Eight centuries in one city. Four days to see it.
Which Tower ticket includes the Crown Jewels queue. What a Thames boat costs against the hop-on bus. Whether Stonehenge and Bath fit in the same day. Reviews of every tour you can book in London.
The Tower, the river, the studio, the stones.
The four bookings a first London trip is built around. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningTower of London and Crown Jewels Exhibition TicketA thousand years of fortress and the Crown Jewels behind glass. Go at opening; the jewel house queue doubles by eleven.
02The cheap way to see it allWestminster to Greenwich River Thames CruiseWestminster to Greenwich by boat. Parliament, the Eye, the Tower and Tower Bridge slide past for the price of two pints.
03The day out of townHarry Potter Warner Bros Studio TourThe actual Warner Bros sound stages at Leavesden. Tickets are timed and gone weeks ahead, so this is the one to book first.
04The classic west runStonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath from LondonStonehenge on the plain, Windsor Castle and Georgian Bath in a single coach day. Long, and worth the early alarm.
London is a walking city with a murder problem.
Nothing here reads properly from a coach window. Three kinds of walk, what each costs to join, and which part of the city it covers.
Westminster before ten, the Tower after lunch.
Every landmark ticket →
The Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament sit in ten minutes of each other, and the Tower is four stops down the District line. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Plain entry, or a Beefeater with it
The standard ticket covers the White Tower, the walls and the Crown Jewels. A Yeoman Warder tour costs more and is the difference between looking at a fortress and understanding one.
Changing the Guard, done properly
The ceremony itself costs nothing and the forecourt fills an hour before. A guide gets you to the right railing and explains what the bands are doing while you wait.
St Paul’s dome, 528 steps up
The Whispering Gallery, then the Stone Gallery, then the open Golden Gallery above the drum. The last stretch is a spiral in the dome wall and the view over the river pays for it.
Pick the London you came for.
A fortress on the river, a wizarding film studio, a boat that beats the traffic, the Georgian day out west, a table of scones at four, and a Whitechapel alley after dark. Six starting points, and the best of each.
The Thames is still the fastest way across London.
A river boat passes Parliament, the Eye, the Globe, the Tower and Tower Bridge without stopping at a single traffic light. Commuter clippers run all day, the sightseeing cruises come with commentary, and the speedboats do the whole thing at forty knots.
London’s most booked days out.
Every London tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the city, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio Tour
Travel by coach from Victoria to Warner Bros. Studio London for at least four hours among original sets, props, costumes, Gringotts, Diagon Alley, and the Hogwarts Express. A professional representative handles studio ticket exchange, while you explore independently. Some departures may include seasonal Dark Arts or Hogwarts in the Snow features.
From · $117
Read our review →
2
Westminster to Greenwich River Thames Cruise
from $22
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
Warner Bros. Studio Tour with Transfers
from $144
7
Tower Bridge Entry Ticket
from $21
8
London Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Tour with Optional River Cruise
from $39
England fits inside a day return from Paddington.
Stone circles on Salisbury Plain, a Georgian spa city, the oldest colleges in the country and honey-coloured villages an hour past Oxford. Coaches leave central London before eight and have you back for dinner.
Half of London has been a film set at some point.
Leavesden still has the real Great Hall and the real Diagon Alley. Baker Street still has a queue outside 221b. Highclere still stands in for Downton, and the reservoir doubles as the Thames in half the chase scenes.
Every film and TV tour →What a day in London actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. London has a reputation, and a surprising amount of it comes in under the price of a West End stalls seat.
Guided walks, museum entry, river boats and the ghost tours that start at closing time.
The full days: the studio tour, Stonehenge and Bath by coach, the Tower with a Beefeater.
Private black cabs, early-access mornings and the inner-circle stone visits.
Three things that only happen in London.
Old towns and big museums exist everywhere. A licensed cabbie driving you round the back streets, a tiered stand of scones on a moving Routemaster, and a torch-lit walk through the Ripper’s Whitechapel do not.
The Black Cab Tour
Every London cabbie has memorised twenty-five thousand streets and every landmark on them, a qualification that takes three or four years and is called the Knowledge. Hire one for a few hours and the cab goes where a coach cannot, down alleys and through the City on a Sunday, with a running commentary from someone who drives it daily.
- 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
Afternoon Tea
Sandwiches with the crusts off, scones warm enough to melt the clotted cream, then the pastries, in that order, and never the other way round. Hotels do the formal version. A few operators load the whole tiered stand onto a 1960s Routemaster and drive you past the palaces while you eat it.
- 1Afternoon Tea Bus Tour – 1960s Routemaster Bus★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,032 reviews
- 2Afternoon Tea Bus with a Glass of Prosecco★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 1,853 reviews
- 3The Kensington Palace Gardens Royal High Tea★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 934 reviews
The Ripper Walk
Five murders in ten weeks in a square mile of Whitechapel, and no arrest. The streets have been rebuilt around the sites, so the good guides carry projections and old photographs to show you what stood where. It runs after dark because that is when it happened.
- 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
Four London bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be sorted from a pub table the night before. These four run on timed entry slots, ceremony calendars and coach seats that go long before you land.
- 01Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio TourEvery entry to the studio is a timed slot and the tour sells its capacity out weeks ahead. There is no ticket desk to try on the day.
- 02Tower of London and Crown Jewels Exhibition TicketEntry is timed and the Jewel House works as a moving queue. The first slot of the morning is the only one where you get more than a glance.
- 03Buckingham Palace & Changing of the Guard ExperienceThe ceremony does not run every day and the schedule changes with the season and the weather. Check the date before you build a morning round it.
- 04Stonehenge Inner Circle Private Tour from London with Bath VisitStone circle access outside the rope runs before opening or after closing, in small numbers, on set dates. Those seats go months out.
It will rain. London is built for it.
The forecast is not a reason to lose a day here. The great museums are free and enormous, the galleries sit on the same square as the tube, the theatres run matinees, and afternoon tea was invented for exactly this weather. Book the indoor thing in the morning and let the afternoon do what it likes.
By landmark
The run almost everybody does first.
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