Crawley is an excellent location is you need access to Gatwick sirport.  Not only does the town boast a good range of hotels and guest houses, but it also has great travel links to Gatwick and London. 

The Crawley Fastway is a new bus service starting in Crawley that can use 'self steering' buses along a special track and will connect Crawley to Gatwick and Horley. As the buses have their own track they ave less problems with traffic congestion. At the time of writing the project is planed for completion towards the end of 2006.

History
The area surrounding Crawley has had been populated rght back into the Stone Age.  The districts has a boost during the Roman occupation as Iron works were prosperous. Some districts of Crawley are mentioned in the Doomsday Book and in 1203 the town has it's first offical weekly town market.

Being on the major road and rail connection to the seaside resort of Brighton gave a huge boost to the growth of Crawley.  The change of use of nearby Gatwick Manor to a racecourse also helped the area. 

During WWII Crawley was considered far enough from London to host a few refugees and the town came thought the war with only a few bombing raids.

Post WWII Crawley was designated a New Town and the population grew six fold from it's pre-war levels; this was no doubt pushed along by the expansion of near by Gatwick into the UK's second largest airport.