Take it from someone who’s walked every street in Zone 1: London rewards the people who do the obvious six things and then keep going for the next ninety-five.
This list is 101 strong, ordered roughly from iconic to under-the-radar, mixing the icons everyone has heard of with the bookshops, lidos, neighbourhoods, and late-night spots that take a little local knowledge to find.
Skim, find what fits your trip, and use the whole thing as a planning resource.
See a thousand years of London history at the Tower of London
Britain’s most-visited paid attraction sits where Roman Londinium met the Thames, and a thousand years of history have piled up since.
The Crown Jewels are the headline, but the actual experience is the Yeoman Warder tour: working soldiers giving guided history with the dry timing of stand-up comedians.
Take the early-access ticket if you can stretch to it; the courtyard at 09:00 with no queue is a different experience from 11:30. Allow three hours minimum.
Tour Westminster Abbey, where Britain crowns its kings
A thousand years of coronations, royal weddings, and the bones of forty British monarchs in a single Gothic building. Skip the morning tour-bus rush and aim for late afternoon.
The Cosmati pavement in front of the high altar is the standout single object; the Poets’ Corner is the standout single space. Allow 90 minutes.
Tour the Houses of Parliament and photograph Big Ben
Yes, it’s Big Ben, even though the Elizabeth Tower technically isn’t.
The interior tour gets you into Westminster Hall (the oldest single-room space in Europe with a hammerbeam roof) and the Lords and Commons chambers when Parliament isn’t sitting.
Saturdays and recesses are when public tours run. The exterior alone is worth the Westminster Bridge crossing for the photo.
Climb the dome at St Paul’s Cathedral
Christopher Wren’s masterpiece, finished in 1710 and somehow still the third-tallest church in Western Europe.
The dome climb is 528 steps to the Golden Gallery and the panoramic City view; the Whispering Gallery is the halfway acoustic miracle on the way up.
Sunday Evensong at 17:00 is free if you can time a visit around it.
Walk the high-level glass walkway at Tower Bridge
The Victorian iron-and-stone showpiece that everyone mistakes for London Bridge.
The exhibition takes you up into the high-level walkways with the glass floor and into the engine rooms where the original steam-powered bascule machinery survives.
Time your visit around a bridge lift if you can; the schedule is on the official site and the lift itself takes about ten minutes.
Catch the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace
The Changing of the Guard happens daily in summer, alternating days the rest of the year.
It’s the quintessential London ceremonial photo, even though the actual ceremony is a slow military procession that most visitors find longer than they expected.
The State Rooms inside the palace open to the public for ten weeks in summer (typically late July to late September) and are worth the booking if your dates allow.
Ride the London Eye, but skip the standard queue
I’ll forgive you for thinking the London Eye is a must-do, because every London round-up tells you it is. The view is genuinely good. The standard queue is genuinely miserable.
Buy the fast-track ticket, take the evening slot, or skip it entirely; the view from Greenwich Park is free and arguably better.
The Champagne pod with fast-track is the version I’d recommend if budget allows.
Climb to the top of the Monument for the City view
Christopher Wren’s 1677 Doric column commemorating the Great Fire of London. 311 steps to the top for a view that’s free of the Shard’s queue and somehow the most authentically London thing on this list.
Pay at the entrance, climb at your own pace, and you’ll have the platform mostly to yourself.
Sky Garden or Aqua Shard for free views over the Shard’s paid one
The Sky Garden at 20 Fenchurch Street is the rooftop greenhouse on the Walkie-Talkie. It’s free with advance booking and the views over the City and the Thames are excellent.
Aqua Shard is the bar on the Shard’s 31st floor and it’s free if you buy a drink; same view as the paid observation deck two floors up.
Don’t pay for the View from the Shard unless you specifically want the higher angle.
Visit a royal palace beyond Buckingham
London has more royal palaces than most cities have palaces.
Hampton Court is the big day out: Henry VIII’s Tudor sprawl with the maze, the Great Hall, and the kitchens, an hour by train from Waterloo.
Kensington Palace in Kensington Gardens is the smaller royal-residence experience and the home of the Princess Diana wardrobe collection.
Banqueting House on Whitehall is the only remaining building of the Palace of Whitehall and the place Charles I lost his head from a window in 1649.
Eltham Palace is the unexpected one: a Tudor great hall fused to an Art Deco mansion in Greenwich, half an hour out of central London.
The Royal Mews behind Buckingham Palace is the carriages-and-horses version, easy to do alongside the Changing of the Guard.
Spend an hour at a London cathedral or church
Beyond Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s, London has a half-dozen churches worth an hour.
Southwark Cathedral on the south bank is the small Norman-and-Gothic cathedral most tourists walk past on the way to Borough Market.
Brompton Oratory is the second-largest Catholic church in London and the only one in the city built in the Italian Baroque idiom.
St Bride’s on Fleet Street is the wedding-cake church (its 1672 Wren spire was the model for the modern wedding-cake design).
The Temple Church off Fleet Street is the Norman round church the Knights Templar built in 1185. Free entry to all four.
Walk Greenwich and stand on the Meridian Line at the Royal Observatory
Greenwich is the half-day-out package: the Cutty Sark clipper ship at the river, the Royal Naval College complex, the Maritime Museum, the Park, and the Observatory at the top of the hill.
The Meridian Line itself is a brass strip cutting through the Observatory courtyard, and yes, you stand with one foot in each hemisphere.
The view from the hill back over Greenwich and Canary Wharf is one of London’s best free panoramas.
Visit the National Maritime Museum and Cutty Sark in Greenwich
Greenwich’s two big single-attraction venues. The Maritime Museum is free and houses Lord Nelson’s coat from Trafalgar (with the bullet hole) and Britain’s largest collection of maritime art.
The Cutty Sark is the last surviving tea clipper, propped up in a glass dry dock so you can walk underneath the keel. Pair both with the Royal Observatory in a single Greenwich morning.
Spend half a day at the British Museum
Free, open every day, and the most-visited museum in Britain. The Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles, the Egyptian galleries, the Reading Room ceiling.
Go on a Friday late opening (until 20:30 most weeks) when the daytime tour groups have left and you can actually see the Egyptian gallery without queuing for it.
Don’t try to see everything; pick a wing and go deep.
Wander the V&A’s design galleries
The world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design. Fashion, theatre, sculpture, jewellery, the cast court of plaster-cast Renaissance sculpture, the William Morris room.
Free entry; ticketed special exhibitions are usually worth the upgrade (the David Bowie one is now legendary). The cafe is one of the most architecturally striking museum cafes in Europe.
See the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum
The dinosaurs, the blue whale skeleton hanging in the Hintze Hall, the earthquake simulator. Free entry, open every day, and consistently one of the best London museums for kids.
The Romanesque facade and the central hall are worth a visit even if you don’t go into the galleries. South Kensington Tube exits directly into the museum tunnel.
Find Apollo 10 at the Science Museum
Right next door to the Natural History Museum and equally free. The Apollo 10 command module, James Watt’s workshop, a working Stephenson’s Rocket.
The IMAX cinema is in the basement and worth a separate evening visit. Pair with the Natural History Museum for a one-postcode South Kensington half-day.
Spend an hour at the National Gallery
Trafalgar Square’s free anchor. Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Constable’s Hay Wain, Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus.
The Sainsbury Wing has the medieval and Early Renaissance rooms; the main building has the heavier hitters. An hour with a focus on five paintings beats two hours trying to see everything.
Cross the Millennium Bridge to Tate Modern
The former Bankside power station turned modern art museum, opened in 2000, now London’s most-visited single museum.
The Turbine Hall installations rotate; whatever’s in there is usually the unmissable thing on the day.
The viewing terrace on the tenth floor of the Switch House extension is free and gives you the postcard view across the river to St Paul’s.
Find the Turner collection at Tate Britain
The Millbank original, focused on British art from the 16th century to today. Turner’s seascape galleries are the standout collection.
Tate Britain has a fraction of the foot traffic of Tate Modern and you can usually have rooms to yourself. The Tate to Tate boat runs between the two galleries on the Thames.
Discover the Wallace Collection, London’s most underrated museum
The 18th-century townhouse on Manchester Square housing the Wallace family’s private collection: Rembrandts, Frans Hals’s Laughing Cavalier, an entire armoury of medieval weapons, eighteenth-century French furniture, Sèvres porcelain.
Free entry, no ticketing fuss, almost always quiet. Most Londoners have never been; ask a National Gallery curator and they’ll tell you it’s the city’s secret.
Wander Sir John Soane’s Museum
The architect Sir John Soane’s home, preserved exactly as he left it in 1837 and packed wall-to-wall with sculpture, paintings, ancient artefacts, and architectural fragments.
Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress series is here. Free entry, small rooms, and weirder than any other London museum.
The candle-lit late opening on the first Tuesday of every month is the best version (book ahead; entry #96 below).
Visit a contemporary gallery
If you’ve done Tate Modern and want more contemporary art, London has half a dozen serious smaller galleries. The Whitechapel Gallery in Aldgate is the East End’s grand dame.
The Photographers’ Gallery in Soho is the only major UK gallery dedicated to photography. The Saatchi in Chelsea is free and shows the YBA-era collection alongside new commissions.
The Hayward at the Southbank Centre runs major touring shows. Newport Street Gallery is Damien Hirst’s free private gallery in Vauxhall.
Visit a smaller museum
London’s small museums are the city’s secret weapon. The Postal Museum in Clerkenwell has the Mail Rail underground railway you can ride.
The Old Operating Theatre Museum near London Bridge is the surviving 1822 surgical theatre in a church attic, complete with the original wooden operating table.
The Hunterian at the Royal College of Surgeons is the surgical-anatomy collection that gives most visitors a respectful jolt.
The Charles Dickens Museum in Bloomsbury is the actual house where he wrote Oliver Twist. The Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street is touristy, fictional, and somehow still charming.
Walk Churchill’s underground bunker at the War Rooms
The underground bunker complex beneath Whitehall where Churchill ran the war from 1940 to 1945, walked through more or less as the staff left it in August 1945.
Churchill’s bedroom, the Cabinet War Room, and the Map Room are all preserved. Add the Churchill Museum next door (his life from school to old age) and you’ve got a 2-3 hour visit.
One of London’s best museums in any category.
Visit another wartime London site
Beyond Churchill’s bunker, the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth is the city’s main WWII institution: free, comprehensive, with the dedicated Holocaust Galleries on the upper floors.
HMS Belfast on the Thames is a Royal Navy cruiser preserved as a floating museum, with all nine decks open to walk.
For the deeper history nerds, Bletchley Park (a day trip, an hour out of Euston) is where the codebreakers cracked Enigma; the rebuilt Colossus computer alone is worth the train.
Take a Hidden London tour of the disused Tube stations
Transport for London’s Hidden London programme runs guided tours of disused Tube stations: Aldwych, Down Street, Charing Cross’s old platforms, the Clapham South deep-level shelter.
Aldwych is the one you’ve seen in films (V for Vendetta, Sherlock); Down Street is the one Churchill used as an emergency wartime command bunker.
Tickets sell out months ahead; book the moment they release them.
Take a London tour
The classic London tour comes in five flavours.
The hop-on-hop-off bus is the orientation tour for anyone who’s never been (Original Tour and Big Bus are the two big operators; both run roughly the same route).
The walking tour is the better-value option if you can manage a 2-3 hour walk: a Westminster route covers the political London, a City of London route covers the Roman-medieval-financial layers, a Jack the Ripper East End walk runs after dark.
The Beatles in London walk is a full two hours of music history. Whichever you pick, take it on day one.
Cruise the Thames
A 90-minute cruise from Westminster Pier to Greenwich gets you the full London skyline at water level.
The standard sightseeing cruises run all year; the dinner cruises run evenings; the high-speed RIB boats are for the speed-and-noise version of the same thing.
The river commentary is the best free history lesson on the city.
Speed down the Thames in a RIB
If the standard sightseeing cruise feels too sedate, the RIB boats from Embankment Pier go fast: 35 mph down the river past Tower Bridge with the Bond-film soundtrack in your head.
Forty-five minutes, more adrenaline than scenery, but London at speed is its own thing.
Ride a heritage Routemaster bus on route 15 from Trafalgar Square to the Tower
Route 15 keeps a heritage AEC Routemaster service running the central stretch from Trafalgar Square to the Tower of London on weekends and bank holidays.
Open back platform, the conductor on board, the original Park Royal bodywork.
It’s the cheapest piece of London nostalgia going (one bus fare on a contactless card) and the route happens to pass St Paul’s, the Royal Courts of Justice, Aldwych, and the Tower in twenty minutes.
Catch a play in London
The London theatre map runs deeper than just the West End.
The National Theatre on the South Bank is the prestige venue: three stages, five productions running concurrently, sharp politics-and-history plays you’ll want to think about afterwards.
The Old Vic in Waterloo is the elder grand dame of regional-style London theatre. The Bridge Theatre at Tower Bridge is the new kid on the block with consistently strong programming.
The Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden is the small high-prestige space; tickets sell out for everything. The Almeida in Islington is similar in size and reputation.
Pick whichever has the play that interests you and book ahead.
Watch a West End musical
There’s a West End musical for every taste, but the right pick depends on what you’re after. Hamilton at the Victoria Palace is the cultural moment that’s now stable as a long-runner.
The Lion King at the Lyceum is the family choice. Les Misérables at the Sondheim is the perennial classic. The Phantom of the Opera at His Majesty’s is the longest-running West End show, full stop.
Don’t queue at the box office; book online at TodayTix or the official theatre site.
See Shakespeare at the Globe in summer
The reconstructed open-air theatre on the South Bank, built in 1997 next to the original 1599 site.
The standing groundling tickets are the most authentic Globe experience: cheap, three hours on your feet, and a chance to heckle if the production calls for it.
Summer-only for the open-air shows; the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse next door runs a separate winter season indoors.
Hear a gig at a small venue
London has more small live music venues than any city in Europe, and the gig you’ve been wanting to see has probably played one of them.
Union Chapel in Islington is a working church that hosts intimate acoustic shows; the seating is on the church pews and the acoustics are extraordinary.
The 100 Club on Oxford Street is the basement club where the Sex Pistols played in 1976; still going, still loud.
Moth Club in Hackney is the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes Workingmen’s club turned indie venue; the gold-tinsel ceiling is the most-photographed feature.
Watch comedy at an intimate venue
The 99 Club on Leicester Square runs nightly stand-up gigs in a low-ceilinged basement, and it’s where most of the names you’ve seen on Live at the Apollo cut their teeth.
The Top Secret Comedy Club on Drury Lane is the smaller-room equivalent. Soho Theatre runs slightly more curated weeknight comedy upstairs.
Skip the bigger Apollo gigs in favour of these for the proper close-quarter London comedy experience.
Hear chamber music at Wigmore Hall
The early-twentieth-century concert hall on Wigmore Street, just north of Oxford Street, with seating for around 550 and acoustics most concert halls in Europe envy.
Lunchtime concerts on weekdays are about an hour long and reasonably cheap; the evening recitals are the heavyweight programming.
The audience is genuinely focused on the music, which makes it the most respectful hour of London going.
See a Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall
The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts run every summer (mid-July to mid-September) at the Royal Albert Hall, the world’s longest-running classical music festival.
The standing-arena Promenade tickets are the cheap ones (a few pounds, queue-on-the-day system).
The Last Night of the Proms is the patriotic British televised institution; tickets are by ballot and fiercely competitive.
See a match or event at a London stadium
The Premier League fixture is the obvious reason to go, but the more interesting truth is that London’s biggest stadiums spend most of their year hosting concerts and events, not football.
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has a reputation for the production values of a small country: the Beyoncé Renaissance run there is what most non-football people remember it for, more than any of the matches.
Wembley is the national stadium and the venue for the FA Cup Final, the Carabao Cup Final, and most of the year’s biggest gigs. The Emirates is Arsenal’s home and the cleanest stadium tour of the lot.
Stamford Bridge is more interesting on a derby day than a regular fixture.
London Stadium (West Ham, also Olympic Stadium) is the cheapest place to see Premier League football if you don’t care which team.
Watch cricket at Lord’s or the Oval
Lord’s in St John’s Wood is “the home of cricket” and worth the visit even if you’re not a fan: the Long Room with the famous portraits, the Pavilion with the Ashes urn, the slope across the pitch.
The Oval in Kennington is the older, less formal southern alternative. Test matches sell out months ahead; T20 Blast fixtures are easier to get on the day.
Take a stadium tour if there’s no match on
Wembley runs tours seven days a week with the dressing rooms, the players’ tunnel, and the trophy lift.
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium tour adds the Sky Walk on the roof, which is the city’s best stadium-related panoramic. Emirates Stadium runs the Arsenal tour with the trophy hall.
Stamford Bridge runs the Chelsea tour with the museum. Pick whichever club you support, or pick Wembley if you’re a neutral.
Spend a morning at a London market
London has more markets than you can do justice in a single trip, so let me save you the wandering.
Borough is the famous one and it’s earned the reputation, but the queue at Padella is a tax you don’t have to pay (try Trullo in Highbury for the same pasta with no queue).
The Hackney Saturday is at Broadway, smaller and less elbow-to-elbow than its photos suggest; the Sunday rival is Brick Lane, which has the only vintage worth buying in London if you can be there before the lunchtime tourist wave.
The local move is Maltby Street under the Bermondsey railway arches: smaller than half the others and somehow more pleasant than any of them.
Columbia Road is flowers only and runs Sunday mornings; you need to be there by eight or accept that the bunches you wanted are gone. Camden you can probably skip; if you must, midweek mornings.
Visit Leadenhall Market in the City
The covered Victorian market in the heart of the City of London, with the painted glass roof and the Diagon Alley filming location for Harry Potter.
The market itself is small and mostly works as a lunchtime spot for City workers; it’s worth the diversion mainly for the architecture and the photo.
Pair with a walk past Lloyd’s of London (the Richard Rogers inside-out building) two minutes away.
Have a proper Sunday roast
The proper London Sunday roast is a Sunday at a serious gastropub.
The Marksman in Hackney is the pub that won the National Pub of the Year and consistently serves the best Sunday roast in East London.
The Camberwell Arms in South London is the sister-pub equivalent, with its own dedicated Sunday-only roast menu.
The Bull and Last on Highgate Hill is the Hampstead Heath option, popular with everyone who’s just walked the Heath. The Eagle on Farringdon Road is the original London gastropub and still good.
Book ahead. Don’t try to walk in.
Get afternoon tea
Afternoon tea in London is performance art. Fortnum & Mason on Piccadilly does the classical British version, with finger sandwiches, scones, and a tea menu the size of a small book.
Claridge’s in Mayfair does the more elegant version with the historic Art Deco room. The Wolseley on Piccadilly is the most-photographed London afternoon tea and the easiest one to book ahead.
The Ritz Palm Court is the most formal (and most expensive). Book any of them at least two weeks ahead. Wear something tidy; you’ll feel the dress code.
Drink in a proper London pub
A proper London pub is a Victorian-or-older building with hand-pulled ales, regulars at the bar, and not too much in the way of food menu.
The Lamb on Lamb’s Conduit Street in Bloomsbury has been my favourite London pub for fifteen years: original 1880s frosted-glass snob screens, well-kept Young’s, and a clientele genuinely mixed between locals and academics.
The Mayflower in Rotherhithe is the Thames-side pub the Pilgrim Fathers reportedly drank at before sailing.
The French House in Soho is the bohemian one (no music, no televisions; the staff make a big thing of it). The Dove in Hammersmith is the riverside one with the smallest bar in Britain.
The Holly Bush in Hampstead Village is the warmest one for a winter pint.
Eat your way around the world in London
London is the world’s most international city for food and you’d be missing the point if you only ate British.
Dim sum in Chinatown happens at Royal China, Plum Valley, or the standby Dumplings’ Legend.
A salt-beef bagel at Beigel Bake on Brick Lane (24 hours, takeaway, the queue moves fast) is the late-night East-London ritual.
A proper Italian beyond the chains: Bocca di Lupo in Soho, Lina Stores in Fitzrovia, Trullo in Highbury. Korean barbecue in Soho or New Malden.
Hawksmoor for steak when you want the British-grill version. Padella for pasta if the Borough Market queue isn’t insane.
Have fish and chips by the river
Proper fish and chips in London still happens. The Mayflower in Rotherhithe (Sunday roast aside) does a serious fish and chips with the Thames view.
Poppies on Hanbury Street in Spitalfields is the East-End-fashionable take, and the chips are excellent. The Anchor at Bankside is the Borough-side option; touristy but the fish is fresh.
Ask any older Londoner and you’ll get a recommended chippy you’ve never heard of; trust them.
Brunch in Fitzrovia or anywhere serving Riding House Café standard
Riding House Café on Great Titchfield Street defined the modern London brunch in 2011 and still does the format better than anyone: bottomless coffee, egg-heavy menu, the queue out the door on Saturdays (book ahead).
The Fitzrovia neighbourhood around it is full of bistros operating to the same standard. Lyle’s in Shoreditch is the upmarket sit-down version.
Granger & Co in King’s Cross is the Australian-import chain that does it well. Brunch by 10am midweek; weekends only after a queue.
Try a flat white at a third-wave coffee shop
I made the mistake of bringing visitors to a chain coffee shop in central London exactly once.
Kaffeine on Great Titchfield Street is the place I should have brought them: small, no-frills, the standard you’d compare against in any other city’s third-wave scene.
Workshop on Lamb’s Conduit Street is the City’s caffeine-and-suit option. Monocle Café in Marylebone is the magazine’s hometown café and worth a coffee just for the typography.
Allpress in Shoreditch is the Australian-roastery branch. Prufrock in Leather Lane is the OG specialty-coffee London location. None of them are chains. All of them are better than the chains.
Drink at a small cocktail bar
The Sketch pink room is overrated and you’re paying for the photos. The bars worth your evening are smaller.
Tayer + Elementary in Old Street is the pre-eminent London speed-bar, with a separate cocktail bar upstairs and a tasting room downstairs (winner of multiple World’s 50 Best lists).
Three Sheets in Dalston is the small-and-perfect older-sibling bar. Sager + Wilde on Hackney Road is a wine bar that pours serious cocktails.
Happiness Forgets in Hoxton is the basement bar that introduced negroni-on-tap to London.
Drink at a wine bar
London’s wine bar scene is in better shape than its cocktail one.
Noble Rot on Lamb’s Conduit Street (also a magazine and a restaurant group) has the by-the-glass list for serious oenophiles. 10 Cases in Covent Garden is the bistro-with-no-list approach: ten cases at a time, list changes every fortnight.
The Quality Chop House on Farringdon Road is the working-men’s-restaurant turned wine bar with possibly the best wine programme in town. Drink slowly, ask the staff; they’ll know.
Take a London brewery tour
London’s brewery scene runs to dozens of independent brewers, most concentrated in Bermondsey (the Bermondsey Beer Mile is a Saturday afternoon institution).
Camden Town Brewery in Kentish Town runs the most polished brewery tour. Beavertown in Tottenham is the bigger-name independent. Five Points in Hackney is the local-favourite.
The Bermondsey Beer Mile (Anspach & Hobday, the Kernel, Brew By Numbers, Fourpure) you do as a Saturday wander rather than a single tour.
Tour a London distillery
Sipsmith in Hammersmith was the first distillery to open in London for nearly 200 years when they started in 2009; the gin tour ends in their cocktail bar and is the best craft-distillery tour of the lot.
Bombay Sapphire’s Laverstoke Mill is an hour out by train but architecturally stunning (a Heatherwick Studio glasshouse over the river).
Beefeater in Kennington runs the workmanlike tour with the museum of London-distilling history.
Visit a London bookshop
Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street is the bookshop you’ve already seen on Instagram, but it lives up to it: Edwardian-galleried interior, books arranged by country travelled to (so the Italy section has cookbooks alongside Italo Calvino alongside walking-tour guides).
The Persephone Bookshop in Bloomsbury reprints forgotten 20th-century women writers in their grey-jacketed editions.
Libreria in Brick Lane is the small phones-not-allowed bookshop with the deliberately curated arrangement (no genre sections, just thematic shelves).
Hatchards on Piccadilly is the oldest bookshop in London (1797) and the more traditional grand-shop experience. Phlox Books in Leyton is the East-London independent.
Browse a London record shop
Vinyl culture survives in London. Rough Trade East in Brick Lane is the big one: warehouse-scale shop, in-store gigs, the standard.
Sister Ray on Berwick Street in Soho is the older indie-rock shop with the deep-cut collection. Phonica on Poland Street in Soho is the dance and electronic specialist.
All three sell new and second-hand; all three have the staff-recommendation card system that turns up a record you didn’t know you wanted.
Vintage shopping in East London
London vintage is the thing you came for and didn’t know it. Beyond Retro on Cheshire Street and Brick Lane is the chain that’s still good (warehouse-scale, careful curation).
The Brick Lane Sunday morning vintage stalls are where actual finds happen.
Crystal Palace’s smaller shops (The Bias on Westow Hill, Crystal Palace Vintage) are the local-favourite worth the train south. Avoid the Camden Stables Market vintage; it’s mostly tat now.
Walk the Regent’s Canal from Little Venice to Camden
A flat 90-minute towpath walk along the canal from the Maida Vale moored-houseboat enclave through Regent’s Park to Camden Lock.
London Zoo backs onto the canal so you walk past the giraffes and the warthog enclosure for free. End in Camden for lunch (the Camden Market food stalls, not the market itself).
The full canal continues east to Limehouse Basin if you’ve got the legs for another two hours.
Cover the South Bank end to end from Westminster to Tower Bridge
The standard riverside walk along the south bank of the Thames, three miles, two-and-a-bit hours unhurried.
The view of the Houses of Parliament from Westminster Bridge, the London Eye, the Southbank Centre, Tate Modern, the Globe, Borough Market, the Tower of London on the north bank, then Tower Bridge to finish.
Coffee stops at Watch House on Bermondsey Street, lunch at Borough Market, sunset cocktails at the Skylon bar above the Royal Festival Hall.
Climb to Parliament Hill at sunset for the Hampstead Heath panorama
Hampstead Heath is the closest thing London has to wild parkland, and Parliament Hill at the south-eastern corner is the best free panoramic view of the city.
The City and the Shard sit framed against the horizon. Best in late afternoon when the light hits the buildings. Bring a flask of coffee. Allow 90 minutes from the Tube and back.
Find Postman’s Park and read the heroes’ plaques
The small Victorian-era memorial park in the City of London with the Watts Memorial: a wall of ceramic plaques commemorating ordinary people who died saving others.
“Mary Rogers, stewardess of the Stella, 30 March 1899, self-sacrificed by giving up her life-belt and voluntarily going down in the sinking ship”. Genuinely affecting.
Five minutes’ walk from St Paul’s; a quiet ten minutes between sights.
Cross Westminster Bridge at night for the Big Ben shot
The classic London-after-dark photo: Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament lit up against the river, taken from the south side of Westminster Bridge looking north.
Best around 9pm in winter (when the lights are on but the bridge isn’t fully crowded yet) or 10:30pm in summer. The bridge itself is rarely empty but the view is always good.
Cross the Millennium Bridge at sunset
Norman Foster’s footbridge between Tate Modern and St Paul’s, opened in 2000 (with the famous wobble that closed it for two years; fixed long since).
The view as you cross from south to north, with St Paul’s filling the frame against the sunset, is one of London’s most-Instagrammed for good reason. The wobble is gone; the view isn’t.
Swim at a London lido
London has lidos for the dedicated and the dedicated-curious. London Fields Lido in Hackney is the heated 50-metre outdoor pool that turns into the city’s best summer afternoon when the weather plays.
Tooting Bec Lido in South London is the unheated 100-yard one, a cult swim for the regulars who go year-round.
The Hampstead Heath ponds (Men’s, Women’s, and Mixed) are the open-water alternative; the Mixed pond is genuinely beautiful in summer. Brockwell Lido in Brixton is the heated South-London option.
Bring a swimming cap if you plan to do laps.
Spend an afternoon in a Royal Park
London has eight Royal Parks and most visitors only see Hyde Park. Hyde and Kensington Gardens (technically two, joined into one continuous park) are the obvious central choice.
Regent’s Park has the formal rose garden and London Zoo. St James’s Park is the smallest and the prettiest, with the Buckingham Palace view from the bridge.
Greenwich Park has the Royal Observatory and the river view. Richmond Park has herds of deer and is the largest of the lot, by some margin. Pick whichever is closest to your hotel and walk.
Visit a London city farm
London’s city farms are an unexpectedly serious set. Hackney City Farm runs goats, pigs, chickens, and a working blacksmith on a half-acre between the canal and the Cambridge Heath Road.
Mudchute Farm on the Isle of Dogs is bigger (32 acres) with cows, sheep, llamas, and an unbeatable view of Canary Wharf as urban backdrop.
Vauxhall City Farm is the central-London option, smallest of the three but free and open daily. All three are free entry.
Visit Kew Gardens
The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, a UNESCO site, 326 acres of landscaped grounds and Victorian glasshouses (the Palm House and the Temperate House are the architectural anchors).
The Treetop Walkway gets you 18 metres up into the canopy. A full day’s worth of garden if the weather plays. District line to Kew Gardens.
Climb Up at The O2
The O2 dome at Greenwich Peninsula has a guided climb across the roof: harnesses, a tensioned-cable walkway, 90 minutes from the start to the summit and down.
The summit gives you a view across the river and central London that you can’t get any other way. Closed to under-tens; do it on a clear day. Book ahead.
Hire a bike and ride across central London
Santander Cycles (London’s bike-share, the famous Boris Bikes since 2010) cover central London with docking stations every few hundred metres.
Pay the daily access fee at any docking station; rides under 30 minutes are then free.
The Hyde Park-to-Regent’s Park ride is the easy scenic loop; Cycle Superhighway 6 takes you north-south through the City. Ride defensively; London traffic isn’t the gentle Continental version.
Catch sunrise from Primrose Hill
Primrose Hill, just north of Regent’s Park, has the central-London panorama from a slightly more elevated angle than Parliament Hill.
Sunrise gives you the City and Canary Wharf silhouetted against the orange sky; sunset works too, with the lights coming on. Bring a coffee. Five minutes’ walk from Chalk Farm Tube.
Spend a day in one of London’s neighbourhoods
The day-out neighbourhood depends what you want from the day. Notting Hill on a Sunday is Portobello market in the morning, the Electric Cinema for an afternoon film, dinner on Westbourne Grove.
Shoreditch on a Friday or Saturday night is the bar-and-club one.
Hackney is the brunch-canal-Broadway-market triangle; spend a Saturday from breakfast at Pavilion Café through Broadway to a swim at London Fields.
Brixton has the village (the indoor market, the Academy, the food). Soho on a Friday evening is the after-work-and-into-the-night version of London.
Hampstead village is the genteel walk-and-pub version. Greenwich is the half-day-out park version.
Wander Soho on a Friday evening
Soho specifically rewards being wandered through on a Friday after work hours.
The streets fill up, the bars open out onto the pavements, the after-theatre crowd hits the restaurants around 22:30, and the late-night Bao Soho or Hoppers queue is the pre-bed ritual.
Old Compton Street is the spine; Berwick Street has the markets and the record shops; Frith Street has the jazz at Ronnie Scott’s (booking essential). Walk; don’t try to plan.
Spend a day in Brixton
Brixton works as a day or a night. The covered Brixton Village arcade and Market Row are the food anchors (small independent restaurants from Caribbean to Pakistani to Italian).
The Brixton Academy is the gig venue (booking-dependent). Pop Brixton in the railway arches is the food-and-bar yard. The Ritzy Cinema is the indie picture house.
The brand-new Brixton House theatre runs serious South-London-rooted theatre. Victoria line to Brixton.
Get out of London for the day
Day trips out of London run further than most visitors realise.
Stonehenge and Bath together are the standard package: the ancient stones in the morning, the Roman-and-Georgian city in the afternoon, eight hours total.
Windsor Castle is closer (45 minutes by train from Paddington) and is the working royal palace, with the Changing of the Guard there too.
Oxford is an hour by train and worth a half-day for the colleges and the Bodleian.
The Cotswolds are the chocolate-box villages of postcards (Stow-on-the-Wold, Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Campden); a coach tour does them in a single day.
Bletchley Park is an hour out of Euston for the WWII codebreakers’ museum. Brighton is an hour from Victoria for the seaside-and-arcade day.
Eurostar to Paris is two-and-a-bit hours from St Pancras and is a real day trip if you take an early train.
See an immersive experience
London has a half-dozen immersive-experience venues now and they vary in quality.
Frameless near Marble Arch is the projection-mapping art experience: four rooms, classical paintings rendered floor-to-ceiling. Well-executed if you’re into the format.
Twist Museum in Soho is the optical-illusion museum aimed at families. The Vikings Immersive Experience near Tower Bridge is the costumed-actor walking immersive.
The Crystal Maze Live Experience in Shaftesbury Avenue is the recreation of the 90s game show, properly fun if you’ve a group.
Frameless and the Crystal Maze are the picks of the bunch; the rest can be skipped without guilt.
Take the kids to the Paddington Bear Experience
If you’ve already done SEA LIFE and the London Eye and you’ve still got hours to fill with under-eights, this is the one I’d send you to.
It’s a 90-minute walking immersive that does the Paddington story across themed rooms; on weekday mornings (when school groups haven’t taken over) it consistently lands.
Adults without kids can skip it without guilt.
Visit SEA LIFE London with the kids
The County Hall basement aquarium under the London Eye, with the shark tunnel and the penguin colony as the headline draws.
Touristy, well-done, and consistently the family-pleaser of the South Bank cluster. Pair with the London Eye in one afternoon for the family postcard tour.
Brave the London Dungeon
The horror-themed walking experience next to SEA LIFE, with costumed actors playing through Jack the Ripper, the Plague, the Great Fire, and assorted other London horrors.
Fun if you like the format; alarming if you don’t. Best for teenagers and adults with the right tolerance for being shouted at by an actor in plague mask.
Ride the Mail Rail at the Postal Museum
The Postal Museum in Clerkenwell tells the surprisingly interesting history of the Royal Mail, but the standout draw is Mail Rail: the 1927-2003 underground postal railway that ran beneath London, now reopened as a 15-minute ride in tiny carriages through the original tunnels.
Hits different for adults than for kids (kids: it’s a little train. Adults: it’s the Cold-War-era automated underground postal network). Both groups happy.
Watch a film at a London independent cinema
The Prince Charles Cinema off Leicester Square is the cult-cinema institution: cheap weekday matinees, all-night Christopher Nolan marathons, and one of the few places in London still running 35mm.
Curzon Soho on Shaftesbury Avenue is the upmarket art-house option (members’ bar in the basement). The Electric Cinema in Notting Hill has armchair seating and a cocktail menu.
Rio Cinema in Dalston is the Art Deco indie. The BFI Southbank is the institutional one (the National Film Theatre, with its 1,000-strong programming).
Watch outdoor cinema at Somerset House Film4 Summer Screen
Every August, Somerset House courtyard turns into an outdoor cinema for two weeks: a different film each night on a giant screen, classic-and-cult mix, picnic blankets and pop-up bars.
The 18th-century courtyard gives the format the right backdrop. Bring a warm layer; English August evenings cool fast.
Visit a London cemetery
Three big Victorian cemeteries reward the wander.
Highgate Cemetery in North London is the most famous (Karl Marx, George Eliot, Douglas Adams; the East cemetery is free to visit, the West cemetery is by guided tour only).
Brompton Cemetery in West London is the smaller, prettier walk-through with the colonnaded chapels. Kensal Green Cemetery is the oldest of the seven Magnificent Seven and somehow still under-visited.
Visit Apsley House and Wellington Arch
Apsley House on Hyde Park Corner was the Duke of Wellington’s London residence after Waterloo, packed with the spoils-of-war he kept (including a 3.4-metre nude statue of Napoleon by Canova).
Wellington Arch across the road is climbable and gives you a panoramic over Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace. Both are English Heritage; one ticket gets you into both.
Visit the Royal Albert Hall with or without a ticket
The 1871 oval concert hall, on the south side of Hyde Park, is a Victorian feat of engineering and one of London’s most recognisable buildings.
The exterior alone is worth a photo from Kensington Gardens; the building tour (running daily, separate from concert tickets) takes you backstage and into the royal retiring room.
If you’ve timed a Proms concert (entry #38) you’ve got the full version.
Walk through Inner Temple gardens or Lincoln’s Inn
The Inns of Court are the four legal precincts of the City: gated walled gardens with 17th-century chambers, mostly closed to the public but with daytime walking access through the courtyards.
Inner Temple has the prettiest gardens and the Norman Temple Church (yes, the same one in The Da Vinci Code). Lincoln’s Inn has the most architecturally consistent set of chambers.
Walk through during business hours; the gates close at sunset.
Visit a London distillery’s cocktail bar
Sipsmith in Hammersmith ends its gin tour in the in-house cocktail bar; you can also book the bar without doing the tour if you just want the gin.
Bombay Sapphire’s Laverstoke Mill (an hour out by train) does the same with a more dramatic glasshouse setting. Beefeater’s Kennington tour finishes in a tasting room.
All three deliver a better gin and tonic than 95% of London’s bars.
See the Christmas markets
London’s Christmas markets are a December institution.
The Southbank Centre Christmas Market (along the river from the London Eye to the Royal Festival Hall) is the most accessible and the most photogenic.
Hyde Park Winter Wonderland is the bigger, kitschier, more rides-and-mulled-wine version (Christmas market plus theme park).
Somerset House Christmas Market is the smaller, classier, courtyard version. Christmas in Leicester Square has the funfair-and-stalls format, mostly for tourists.
Skip the latter; do the first three across an evening.
Skate at the Somerset House rink in winter
The 18th-century Somerset House courtyard turns into an outdoor ice rink every winter, with the Christmas tree, the rink-side bar, and the Skate Lates evening sessions with DJs.
Skating at the foot of the courtyard’s neoclassical wings is a London classic. Sessions sell out for the prime weekend slots; book a couple of weeks ahead.
See the Christmas lights on Regent Street and Oxford Street
The Regent Street and Oxford Street lights go up in early November and run to early January.
Regent Street’s are the better designed (consistent theme each year, often with curated installations); Oxford Street’s are the brasher mass-shopping version.
Walking from Oxford Circus down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus is a 20-minute Christmas evening when the lights are on and the crowd isn’t unbearable (avoid the week before Christmas).
Watch the New Year’s Eve fireworks from the right spot
The London New Year’s Eve fireworks happen over the Thames at the London Eye, ticketed since 2014 (don’t try to walk up to the South Bank; you won’t get in).
The free unticketed alternatives: Primrose Hill, Parliament Hill, Greenwich Park, the Walthamstow Wetlands. Each gives you a different angle on the same fireworks. Wrap up; wait it out.
Watch the Trooping of the Colour in June
The King’s official birthday parade, every June at Horse Guards Parade, with the Foot Guards and the Household Cavalry doing the ceremonial drill.
Tickets to the parade itself are by ballot; the dress rehearsals (the Major General’s Review and the Colonel’s Review) are easier to access.
Watching from the Mall as the procession returns to Buckingham Palace is the free option.
Dance at Notting Hill Carnival in August
Europe’s biggest street festival, two days every August Bank Holiday, with sound systems on every corner of Notting Hill, costumed paraders, and food stalls running all weekend.
Sunday is family day; Monday is the bigger party. Wear shoes you can dance in; bring cash; don’t try to drive.
Sneak into 800 closed buildings at Open House London
The annual mid-September weekend when about 800 normally-closed London buildings open to the public for free: City office towers, government buildings, private clubs, the rooftop of Battersea Power Station.
Some venues require pre-booking; many are first-come-first-served queue. The architectural-history weekend.
Walk through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel under the Thames
The 1902 Victorian foot tunnel beneath the Thames between Greenwich and Island Gardens, 370 metres long, free, open 24 hours. Lifts at both ends; otherwise stairs.
The tunnel itself is a pleasant five-minute walk and gives you the underwater-Thames-crossing experience.
The Island Gardens end has the panoramic view back at the Old Royal Naval College (the Canaletto-painted-it-in-1752 view).
Drink on a Thames pub barge
Tamesis Dock is the converted 1930s Dutch barge moored at Albert Embankment that does duty as a floating pub: deck seating, river views, gentle rocking.
The Tattershall Castle is the bigger one moored at Embankment; the Hispaniola is the next pub up the river. Sit on the deck on a summer afternoon and you’ve got the cheapest river view in London.
Visit Sir John Soane’s Museum by candlelight on a Tuesday evening
The first Tuesday of every month, the Soane’s Museum opens 18:00 to 21:00 with candlelight throughout the rooms.
The Hogarth gallery in candlelight is the Soane’s-experience experience; everything else gets weirder and more atmospheric than its daytime self. Free entry but you must book ahead.
Worth planning a London trip around.
Visit a working market beyond the famous ones
The headline markets get most of the visitors but London has dozens of working ones. Vinegar Yard in Bermondsey is the smaller, food-and-vintage railway-arch market.
Mercato Mayfair in a converted Mayfair church is the upmarket food-court take. Pop Brixton in shipping containers is the rougher-edged version, with bars and small restaurants.
All three are open weekends; Pop Brixton runs evenings too.
Photograph the Sky Pool at Embassy Gardens, but don’t expect to swim
The 25-metre transparent swimming pool suspended between two apartment blocks at Nine Elms in Vauxhall. From the outside, it’s an interesting bit of engineering and a photo.
From the inside, it’s only accessible to residents of the buildings and their guests. Skip the pilgrimage; if you’re there for the building anyway (the new US Embassy is next door), the photo is free.
Have a champagne afternoon tea on a Thames river cruise
The afternoon-tea-on-a-cruise format: 90 minutes on the Thames, the standard sandwiches-and-scones tea service, champagne for the upgrade.
London’s cruise companies all run the format; pick the one with the better boat (the Bateaux Glass Boat is the prettiest). The view of the city from the river while you’re eating is the point.
Visit a London speakeasy
London’s speakeasy scene runs deeper than most cities.
Evans & Peel Detective Agency in Earl’s Court has the elaborate cover (you check in at a ‘detective’s office’, present a case, get led through a hidden door).
The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town in Spitalfields is entered through a vintage refrigerator at the back of a sandwich shop. Cahoots near Carnaby Street is the post-war Tube-station themed bar.
The cocktails at all three are strong; the format is the entertainment.
Take a London ghost tour after dark
London has more recorded ghosts than any city in Europe and a half-dozen serious ghost-tour operators.
The City of London ghost walks (Old Bailey, Newgate, the Tower) are the historical-horror version. The East End walks (Whitechapel, Spitalfields) are the Jack-the-Ripper cluster.
The Highgate cemetery night walks are the supernatural-curiosity version. All run year-round, mostly evenings, mostly an hour and a half.
Sceptic or believer, the route through dark London streets at night is the experience.