By Harry Nara · Last updated
Yes, and the most useful thing anyone can tell you about London is that you should not buy a travel ticket. Tapping your own contactless bank card or phone is the cheapest way to move around the city, it caps itself daily and weekly so you cannot overspend, and every product sold to visitors as a convenience is worse value than doing nothing. Almost everything else about a first visit is easy. London is expensive to sleep in, free to look at, and unusually honest about what it costs.
Most first-time advice about London is out of date in one specific way: it tells you to buy something. Oyster cards, Travelcards, visitor passes and bundled sightseeing tickets all still exist and are all still sold, and for a normal visit none of them beat simply tapping the card already in your pocket.
What is left after that is a city that asks very little of you. There is no language barrier, no dress code, no advance-booking gauntlet of the kind Rome and Paris impose, and the best museums in the country charge nothing at the door. The mistakes below are small and cheap. They are worth reading anyway, because they are the ones everybody makes.
How long do you need in London?
Four days, five if you want to leave the centre. London is not a walkable city in the way Paris or Rome are, and the distances between the things you have heard of are longer than the map lets on. Three days is a real trip if you treat it as three districts rather than a list of monuments.
Before you go
Transport for London prices pay as you go so that tapping a contactless card or phone costs the same as an Oyster and caps automatically, both daily and across the week from Monday to Sunday, anywhere in zones one to nine. You cannot spend more than the cap however many journeys you make, which means the ticket you would have agonised over buying is calculated for you after the fact. Many cards issued outside the UK work, and TfL says plainly that even with overseas charges this is often still cheaper than buying an Oyster. The Visitor Oyster in particular is a product to walk past: it cannot be registered, so if you lose it the money on it is gone.
This is the one thing that can make the advice above wrong. A card that levies a flat fee per transaction rather than a percentage will punish you for tapping several times a day. If that is your card, use a travel card that does not, or fall back to an Oyster.
London has a short list of time-slotted attractions and a very long list of world-class places that take no booking and charge nothing. The national museums are the second kind. Work out which of the things on your list are paid and timed before you pay for a bundled sightseeing pass, because the pass is competing against a city where the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Tates and the Natural History Museum are free to walk into.
Once you are there
The rule is not symmetrical and it costs money to get wrong. Trains charge by distance, so the system needs both ends of your journey and will assume the most expensive possible trip if you fail to touch out. Buses are a flat fare and only want you on the way in. Tapping out of a bus does nothing, and standing at the door hunting for a reader while people wait behind you marks you out more surely than an accent.
If you touch in with your phone and out with the plastic card the same account sits behind, London sees two people who each made half a journey and charges both of them the maximum. It is the single most common way visitors overpay, and it is invisible until the statement arrives. Pick one card or one device on day one and stay with it, including for anyone travelling with you, who needs their own.
Higher fares apply Monday to Friday between half past six and half past nine in the morning and again between four and seven in the evening, and are charged on the time you touch in. Weekends and public holidays are off-peak throughout. One exception catches people arriving jet-lagged: any Tube or Elizabeth line journey to or from Heathrow that starts, ends or passes through Zone 1 is charged at the peak rate whatever the clock says.
On escalators, the right side is for standing and the left is for walking, and this is observed with a seriousness that surprises people. Blocking the left is the one piece of everyday rudeness Londoners will react to out loud.
What it costs
London reverses the usual shape of a city break. Accommodation is punishing and very little else is, because the institutions that would be the expensive centrepiece of a trip anywhere else are free. The British Museum, the National Gallery, the Tate galleries, the Natural History and Science Museums and the V and A all cost nothing to enter, and that is not a concession for quiet months or a queue to be endured; it is simply how they work. Budget for the bed and the food, and treat the culture as the part you do not have to pay for.
Tipping is lighter than North America and more confusing than it needs to be, mostly because restaurants often add a service charge of around twelve and a half percent to the bill themselves. If it is there, that is the tip, and adding more on top is generous rather than expected. If it is not there, ten percent is normal. In a pub you order and pay at the bar and you do not tip at all, which visitors find harder to believe than anything else on this page.
Cash has become close to optional. Cards are taken almost everywhere including on buses, market stalls and black cabs, and a number of places no longer accept notes at all. Carrying a small amount is sensible rather than necessary.
Going with children
London is generous to families in a way that shows up directly in the budget: up to four children under eleven travel free on the Tube, DLR, London Overground and Elizabeth line when they are with a fare-paying adult, and the great museums that would be the expensive part of the day charge nothing. The Science Museum and the Natural History Museum are built for children rather than tolerant of them. The things to plan around are the Underground itself, which is deep, hot in summer and poorly supplied with lifts at older stations, and the distances, which turn a cheerful morning into a long afternoon faster than parents expect. Buses are slower than the Tube and far better with small children, because they are at street level, they have room for a pushchair, and there is something to look at.
Going alone
London is comfortable alone and largely indifferent to you, which is the quality solo travellers usually want. Eating by yourself is unremarkable, pubs are designed for people who arrive without a plan, and the city is busy enough late that walking back is normal rather than brave. Two practical notes. The Tube stops around midnight on most lines, with the Night Tube running on a handful of them on Friday and Saturday only, and night buses cover the rest of the week, so check which applies before you commit to the last round. And London is a city of small conversations rather than instant friendships; the solo traveller who expects a hostel-common-room welcome from a pub will find it polite and slightly closed.
Mistakes worth avoiding
You are paying in advance for a cap the system would have applied to you for nothing. The Visitor Oyster cannot even be registered, so losing it loses the balance.
Two incomplete journeys, two maximum fares, and no sign anything went wrong until you read the statement. Pick one and keep to it.
Sightseeing bundles quietly include admission to places that never charged you. Check the individual prices of the three or four things you came for before buying any pass.
A service charge of about twelve and a half percent is frequently on the bill already. Read it before you add anything, and never tip at a pub bar.
It is fast and it is underground, which means it is also the option that shows you nothing. Central London is more walkable than the Tube map implies, and two stations on the same line are often five minutes apart on foot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is London worth visiting for a first-time traveller?
Yes, and it is one of the least demanding first trips in Europe. There is no language barrier, no advance-booking system to navigate for most of the city, and the major national museums are free to enter. The one real cost is accommodation, which is high by any standard. Plan for the bed and the food, and expect the culture to be the part you do not pay for.
How many days do you need in London?
Four is the comfortable minimum and five lets you leave the centre. London is less walkable than Paris or Rome and the distances between well-known places are longer than they look, so time disappears into travel. Three days works if you plan it as three areas rather than a checklist.
Do I need an Oyster card in London?
No. Tapping a contactless bank card or a phone charges the same pay-as-you-go fares as an Oyster and caps automatically, both per day and across the Monday to Sunday week, in zones one to nine. Many non-UK cards work. The exception is a bank that charges a flat fee on every foreign transaction rather than a percentage, which makes several taps a day expensive; in that case an Oyster or a fee-free travel card is better.
Do I touch out on London buses?
No. Buses charge a flat fare and only read you in. Trains are different: the Tube, DLR, Overground, Elizabeth line and National Rail all charge by distance and need you to touch both in and out, and failing to touch out is charged as the most expensive journey you could have made.
Are London museums really free?
The national ones are, permanently and without a catch. The British Museum, the National Gallery, the Tate galleries, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert all admit you for nothing. Special exhibitions inside them are usually ticketed, and donations are invited but genuinely optional.
How much should I tip in London?
Less than you think and sometimes not at all. Many restaurants add a service charge of around twelve and a half percent, and where they do, that is the tip. Where they do not, about ten percent is normal. In pubs you order at the bar and tipping is not done. Taxis are usually rounded up rather than tipped by percentage.
Is London good for families with young children?
Very. Up to four children under eleven travel free on the Tube, DLR, Overground and Elizabeth line with a fare-paying adult, and the big museums are both free and built with children in mind. The two things to plan around are lifts, which many older Underground stations do not have, and distance. Buses are slower than the Tube and much easier with a pushchair.
Is London safe to visit alone?
Yes, with the ordinary caution of any large city. It is busy late, eating alone attracts no attention, and pubs are easy to enter by yourself. The thing worth checking is the last train: most Tube lines stop around midnight, the Night Tube runs on only some lines and only on Friday and Saturday, and night buses cover everything else.
Checked against Transport for London, pay as you go, Transport for London, Tube and rail fares, Transport for London, free and discounted travel.
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