Hey Ayylmao,
During my first term at Royal Holloway, I barely left campus at all because there was always stuff going on around the campus. Due to the nature of a campus university, there's such a hub of activity focused around the campus. When you do venture out, Egham High Street is about a ten-fifteen minute walk down the hill (or you can hop on the bus), and Englefield Green is about five minutes around the corner from the top of campus. Both Egham and Englefield Green have small shops, cafes, restaurants and things like hair dressers, and there's a Tesco, Waitrose, and Iceland down in Egham for your bigger grocery shops. You'll find certain little gems which are essential to student life at Royal Holloway.
If you ever wanted a day out shopping or to watch a movie, Staines is your best bet! There's a huge Vue cinema there, all the restaurants you can imagine, and it's only a 6 minute train journey away from Egham station. Then of course you have London which is about 40 minutes away and has everything you could imagine. I can't stress just how easy the journey into London is - I got some great work experience in London during my third year and commuted there three days a week. In terms of staying in London until quite late, the last major train back to Egham leaves Waterloo at around Midnight, but I ever missed that I would just get the tube to Heathrow airport and then a bus or taxi back to Egham (much cheaper than a taxi all the way from London!). There are so many other lovely areas around (Windsor is pretty close by, Reading is accessible by train) and places like the Windsor Great Park will become like a second home, especially during the summer.
In terms of cars, because of the amount of public transport I never really felt like I needed to have a car with me. Parking permits are only given to students who commute to university from outside a certain radius, or those students who live in Kingswood 1 or 2, so unless you lived in one of these Halls you wouldn't be able to bring a car onto campus. Like I said though, I didn't really feel like I was missing out on anything by not having a car. With travel cards in particular, getting the train becomes cheaper than driving and you don't have to worry about becoming the designated driver to every day out.
Founders is such a gorgeous Hall - have you had a chance to go into the rooms? The accommodation application system works via bands. So a single room in Founders might be band J, whereas a room in Williamson, Tuke, and Butler might be band A. Each band will take into account different contract lengths and whether the room is shared or not. When it comes to applying, you need to put all the bands down in the order you'd like that band (so, band J might be your first choice, and band A might be second). You're not necessarily guaranteed your first choice, but our team do try to work it out so that everyone's needs are met as best as possible.
I hope that helps! As always if you have any questions just let me know. You could also introduce yourself on our
2018 applicants thread to chat with some other people doing your course!
Summer