets and tows do happen |
| City-centre car parks | Liverpool ONE and around | Plentiful, then bus or taxi | Plentiful, then bus or taxi | Simplest on a busy day |
| Accessible match-day bays | Near the stadium | Use Stanley Park | Advance ballot only | Book via Supporter Services |
The stress-free version, if you are driving into the city anyway, is to leave the car in a proper city-centre car park and hop the last three kilometres by bus or taxi. You skip the permit lottery entirely, and you land back among the hotels and the waterfront when the tour is done. If you would rather not drive at all, the guide to where to stay within reach of the ground covers the areas that put you a short walk or a single bus from the gates.
How do you get to Anfield from the airports and further afield?
Liverpool John Lennon Airport is about eighteen kilometres south-east of the ground, and Manchester Airport about fifty-five kilometres east, roughly forty-five to sixty minutes away by road or rail. From either, aim for Liverpool city centre first, then take a bus or a taxi the final three kilometres north to Anfield.
Nobody flies into Anfield, so every long journey resolves to the same last step: reach the centre, then cover the last few kilometres locally. John Lennon Airport is the closer of the two and sits on the same side of the city, with an airport bus and taxis running into town in well under half an hour. Manchester Airport is the bigger international gateway and has direct trains into Lime Street, which is the cleaner option than driving across on the M62 at a busy hour.
| Coming from | To the city centre by | Then to Anfield |
|---|---|---|
| Liverpool John Lennon Airport | Airport bus or taxi, under 30 min | Bus 26 or 27, or taxi |
| Manchester Airport | Direct train to Lime Street | Bus 26 or 27, or taxi |
| By car (M62 or M57) | Drive into a city-centre car park | Bus or taxi the last 3 km |
| By coach | National Express to Liverpool ONE | Bus or taxi from the stop |
If you are building a full day around the visit, Liverpool rewards it. The waterfront, the Albert Dock and the Beatles landmarks all cluster in a compact, walkable centre, so an early tour slot leaves the afternoon free. Reading up on which Anfield tour suits you before you travel means the journey ends at the right door, whether that is the standard walk or the longer Legends experience.
How much time should you leave to reach Anfield and check in?
Leave the city centre at least forty-five minutes before your slot, and aim to reach the Tour Centre fifteen to twenty minutes early. The tour runs on timed entry, groups leave promptly, and a late arrival is pushed to the next available slot or turned away entirely, with no automatic refund for a missed departure.
Timed entry is the reason the buffer matters. Check-in means scanning your e-ticket, collecting any wristband, and being sorted into a group that leaves on the clock. A tour that departs at ten does not wait for the stragglers off the delayed bus. Build in slack for the things that go wrong on the approach: a bus held up by roadworks, a taxi caught in match traffic you did not know about, the extra few minutes it takes to find the right entrance the first time.
| Coming from | Leave this far before your slot |
|---|---|
| A city-centre hotel by taxi | 40 to 45 min |
| The centre by bus | 50 to 60 min |
| Outside the city by car | Add 30 min on top for parking |
| A match weekend, any mode | Add another 30 min for traffic |
Once the timing is sorted, the last thing to settle is the booking itself. Slots go in order across the day and the early ones fill first, so it is worth reading how far ahead to book and then going straight to reserving your time slot. Sort the ticket, leave the buffer, and the journey becomes the easy part of the day rather than the anxious one. The full picture, live prices and the booking for the official Anfield stadium tour all sit on the main Liverpool Stadium Tour homepage.
