Get to know the city on a whirlwind tour of its best known attractions with the London Pass.
What is the London Pass?
The London Pass is a popular digital tourist pass from Go City that grants you access to most of London’s famous attractions.
You can visit as many of the attractions as you’d like for the duration of your pass (these are called credits packages, and can be one day, two day, all the way up to a week, or ten consecutive days). Over 80 attractions are included so you’ll have plenty to choose from!
How to Use the London Pass and the Key Benefits of this Card
When you purchase your London Pass online, you will receive a confirmation email containing details of how to download the pass. You can use the barcode on the downloaded pass alone to enter attractions, but you’ll probably have a better experience if you download the Go City app.
The app includes a digital map of London, labelling all the attractions, and has lots of useful information on attraction opening times, transportation and itinerary ideas. It makes taking advantage of the pass that little bit easier!
You can sync your pass to the app by entering the confirmation number that can be found in the email sent after purchase. To use it, you simply show the pass at each attraction to enter. Where there are lines to grab tickets, you don’t have to stand and wait – one of the benefits of having the pass is that you can go straight to the gate and skip the queue.
Your pass is activated at the first attraction you use it for – it’s important to remember that the pass is not valid for 24-hour periods, just the day it’s first used. Don’t make the mistake of entering an attraction at 4pm with the pass expecting to use it the next morning!
Once activated, you can go to any many of the attractions as you can fit in; with over 80 available, you’ll have to plan and prioritise which famous sites you most want to see.
Key Benefits of the London Pass:
- Easy-to-use app with map and useful info
- Skip the line and fast pass entry to many sites
- Over 80 attractions included
- Unlimited use within timespan (no limit to number of attractions you enter)
Top Attractions Covered by the London Pass
Most of London’s famous attractions are covered by the London Pass – there’s over 80 in total. Very few well-known sites aren’t included (and many of those are free to enter regardless, like the British Museum or Tate Modern).
Here is a handful of the top attractions covered by the pass:
- Tower of London
- Westminster Abbey
- Kew Gardens
- View from the Shard
- St. Paul’s Cathedral
- London Zoo
- Windsor Castle
- Hampton Court Palace
- London Bridge Experience
- Shakespeare’s Globe
- Kensington Palace
- Various stadium tours – including Wembley and Premier League teams Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur.
The pass also includes a boat tour along the Thames and a hop-on, hop-off bus tour day pass. It’s not just the big attractions covered by the London Pass either; there’s plenty of evening activities to try, including crazy golf/bar Swingers, murder mystery games and the cinema.
It’s almost quicker to cover what isn’t included; the most notable are probably the London Eye, London Dungeon, London Aquarium (or any Merlin owned attraction, like Madame Tussauds) and tours inside Buckingham Palace or the Houses of Parliament.
Why Should People get this Card
This is a great tourist pass for people visiting London for a short period, looking to pack as much into the days as they can. The more you do, the better value the pass is.
It’s especially worthwhile if it’s your first time in the city, and have never visited any of the top attractions before – the London Pass offers a more cost-effective way to tick off all the top sights in one go.
You can’t ignore the fact this is one of the more expensive tourist passes around; to make it worthwhile, you really have to take advantage of the huge number of attractions on offer. If you just want to go to one or two attractions on the list, or like to take things slow and visit one a day, this might not be the pass for you.
Generally, however, this is a fantastic tourist pass for new visitors; particularly those who may only be in London for a weekend! Just plan your itinerary well and the pass will soon pay itself back. As an extra bonus, at some attractions, the London Pass provides you with discounts on food and drink!
For extra peace of mind, Go City offer a savings guarantee and generous refund policy in case you change your mind. It’s also valid for two years before activation, so if you have to push your London trip back a bit later than planned, it won’t create an issue with your pass.
How to Purchase the London Pass
As it’s completely digital, you have to purchase the London Pass online. It’s very simple to do so – just visit the website, select your ‘credits package’, which is essentially the number of days you want your pass for, and pay. You’ll quickly be sent a confirmation email containing info on how to download your pass.
As mentioned earlier, it is worth bearing in mind that the London Pass isn’t the cheapest. Prices are due to rise in February 2024, but at the time of writing these are the current costs of purchasing an adult pass:
1 Day Pass – £84
2 Day Pass – £114
3 Day Pass – £127
4 Day Pass – £134
5 Day Pass – £149
6 Day Pass – £154
7 Day Pass – £164
10 Day Pass – £179
As you can see, it gets better value the longer you have it (providing there’s enough available that you actually want to do). £84 for one day can seem overly expensive, but if you’re able to pack a lot in, you can still save quite a bit of money.
Comparisons to Other Tourist Cards
The London Pass has more attractions than any other tourist card for the city, and unlike some, allows you to visit as many of them as you want within the set period. Some of the other passes – including the London Explorer Pass – work on the basis of the number of attractions you visit (you pay to enter a set amount, and the cost increases the more you wish to see).
The London Pass is strict on timescales, unlike a few of the other passes, which can give you as long as 90 days to use your pass (again, these are the passes that work on a number of attractions based system, rather than days). It also doesn’t include transport, except for a 1 day hop-on, hop-off bus pass, but none of the tourist passes are particularly strong in this regard.
The London Explorer Pass or Big City Saver are perhaps a better choice for long-term visitors or people living in and around London. The former is the only pass with a comparable range of included attractions to the London Pass, but only allows entry to a few.
The London Pass is ultimately very well suited to a tourist visiting for a relatively short period, looking to thoroughly explore the city.
Tips
- Plan your day(s) thoroughly. You can make your London Pass earn its value quickly if you plan well. Choose to visit attractions within a certain area in quick succession; Tower of London, St. Paul’s and Shakespeare’s Globe, for instance.
- Don’t activate your pass at the end of the day. I cannot emphasise this enough! The pass is not valid for 24-hour periods, only days, so you must start early to take full advantage.
- Check out some of the more low-key attractions to relax in the evenings, like Swingers, to see a bit of London’s night life.
- And finally, enjoy your time in London! With the London Pass, you should get to know the city pretty well, and tick off many of your bucket list activities.