The problem with most lists of cool things to do in London is that they were written for someone who has never been. If you have already done the London Eye and stood outside Buckingham Palace, none of that is useful. This is the other list: what London is actually good at right now, and where people who live here spend a Saturday.
Museums, but at night
Several of the big museums run late openings, and they are a completely different experience from the daytime version. Fewer pushchairs, a bar in the room, and often music or talks. The V&A and Tate both run evening programmes, and the National Gallery opens late on Fridays. Check the dates before you plan an evening around one, because the schedules move, but if one lands on the night you are free it is the best value entertainment in the city.
The smaller institutions are better still. Sir John Soane’s Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields is the house of an architect who never threw anything away, left exactly as he arranged it: sarcophagi in the basement, paintings on hinged walls that swing open to reveal more paintings. It is free, it is small, and it is unlike anywhere else in Europe. Open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm, last admission usually 4:30pm, and closed Monday and Tuesday. It stays open on bank holidays, which is unusual for a Monday closer. No booking, walk in on the day.
One detail decides whether the trip works. The hinged walls are opened to a timetable, not on request: the north wall holding A Rake’s Progress at 2pm, and the south wall recess at 11am, 3pm and 4pm. Arrive between those and the room is just a room.
There are two free tours most people never hear about. Volunteers take a maximum of eight into the Private Apartments on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays at 2pm, and a maximum of six into the Drawing Office, the oldest surviving example of its kind, on Thursdays and Saturdays at 2.30pm. Neither can be booked ahead, both are first come first served, and they last twenty to thirty minutes.
Where to actually eat
Maltby Street Market on a Saturday is the better version of Borough: smaller, less photographed, and the traders are cooking rather than packaging. Go hungry and early.
Soho after eight is still the densest concentration of good small restaurants in the country, and most of the best ones do not take bookings for two. The trick is to treat the wait as part of it and have a drink somewhere while you queue, which Soho is extremely well set up for.
For a proper evening rather than a meal, our list of the best bars in London covers where to go before and after.
Green space that is not Hyde Park
Hampstead Heath is the one Londoners actually use. It is not landscaped, it is genuinely wild in places, and the view from Parliament Hill is the best free thing in London. Parliament Hill Lido on the Heath is open 365 days a year, including bank holidays, unheated, 60 metres and chlorinated, with a sauna that runs in winter and closes for the summer. Our guide to London lidos has the rules, which are the strictest published anywhere in the city, including free swimming before 9:30am for under 16s and over 60s. The pub at the top of the hill has been there since before any of this was London.
The Barbican Conservatory is a tropical glasshouse hidden inside a brutalist housing estate, and the Barbican calls it the second biggest conservatory in London. Admission is free but now ticketed, and that is the part most guides have not caught up with: a limited number of day tickets are released for online booking from 9:30am on each day the Conservatory opens, there is a waiting list for returns, and it opens on selected dates rather than continuously. Check the dates before you go, and book at half past nine.
Markets, on the right day
Half of London’s markets are tourist traps and half are genuinely good, and the difference is entirely which day you go. Columbia Road is flowers and only on a Sunday morning, and it is worth the early start. Broadway Market in Hackney is Saturdays. Brick Lane is Sunday and is more crowded than it is good, but the streets either side of it are worth an hour.
Live music in a room that matters
Wilton’s Music Hall in Whitechapel is the oldest surviving grand music hall in the world, saved from demolition and deliberately left looking its age. Whatever is on, the building is the reason to go. It also has a bar in what used to be the mahogany-panelled saloon, which is reason enough on its own.
For jazz, the small rooms beat the famous ones. Soho has several and most take walk-ins on a weeknight.
The view, done properly
Skip the paid observation decks. The Garden at 120 is the City of London’s largest public rooftop space, free to visit, and needs no booking at all unless you are a group of twelve or more. It is on top of the Fen Court building at 120 Fenchurch Street, fifteen storeys up, with 360 degree views rather than a single aspect, and dedicated public lifts that go straight to it.
It is also a real garden: 85 Italian wisteria trees, more than thirty fruit trees and a 200 foot water feature, with a kiosk selling tea, coffee and snacks on the level below. Greenwich Park gives you the whole skyline from the south with the Observatory behind you. Both cost nothing and neither has a queue.
If you would rather have the view with a drink in your hand, London’s rooftop bars is the list for that.
Odd corners
God’s Own Junkyard in Walthamstow is a warehouse full of salvaged neon signs with the Rolling Scones cafe and bar in the middle of it. It is completely mad. It opens Friday 11am to 10pm, Saturday 11am to 10pm and Sunday 11am to 6pm, so the Friday and the late close are both real and both get left out of guides that say weekends only. Neon after dark is the entire point, which makes the Friday evening the best slot. No DSLR cameras, phone cameras are fine. It closes early for occasional private events, so check before you travel.
The Postal Museum’s Mail Rail puts you on a miniature train in the tunnels under Mount Pleasant that carried London’s post for most of the twentieth century. It is a genuinely strange fifteen minutes.
Everything here was taken from each venue’s own published pages and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Opening days are the thing that moves on this page, and three of these venues close on days most attractions do not. Confirm before you travel.
How to plan a day of cool things to do in London
Pick a neighbourhood, not a list. London punishes zig-zagging. An afternoon in one area beats three landmarks spread across the city, every time.
Sundays are not dead. Columbia Road, the markets and most museums run on Sundays. Shops shut early, and the Tube runs a thinner service, but the good stuff is open.
Check opening days before you travel, because these four contradict each other. Sir John Soane’s is Wednesday to Sunday and closed Monday and Tuesday. God’s Own Junkyard is Friday to Sunday. The Barbican Conservatory opens on selected dates and needs a free ticket, released a month ahead with a few more from 9:30am on the day. The Garden at 120 needs no booking at all unless there are twelve of you. Nothing on this list is worth an unplanned journey.
If you have only a day and it needs to be efficient, things to do in central London keeps everything inside Zone 1. If you want the genuinely strange rather than the currently good, unique things to do in London goes further in that direction. And the whole thing sits inside our wider guide to what to do in London.
If you will go further than Zone 1 for it, the Harry Potter Studio Tour is twenty minutes out of Euston on an Oyster card, and the shuttle bus at the other end is already included in the ticket.
The best bookshops in London includes the shop where the Royal Horticultural Society was founded, which is a better piece of London trivia than most.
London’s lidos includes an unheated 60 metre pool on Hampstead Heath that opens every day of the year, sauna included.
Questions we get asked
What are the best free things to do in London?
The Barbican Conservatory, a tropical glasshouse hidden inside a brutalist housing estate, which the Barbican describes as the second biggest in London. Admission is free but ticketed: a limited number of day tickets go online at 9:30am on each opening day, and it opens on selected dates rather than continuously. The Garden at 120 is the City of London’s largest public rooftop space, free, fifteen storeys up at 120 Fenchurch Street with 360 degree views, and it needs no booking unless you are a group of twelve or more. Sir John Soane’s Museum is free and open Wednesday to Sunday. And the view from Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath is the best free thing in London.
Where do Londoners actually go out?
Soho after eight is still the densest concentration of good small restaurants in the country, and most of the best of them do not take bookings for two, which is why the area has so many good bars. The convention is that you drink nearby while you wait for a table.
Is Hampstead Heath worth visiting?
Yes, and for the opposite reason to most London parks: it is not landscaped and is genuinely wild in places. The view from Parliament Hill is the single best free thing in the city. It is a different proposition from the Royal Parks, which are gardens, and it rewards walking rather than sitting.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 10 in the guide.
Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
