Things to Do
What to actually do in London when you have limited time and no interest in the tourist trail. Written for short stays, weighted toward the evening.
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The landmark pages carry the numbers the attractions themselves bury. The queue at the London Eye runs up to forty five minutes on top of your ticket time rather than inside it, and the Harry Potter Studio Tour sells a package with a hotel in it for less than the one with a bus. The Shard, Sky Garden and Horizon 22 cover the views from above, and two of the three cost nothing.
Then the free half of the city: the parks, the museums that charge nothing and the food markets, where the published closing times regularly contradict each other on the market’s own website.
Seasonal pages appear when they are useful and are rechecked rather than recycled. Rain, weekends and Christmas each have their own.
London Transport Museum: There Is No Day Ticket
Every adult ticket is a twelve month pass and children go free, so one visit costs a family what twelve do. The 5 pound credit rate, and the Off Peak pass that excludes half term.
V&A Museum: The Fashion Gallery Is Closed Until 2028
Room 40 and the South Asia galleries are both shut until 2028, and the notice sits on a sub-page. Free to enter, 5 pounds to check a wheeled bag, and the galleries clear 30 minutes before closing.
Alexandra Palace: The Car Park Stops Letting You In at Eight
It opens out until 12.30am but admits nobody after 8pm. Parking is free for 30 minutes, watching someone skate costs 2.50, and the longest session is a term-time weekday.
All Star Lanes: Holborn Does Not Open Until Three in the Afternoon
Four hours later than Stratford on the same Monday. The Sunday closing spread, the offer that is not the cheapest, and the fourth London branch missing from their own homepage.
Greenwich Market Closes for the First Six Mondays of Every Year
Their own rule, so traders can recover from Christmas. Plus the alternating timetable that leaves Tuesday and Thursday with no arts and crafts at all.
Cheap Theatre Tickets in London: The Codes, the Times and the Catches
5 pound tickets at the Almeida with a promo code, 15 pound standing at the Donmar released a week ahead, and a 10 pound pass across four Sadler's Wells venues. Every scheme and what it takes away.
Odeon Leicester Square: One Ticket Costs More Than a Month of Unlimited
20 pounds a seat against 19.99 for the pass that covers the whole chain. Why the cheaper Limitless tier does not fully work here, and the three cheaper Odeons a few streets away.
Electric Cinema Portobello: The Bar Closes When the Film Starts
Twenty minutes to buy your drinks, and no admission fifteen minutes in. The full price grid, and why the two-person beds cost less per head than an armchair.
Picturehouse Central: Two of the Three Memberships Do Not Work Here
Light and Classic are both excluded from the flagship. The self-service refund nobody else offers, the per-ticket booking fee, and the 5.99 pound unemployed ticket.
Curzon London: Student Tickets Are Gone, and Under 25 Is Free
The free Under 25 membership that replaced student tickets, the 285 pound tier that buys seven films a week, the one screen with five minutes of trailers, and why a VPN blocks the booking.
Elsewhere in the guide
Questions we get asked
What can you do in London for free?
The national museums, which includes the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Tate galleries, the V and A and the Natural History Museum. Permanent collections are free and always have been; only the temporary exhibitions charge.
How many days do you need in London?
Three gets you the centre without rushing it. Five lets you spend a day outside zone one, which is where London stops being a list of sights and starts being a city. Anything under two days is a transit stop rather than a visit.
What is worth doing in London in bad weather?
Most of the best of it is indoors anyway. The museums, the department stores, afternoon tea, the pubs that have been there for centuries, and the theatre. London is not a city whose case rests on the weather.