Three days in London without spending a fortune
London is expensive in the places people expect it to be and free in most of the places worth going. A three-day plan, with the fare caps that do the saving for you.
onesim team
London's reputation for cost is half-earned. The hotels are genuinely expensive and so is anything with a queue and a gift shop at the end. Almost everything else — the museums, the parks, the markets, the walking — costs nothing at all.
Three days, no attraction tickets, and a transport bill of about £27.
Pay with a bank card and stop thinking about it
Do not buy an Oyster card and do not buy a Travelcard. Tap in and out with the contactless bank card or phone you already have, use the same one all day, and the system caps what it charges you.
The zones 1–2 daily cap is £8.90, peak or off-peak, and almost everything a visitor does happens inside zone 2. Once you have hit the cap, the rest of the day's travel is free. There is a weekly cap too, running Monday to Sunday, which is the reason to use the same card all week.
Buses are capped separately and cheaply, and the Hopper fare gives you unlimited bus changes within an hour of the first tap — so a two-bus journey costs one fare.
Getting in from the airports
| Option | Time | Rough price |
|---|---|---|
Elizabeth line | 30–40 min to Bond Street or Liverpool Street | £15.50 to zone 1 |
Piccadilly line | 50–60 min | About a third of the Elizabeth line fare |
Heathrow Express | 15 min to Paddington | The most expensive train in Britain |
National Express coach | 60–90 min | Cheapest, book ahead |
Gatwick, Stansted and Luton are all outside London and all need a train or coach — 30 to 60 minutes each and priced accordingly. If you are choosing flights on price, add the transfer before you compare.
Day one: the river
Start at Borough Market before 11am, when it is a food market rather than a crowd. Walk west along the South Bank: Tate Modern (free), the Millennium Bridge, the Globe, the National Theatre, the second-hand book stalls under Waterloo Bridge.
Cross at Westminster for the Houses of Parliament and the Abbey from the outside, then walk up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square and into the National Gallery, which is free and has thirty minutes' worth of paintings that everyone recognises.
Finish in St James's Park and, if the flag is up, the Changing of the Guard at Horse Guards — smaller, closer, and with none of the crowd at Buckingham Palace.
Day two: museums, and the parts of London that are not tourist London
The big three national museums are free: the British Museum, the Natural History Museum and the V&A. Do not attempt two in a day. Book a free timed slot for the British Museum if you go at the weekend.
Spend the afternoon somewhere that is not in the guidebooks: Hampstead Heath for the view of the skyline from Parliament Hill and, in summer, the swimming ponds; or Columbia Road flower market on a Sunday morning followed by the Brick Lane end of the East End.
Evening: a pub. A proper one, with carpet. Most stop serving around eleven, which surprises people from countries where dinner starts at nine.
Day three: pick a direction
- Greenwich — take the Uber Boat down the river with your contactless card, then the Observatory, the Cutty Sark and the market
- Kew Gardens — a paid ticket and worth it, half an hour on the District line
- Notting Hill and Portobello — best on a Saturday, when the whole road is a market
- Walthamstow or Peckham — the London that Londoners in their twenties actually live in
Theatre without the theatre price
Almost every West End show holds back cheap seats. Day seats go on sale at the box office when it opens, often for £20–30. Lotteries run in the show's own app and on TodayTix for the day's performance. And the National Theatre and the Globe sell standing or restricted-view tickets for a fraction of a West End stall seat — the Globe's yard tickets are the cheapest good night out in the city.
What to actually spend money on
A few things are worth the ticket price: the Globe on a summer evening, the Churchill War Rooms, Kew, and a proper meal in a neighbourhood that is not Leicester Square.
What is not worth it, on most people's lists: the London Eye, Madame Tussauds, and any restaurant with a photographic menu within 200 metres of Piccadilly Circus.
Practical notes
Service is often added to the bill at 12.5% — check before you tip again. In pubs you order and pay at the bar and nobody tips.
Stand on the right on escalators. It is not a suggestion.
The Tube runs until roughly 00:30 and the Night Tube runs all night on Friday and Saturday on five lines. Night buses cover everything else.
Rain is not seasonal. Bring the jacket in July too.
