Every stop on the London line, reviewed before you tap in.
Which Crown Jewels ticket beats the queue, what the Leavesden studio really costs, and whether Bath or the Cotswolds deserves your one day out of town.
Five stops that carry a first trip to London.
A fortress, a coronation church, the studio where the wizards were filmed, an East End night walk and the stones on Salisbury Plain.
- 1Tower Hill
Tower of London and Crown Jewels Exhibition TicketCrown Jewels first, before the queue snakes back along the moat. Then the walls and the ravens. - 2Westminster
Westminster Abbey Entrance TicketEvery coronation since 1066 happened under this roof. Give it two unhurried hours. - 3Leavesden
Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio TourThe sets, the costumes and the Hogwarts model. Timed tickets only, never sold at the door. - 4Whitechapel
The Original Jack the Ripper Walking TourThe autumn of 1888, walked through the streets where it happened, after dark. - 5Salisbury Plain
Stonehenge, Windsor Castle and Bath with Pub Lunch in LacockStonehenge, Windsor and Bath in one coach day, with a pub lunch in Lacock between them.
Stonehenge, Windsor, Bath, the Cotswolds or Oxford: pick your coach.
Most London day trips leave the centre before nine and get back after dark. Five directions, what a seat costs on each, and the kind of day each one gives you.
Best of★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Oxford Day Trip from London · from $123
StonehengeThe stones at opening, often paired with Windsor or Bath.
Windsor CastleThe oldest occupied castle in the world, under an hour west.
BathRoman baths and Georgian crescents, usually with Stonehenge on the way.
The CotswoldsHoney-stone villages and a long pub lunch, by small coach.
OxfordColleges, the Bodleian and the dining hall the films borrowed.
All 68 day trips from London →
Tower Hill, Westminster, the Mall, Bloomsbury: London’s big six.
A fortress that keeps the Crown Jewels, the coronation church, the palace at the end of the Mall, a bridge that still lifts for tall ships, Wren’s dome and a museum that is free to walk into. The best way in to each.
What London books more than anything else.
Every London review →From the wheel on the South Bank to the studio out at Leavesden, the tours more visitors take than any others in the city.
1
The London Eye Entry Ticket
Ride one of the London Eye’s 32 glass capsules for about 30 minutes, reaching 135 meters above the Thames. Choose standard or fast-track admission, depending on the ticket you book. A free guide app for iOS and Android can help you identify sights, while the slow-moving wheel gives you time to look around and take photos.
Tickets from $39
Read our review →
2
Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio Tour
from $117
3
Magical London: Harry Potter Guided Walking Tour
from $20
4
Madame Tussauds London
from $36
5
Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath from London
from $111
6
Tower Bridge Entry Ticket
from $21
7
Westminster Abbey Entrance Ticket
from $41
8
London Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Tour with Optional River Cruise
from $39
The Thames is the quickest road from Westminster to Greenwich.
Sightseeing boats, river buses, a speedboat under Tower Bridge and afternoon tea on deck. Half the landmarks face the water, so the boat is the view and the commute at once.
2
3London is where the wizards were filmed. Leavesden is where the sets live.
Platform 9¾ at King’s Cross, the Leadenhall Market alley that stood in for Diagon Alley, the Millennium Bridge the Death Eaters wrecked, and the studio out at Leavesden with the Great Hall still standing.
Every Harry Potter tour →
London walks: Ripper streets, wizard alleys, the pubs Dickens drank in.
The City and the East End were laid out long before cars and still make most sense at walking pace. A crawl through the old City pubs, the Ripper streets after dark and a ghost walk that ends on the river, plus every other kind of walk worth knowing about.
Four London bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of London can be decided over breakfast. These four run on timed slots, royal calendars and church services, and turning up on the day is how people miss them.
- 01Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio TourNo tickets at the door. Every visit is a timed slot booked in advance, and school-holiday weekends go weeks out.
- 02Buckingham Palace: The State Rooms Entrance TicketThe State Rooms open to visitors for roughly ten summer weeks, July into September. The rest of the year the palace is a view through the railings.
- 03Westminster Abbey Entrance TicketA working church first: no sightseeing on Sundays, and services or state events close it at short notice.
- 04Buckingham Palace & Changing of the Guard ExperienceThe guard does not change every day outside summer, and rain or state events cancel it. Check the date before you plan a morning around it.
Cabbies, closed Tube stations and the autumn of 1888.
Every city has a skyline tour. Only London has drivers who spent years learning every street, stations the Underground shut and kept, and a murder case still argued over well over a century later.
Black Cab Tours
Every licensed London cabbie passed the Knowledge: around 25,000 streets within six miles of Charing Cross, learned on a scooter over three or four years. A cab tour hires that memory by the hour, and the driver takes the lanes no coach can fit down.
- 1The Premier Classic London: Private 4-Hour Tour in a Black Cab★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,737 reviews
- 2Private Tour: Black Taxi Tour of London★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,153 reviews
- 3London Sightseeing Private Black Cab Tour with Hotel Pick Up★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 917 reviews
Closed Tube Stations
Aldwych shut in 1994 and has since played half the Underground on film. Down Street, under Mayfair, sheltered Churchill’s war cabinet during the Blitz. A handful of these stations open to small guided groups, on dates released in batches that go quickly.
- 1Aldwych: Hidden Tube Station Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 54 reviews
- 2Hidden Baker Street Tube Station Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 51 reviews
- 3Guided Tour of Hidden Tube Station at Charing Cross★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 20 reviews
Jack the Ripper
Five women were murdered in and around Whitechapel between August and November 1888, and the killer was never named. The evening walks follow the sites through streets that are now curry houses and offices, and the better guides keep the victims at the centre of the story.
- 1The Original Jack the Ripper Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 7,833 reviews
- 2London Jack the Ripper Guided Tour with Ripper-Vision★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 4,840 reviews
- 3Jack the Ripper Small Group Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,159 reviews
From a Thames ferry ticket to a chauffeured Cotswold day: what London costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted into three price bands. The cheap end is busier than the city’s reputation suggests.
Entry tickets, Thames boats, Ripper walks and guided hours inside the free museums.
- 1The London Eye Entry Ticketfrom $39
- 2Magical London: Harry Potter Guided Walking Tourfrom $20
- 3Madame Tussauds Londonfrom $36
The Leavesden studio, Stonehenge coaches and the classic day out to Bath or Oxford.
Private black cabs, chauffeured Cotswold days and the once-a-trip splurges.
London in the rain: galleries, war rooms and a proper afternoon tea.
It will rain, usually briefly and usually on the day you planned the long walk. The answer is always a roof. The big museums cost nothing to enter, the war rooms sit underground, and afternoon tea was more or less invented for a grey four o’clock.
By neighbourhood, river to market
By kind of day: landmark, river, pint or pitch
New London reviews, from the South Bank to Salisbury Plain.
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