Great Stuff to Do in London

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Here’s a list of the best things to do in London. It’s not exhaustive (no London list ever could be), but it’s a good place to start so you don’t waste your money or time doing rubbish things or getting stuck in tourist traps. Have lots and lots of fun but make sure you check opening times before you set off.

Best Walking Tours in London

Well, that’s easy – the best walking tours have to be (ahem) those on this website, Fantastic Walks! Sure, we are a tad biased, but still, we’ve done our very best to make sure our walks are indeed fantastic walks. So, if you’ve done one, why not do another one.

Changing of the Guard

Jack the Ripper

Rock ‘n’ Roll Soho

Best Cheap Ticketed Shows

Here are the two best options for cheap (or cheaper) tickets to shows.

TKTS London – despite the claims of other outlets, this is the only ‘official’ re-seller of tickets for shows available on the same day. They have a booth in Leicester Square (a standalone rectangular building off the green) or you can book online.

www.centraltickets.co.uk – you have to join, but it’s free to do so. When you join, you get access to very cheap tickets to plays, concerts, talks, walks, events and (in particular) comedy shows. When venues struggle to sell tickets, they put what’s left on this website so they can get a full audience.

Best FREE Museums

London has LOADS of museums. The ones below are the most popular and therefore can get very busy. The trick is to book a timed ticket, or get there as it opens or towards the end of the day.

My favourite is the British Museum. Essentially, it’s all the good stuff we stole from other countries when we were an empire (sorry rest of the world).

Best FREE Small and/or Quirky Museums

There are two non-free museums worth mentioning: The Viktor Wynd Museum in Hackney which has lots of interesting oddities and curiosities, and The Vagina Museum in Bethnal Green, which is dedicated to exploring the female body and its role in society.

Best FREE Art Galleries

London boasts many art galleries—so many, in fact, that if you visited one every day, it would take you over two years to visit them all. Here are some of the best:

There’s also a pay-to-enter art gallery worth mentioning: The Courtauld on The Strand. It specialises in impressionist and post-impressionist art. 

My favourite is the National Gallery but a close second is the National Portrait Gallery next door (on Charing Cross Road). You can easily spend a couple of hours in each.

Best Places for Breakfast

  • Regency Cafe, Westminster – traditional British breakfast in a classic setting. Often used as a film location. Opened in 1943
  • The Breakfast Club – chain with locations in Soho and Seven Dials
  • Eggbreak, Kensington – specializes in egg dishes
  • Daisy Green – chain in lots of central locations
  • Drury 188-189, Covent Garden – voted no.1 cafe in London
  • The Bus Cafe, Waterloo Bus Garage, 6 Cornwall Rd, London SE1 8TE – it’s for people who work on the buses, but it’s also open to members of the public. The food is cheap, tasty and plentiful.

Best Historical Sites

These sites cost to visit, but they are very good. You should be able to get entry on the day for all of them other than the Houses of Parliament.

My favourite is the Tower of London. The others are excellent too, but the Tower is extra, extra special. Not to be missed in my opinion. Join a beefeater tour if you can – they are often hilarious (though factually dubious!)

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Best Places for Afternoon Tea

Afternoon tea consists of tea/coffee, sandwiches, small cakes, and scones with jam and clotted cream. The recommendations below are as expensive as they are excellent. You’ll probably need to book in advance.

Best budget option: Fan Museum, Greenwich. Afternoon tea is in their small orangery. A ticket to the fan museum is also included. Greenwich is a great place too.

Absolute best budget option: go to Tesco, get a meal deal (a sandwich and something sweet), buy yourself a takeaway cup of tea, find a park bench and enjoy the view. To make it super posh, tear off the crusts of your sandwich and talk to passersby in a posh accent.

Best FREE Roof Gardens

  • Sky Garden, Fenchurch Street – book (a long way) in advance
  • The Garden at 120, Fenchurch Street – just turn up
  • Crossrail Place Roof Garden – just turn up
  • The Roof Garden, Post Building, Museum Street, Bloomsbury – it’s not that high, but because the buildings around aren’t high, you get great views. Just turn up
  • One New Change – just turn up. Excellent views of St Paul’s
  • The Piazza Terrace Bar, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – it’s not strictly a roof garden, but it is a good place to enjoy a drink and a view. There’s no need to book

Westminster Cathedral Bell Tower, Victoria Street (this is the Catholic cathedral, not Westminster Abbey) – great views. There is a small cost but it’s worth the outlay

My favourite is The Garden at 120. The views are great and you don’t have to book.

Best What’s On Website

Timeout gives you the big stuff (shows, theatre etc), while ‘Ian Visits’ (my clear favourite!) gives you the smaller and quirkier stuff to do. Both have useful ‘what’s on today’ and ‘what’s on tomorrow’ pages.

Best Unknown, Hidden or Quirky Gems

  • Kyoto Garden, Holland Park – FREE a tranquil Japanese garden
  • St Dunstan in the East – FREE a city garden amongst the ruins of a grade I listed church with a tower & steeple by Christopher Wren
  • St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street – FREE a Wren Church dedicated to journalists. Make sure you check out the crypt too.
  • Temple of Mithras FREE and The Guildhall Art Gallery FREE – these are two separate locations but just a seven-minute walk apart. The temple is Roman (discovered in the 50s) and the art gallery is the location of the city’s Roman amphitheatre (discovered in the 80s). The art gallery is itself worth a visit.
  • Painted Hall, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich
  • Uber Boats – it’s public transport on the Thames. The last best stop downriver is Greenwich (the college and observation) or North Greenwich (the O2 Centre) and the last best stop upriver is Battersea Power Station.
  • Tower Bridge – Tower Bridge is the bridge that everyone thinks is London Bridge. You can walk across it, of course, but you can also walk above it! There is a charge, though. There’s also a pub called The Vault 1894 directly underneath the south part of the bridge that’s worth a short visit.

Best Independent Cinemas

Mainstream films are easy to find in London, but here’s where you need to go to see independent, quirky, old, cult or foreign films.

Two cinema chains worth mentioning are Picturehouse (their Picturehouse Central cinema on Picadilly Circus being the best) and any of the Curzon cinemas. They show a mixture of mainstream and non-mainstream films.

Best Fish and Chips

Sadly, the best fish and chip shops (‘chippies’) tend not to be in central London, but on the outskirts. That said, these are pretty good for central London:

Lots of pubs also sell fish and chips, but the quality varies wildly and can even vary day-to-day.

My favourite is Poppies of Soho. Not only is it a cool venue with pretty good food, but back in the 50s, when it was a coffee shop, it was also the place where rock ‘n’ roll started in the UK. There’s lots of cool memorabilia on the walls. It’s also a takeaway so if it’s sunny (good luck with that!), you can take your chips around the corner to the garden at St Anne’s Church and eat them there.

Best Place for Lunch

  • Poppies of Soho – see above.
  • Café in the Crypt – St Martins-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square. Sandwiches, pizza, pies, salads etc. You will be sitting under a brick-vaulted ceiling and on (!) historic tombstones!
  • Larry’s – it’s a bar and dining area in the newly restored vaults of The National Portrait Gallery. It’s a bit pricey but very cool. It’s named after the actor Lawrence Olivier.
  • Middle Temple Hall – the hall dates back to 1573 and is one of the most beautiful and historic in the whole country. It’s definitely best to book well ahead (use the link), but you might be able to get a table if you are there at 12 noon and not a big group, just don’t bank on it.

All four places are excellent for lunch. However, Middle Temple Hall is something special!

Best Markets for Foodies

  • Borough Market – made famous by social media, but still a cool (but expensive) place to visit. Can be very busy.
  • Maltby Street Market – a hidden gem with a focus on artisanal food
  • Broadway Market, Hackney – lively with a good variety of food stalls

Best Historic Pubs

There are far too many great pubs in London to list. But here are some of the very best! Order what you want, of course, but if you want something typically British, ask for a ‘real ale’. Pubs generally sell food, but the quality isn’t always the best.

  • Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, Fleet Street – a must-visit pub, dating back to 1667
  • The George Inn, Southwark – the only surviving galleried coaching inn in London
  • The Old Bank of England, Fleet Street – once a bank, now a pub with a bus in the garden!
  • The Grenadier, Belgravia – charming and historic pub with a reputation for being haunted
  • The Prospect of Whitby, Wapping – right on the river and rich in history
  • Ye Olde Mitre, Holborn – famous for a cherry tree that Elizabeth I danced around!
  • The Ten Bells, Spitalfields – Victorian pub with a dark past!
  • Blackfriars, just outside Blackfriars tube station – a grade II art nouveau masterpiece of a pub.
  • Dog & Duck, Soho – a tiny and ornate pub that was supposedly George Orwell’s favourite!

Best Cocktail Bars

My favourite is Oscar Bar at Charlotte Street but you won’t go wrong going to any of the other venues.

Best Scenic Walks (without a guide)

  • Regent’s Canal towpath walk – start at Paddington Station and finish at Camden Lock (or vice versa)
  • Hampstead Heath – hilly park with panoramic views of London.
  • Thames Path – start at Putney Bridge and end at Tower Bridge (or vice versa)
  • Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk – a 7-mile circular walk through four royal parks and past lots of sights. Plenty of transport links along the way.

My favourite is the Princess of Wales Memorial Walk. It’s a long walk, but because it’s close to lots of transport links, you can do as much or as little as you like. You’ll see great sights, both inside and outside the parks, and there are also lots of refreshment stops along the way.

Best Bus Routes for Sightseeing

You ‘tap in’ with your contactless card or phone as you enter the bus (at the front) and that’s it. Unlike the Tube, you don’t have to tap out. If you do another bus journey within the same hour, it’s covered within the price. Sit upstairs and enjoy the views.

  • Route 9 – passes iconic landmarks like Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus
  • Route 11 – views of Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament
  • Route 24 – travels through diverse neighbourhoods from Hampstead to Pimlico
  • Route 88 – Camden to Clapham via Regent’s Park and Oxford Street
  • Route 139 – Waterloo Station to Golders Green
  • Route 159 – connects South London to the city centre, passing through Brixton and Kennington

My favourite is Route 11, with Route 9 a close second. You can see a map of the Route 11 here.

Best Day Trips from London

  • Windsor / Eton – these two towns are on either side of the river Thames. Windsor is famous for its castle, Eton, for its college
  • Brighton – great seaside town with a pier and a cool vibe
  • Oxford – historic university city with beautiful architecture
  • Cambridge – historic university city with charming colleges and river punting

It is possible to go further afield but it does mean that most of your day will be spent travelling.

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