Every other guide to free things to do in London treats the word as a budget problem: here is how to see the city when you cannot afford it. In London that framing is simply wrong, and it costs people the best days they could have had here.
The greatest collections in this city are free because of a decision taken about them, not because they are the cheap option. The British Museum was founded in 1753 on the principle of free public access and has never charged for its permanent collection. The National Gallery, the V and A, Tate, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum and London Museum Docklands all do the same.
Meanwhile some of the most expensive tickets in London are worse than the free thing standing next to them. That is the actual subject of this page.
Which is why this doubles as the answer to a broader question. If you are working out what to do in London and the money is not the point, the free attractions in this city are not a reduced version of the paid ones. They are mostly the better half. The free things to do London does best are not its consolation prizes, they are its landmarks. Everything below would still be worth doing at forty pounds, and all of it is things to do in London for free.
The collections are not a consolation prize
Start with the obvious one, which is obvious for a reason.
The British Museum
- Address
- Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, WC1B 3DG
- Nearest
- Tottenham Court Road, Holborn or Russell Square
- Hours
- Daily 10am to 5pm, and to 8.30pm on Fridays
- Price
- Free
- Standing
- Founded 1753. The permanent collection has never been charged for
How to get in
Free for the permanent galleries, which is most of the building. The museum now recommends booking a free ticket in advance, although you can still walk in. Paid exhibitions, the Bayeux Tapestry among them this autumn, run in separate spaces and are the only part that costs anything. The second entrance is on Montague Place on the north side, away from the main gates on Great Russell Street.
The same shape applies across the board: permanent collection free, temporary exhibition ticketed. Almost everyone who complains that London museums are expensive has walked into a paid exhibition without noticing that the ninety other rooms cost nothing. The free museums page sets out which collections are free and which of them still want a booked ticket.
The National Gallery
- Address
- Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DN
- Nearest
- Charing Cross or Leicester Square
- Price
- Free
- Standing
- Founded 1824. Around 2,300 paintings in the national collection
How to get in
Free, no ticket, walk in. The building is on Trafalgar Square and the National Portrait Gallery is around the corner on St Martin's Place, also free, which makes the two of them the densest free hour in central London.
The two rooms people who live here recommend
Ask a Londoner with an interest in these things and they will not send you to the British Museum, because they assume you are already going. They will send you to one of these two.
Sir John Soane's Museum
- Address
- 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC2A 3BP
- Nearest
- Holborn, about five minutes on foot
- Hours
- Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm. Closed Monday and Tuesday except bank holidays
- Price
- Free
- Standing
- The architect's own house, kept as he left it by act of parliament in 1833
How to get in
In their own words, entry is free and there is no need to pre-book, you can walk in on the day. The caveat is space: the house is small, genuinely popular, and admission stops when it fills. Groups of eight or more have to book. Go early in the day rather than after lunch.
Soane was an architect who turned his house into a collection and then secured an act of parliament requiring it be kept exactly as he left it. The result is not a museum arranged for visitors. It is a private obsession preserved at full strength, with the Hogarths on hinged panels and a sarcophagus in the basement.
The Wallace Collection
- Address
- Hertford House, Manchester Square, W1U 3BN
- Nearest
- Bond Street or Baker Street
- Hours
- Daily, 10am to 5pm. Closed 24 to 26 December
- Price
- Free
- Standing
- A national collection held in the house it was assembled in, given to the nation in 1897
How to get in
Their own line is that entry to the permanent collection is free. It sits in a square behind Oxford Street and takes almost no one who has not deliberately come, which is the point: on a Saturday afternoon, five minutes from the worst crowd in London, you can have a room of Canalettos to yourself.
The condition of the bequest was that the collection be kept together and never mixed with anything else, so nothing is ever added. For more than a century that was also read as a ban on lending, until the Charity Commission allowed temporary loans in 2019. It is still the one collection in London where a second visit finds what the first one did.
The twenty seven pounds you do not have to spend
This is the best free thing in London and the reason most people miss it is that it is not listed as an attraction.
St Paul’s Cathedral charges £27 per adult for a sightseeing ticket. Their own site puts the distinction plainly: “It’s free to attend the Cathedral for services, but if you want to explore the building, you will need a sightseeing ticket.” Westminster Abbey works the same way, and says of its services: “Everyone is welcome at these services, free of charge.”
So the daytime ticket buys you the building in daylight with a crowd in it. Attending Evensong costs nothing and buys you the building at dusk, with one of the finest choirs in Europe singing in it, sitting in the Quire rather than filing past it.
Evensong at Westminster Abbey
- Address
- 20 Deans Yard, SW1P 3PA
- Nearest
- Westminster or St James's Park
- Hours
- 5pm Monday to Friday, 3pm Saturday and Sunday, in the Quire
- Price
- Free
- Standing
- Sung by the Choir of Westminster Abbey or the Lay Vicars
How to get in
No ticket and no booking. Security checks on entry, so allow time. The Abbey warns that service times and locations may change at short notice, so check the day you go. Sit rather than wander: this is a service, not a tour, and leaving halfway through is noticed.
St Paul’s does the same thing on its own schedule, which the cathedral publishes on its calendar rather than as a fixed weekly timetable. Check the date before you travel.
You do not need to be religious and nobody will ask. St Paul’s own wording is that you are welcome regardless of what you believe. The only requirement is that you behave as though you are at a service, because you are.
Height, for nothing
London sells its views hard. There are paid viewing platforms in this city charging upward of thirty pounds a head, and there is a free one at a comparable height with a bar in it.
Sky Garden
- Address
- 1 Sky Garden Walk, EC3M 8AF
- Nearest
- Monument or Fenchurch Street
- Hours
- Free tickets cover 10am to 6pm on weekdays and 11am to 9pm at weekends. The bars stay open to midnight, or 1am on Friday and Saturday
- Price
- Free with a booked ticket
- Standing
- Three floors of planted terrace at the top of 20 Fenchurch Street
How to get in
Free tickets are released in advance and go quickly, so book the moment you know the date. Walk ins depend on capacity and are not a plan. At the time of writing the building has temporarily reduced visitor capacity for lift maintenance and is advising flexible visitors to rebook for a later date, so confirm before you build an evening on it.
The restaurants up there are not free and do not need to be booked to use the garden. If you want the view with dinner attached, the view restaurants page covers where that is worth paying for and where the window is the only thing you are buying.
When people ask what to do in London, the parks are the actual answer
Eight royal parks, all free, all open, none of them requiring anything of you. Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens run to more than 600 acres between them in the middle of the city. Richmond Park has deer in it and is the size of a small town. Hampstead Heath has the best view of London from the top of Parliament Hill and men swimming in a pond before eight in the morning in February.
Greenwich Park is the one to take if you are only taking one, because the walk up the hill gives you the Maritime Museum and the Queen’s House at the bottom, both free, and the view back over Canary Wharf from the top. The full parks guide sorts the other eight by what each one is for, and covers the 50 metre deer rule at Richmond and Bushy.
Which day, because the free things are the ones with closed days
Nobody checks opening hours for something they are not paying for, and that is how a free day goes wrong. The big collections open every day. The small ones, which are the better ones, do not.
| If you are going on | Shut | Open, and worth the trip |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Soane, the Wellcome, the Hunterian, the Grant Museum | Every national collection. Changing the Guard at 11am |
| Tuesday | Soane | The Hunterian and the Grant Museum both reopen |
| Wednesday | Nothing on this page | Everything. Changing the Guard at 11am |
| Thursday | Nothing on this page | Everything |
| Friday | Nothing on this page | Everything, plus the V and A late to 10pm, Tate Modern to 9pm and the British Museum to 8.30pm |
| Saturday | Nothing on this page | Everything. Evensong moves to 3pm |
| Sunday | The Hunterian, the Grant Museum | Soane is open, and it is the best Sunday on this list |
The short version: Monday is the worst day for free things to do in London and Sunday is better than people expect. If you are looking for free things to do in London today and today is a Monday, go to a national collection and do not cross town for a small one. Things to do in London on Sunday run the other way: the house museums open and the two specialist collections shut.
Bank holidays invert it again. Sir John Soane’s Museum opens on bank holidays although it is shut on ordinary Mondays and Tuesdays, and the Hunterian closes on them although it opens the rest of the week. The two are five minutes apart on the same square, which is the cleanest example in London of why you read each one rather than assuming a pattern.
Changing the Guard
- Address
- Buckingham Palace, SW1A 1AA
- Nearest
- Green Park, St James’s Park or Victoria
- Hours
- The King’s Guard changes at 11am, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
- Price
- Free
- Standing
- A military ceremony rather than a display put on for visitors
How to get in
Free, outdoors, and the most reliable free thing in London on a Monday, when several of the small museums are shut. It is a working guard change on a published schedule rather than a daily show, so check the date: the pattern runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and it can be cancelled in bad weather or moved for ceremonial reasons. Stand at the Victoria Memorial rather than against the palace railings, which fill first and see least.
Every free thing to do in London worth the journey, in one list
The sections above argue the case. This is the list to work from: sixteen places to visit in London for free, with what each one actually gives you. If you are in London and searching for free things to do near me, sort this table by the area column and start with whatever is closest.
| Place | Where | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| The British Museum | Bloomsbury | The permanent collection, free since 1753 |
| The National Gallery | Trafalgar Square | Around 2,300 paintings, no ticket |
| National Portrait Gallery | St Martin’s Place | Round the corner from the above |
| The V and A | South Kensington | Art and design, and a Friday late to 10pm |
| Natural History Museum | South Kensington | The building is the exhibit |
| Science Museum | South Kensington | Free ticket, booked ahead |
| Tate Modern | Bankside | Free collection, late to 9pm Friday and Saturday |
| Sir John Soane’s Museum | Lincoln’s Inn Fields | Closed Monday and Tuesday. Go early |
| The Wallace Collection | Manchester Square | A room of Canalettos, usually to yourself |
| Wellcome Collection | Euston Road | No paid exhibition at all. Closed Mondays |
| IWM London | Lambeth Road | Their words: you don’t need to book |
| Evensong | Westminster Abbey | 5pm weekdays, 3pm weekends, in the Quire |
| Sky Garden | 20 Fenchurch Street | Free ticket, released weekly |
| The eight Royal Parks | Across London | Over 5,000 acres, nothing to pay |
| Hampstead Heath | North London | The best free view, from Parliament Hill |
| National Maritime Museum | Greenwich | Free, with the Queen’s House beside it |
Only two of those need anything booked, and both are free: the Science Museum wants a ticket reserved in advance, and Sky Garden releases its free slots weekly. Everything else you walk into.
That is a fortnight of free days out in London without repeating yourself, and it is before counting the markets, the river or a single street. The constraint on a free day here is time rather than money.
Free things to do in London with kids
This is the easiest version of the question, because the best children’s attractions in this city were never ticketed in the first place. If you are working out what to do in London with kids and the budget is the constraint, start here rather than with the paid attractions.
The Natural History Museum is the one to lead with, and it is free, open daily from 10am to 17.50 with last entry at 17.30, on Cromwell Road. Entry needs no ticket, although the museum suggests booking a free one at busy times to skip the queue. The Science Museum is next door and also free, and is the one on this page that genuinely wants a ticket reserved in advance.
After that, stop going indoors. The eight Royal Parks cost nothing, Hampstead Heath has the best free view in the city from Parliament Hill, and Greenwich Park gives you a hill to run down and two free museums at the bottom of it. A park and one museum is a better day with children than two museums, for the same reason museum fatigue exists for adults and arrives faster for everyone else.
The one paid thing worth knowing about is that Parliament Hill lido lets under 16s swim free before half past nine in the morning.
What to skip
A paid viewing platform, when Sky Garden exists. You are buying altitude that is available for nothing four hundred metres away.
The cathedral daytime ticket, if you can go at five instead. Twenty seven pounds against free, and the free version has the choir in it.
Anything sold to you on the street outside a station. Bus tours, combination passes and river cruises sold by a person holding a clipboard are all available cheaper online and most of them duplicate something free.
The queue at the main entrance. The British Museum, the V and A and the Natural History Museum all have second entrances that the queue does not know about.
How to plan a day of free things to do in London
Most answers to what to do in London are a list of places. This is the order to put them in, which matters more.
Pick one big collection and one small one, not three big ones. Museum fatigue is real and it arrives at about the ninety minute mark. The British Museum in the morning and Soane in the afternoon is a better day than the British Museum and the V and A.
Book the things that are free but ticketed, first. Sky Garden is the main one. A free thing with a capacity limit behaves like a paid thing: the supply runs out.
Put the service at the end. Evensong is at five or at three, which makes it the natural close to a day rather than something to build around.
Check the closed days before you cross London. Soane is shut Monday and Tuesday. This is the single most common way a free day goes wrong, because nobody checks opening hours for something they are not paying for.
Everything here was taken from each institution’s own published information and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Opening hours and ticketing change. Confirm before you travel, particularly closed days and service times.
Cheap eats in London covers the part of a cheap day that is not free, with the prices taken from each restaurant’s own menu.
London’s lidos has the best free swim in the city: under 16s and over 60s go free at Parliament Hill before half past nine in the morning.
Where to go next
The views are the best free thing in London and they have their own guide. The best views in London ranks six of them by what you have to arrange rather than what you have to pay, including two that need no ticket at all. Horizon 22 on Level 58 is the highest free platform in the city and sets no time limit on your visit. Before you buy any sightseeing pass, do the arithmetic: the advertised savings are measured against walk-up prices almost nobody pays.
Greenwich is the single best free day out in London and most people pay for it by mistake. Things to do in Greenwich sets out what costs nothing there, which is the Maritime Museum, the Queen’s House, the park and the Naval College grounds, against the two things that do: the Prime Meridian at £24 and the Cutty Sark at £22.
Things to do in central London covers the same ground without the constraint, and unusual and unique things to do in London covers the odd end of it, including several more that cost nothing: the Hunterian, the Grant Museum and the Barbican Conservatory, which is free and still the hardest ticket in the city.
Walking a street costs nothing either. Jermyn Street takes ten minutes end to end and holds a cheesemonger trading since 1797 and a shirtmaker at the same address since 1903, and Savile Row is five minutes north, though it shuts at five and all weekend.
Even the ticketed ones have a free door if you read the terms. Winter Wonderland charges up to 9.50 a head and publishes four routes past it, including one pound entry from Monday to Thursday in November.
The biggest free thing in central London keeps the longest hours. Hyde Park opens its pedestrian gates at 5am and closes them at midnight, every day of the year.
The markets are free to walk and the day decides everything. Camden opens every day of the year but Christmas Day. Portobello is really a Friday and Saturday market and closes on bank holidays. Spitalfields opens its antiques hall two hours early on a Thursday.
Things to do near me is the version sorted by where you are standing, and it measures distance in changes rather than in metres.
London this weekend is the shorter version of a day out, and the day trips cover what to do when you have exhausted the city. From late November, the Christmas markets sorts the free ones from the funfair with a ticket on the gate.
Questions we get asked
What are the best free things to do in London?
The permanent collections at the British Museum, the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, all free and unticketed. Sir John Soane's Museum on Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Wallace Collection on Manchester Square are the two smaller ones Londoners actually recommend. Evensong at Westminster Abbey is free to attend and is the best free hour in the city. Sky Garden gives you the view for nothing if you book ahead.
Are London museums really free?
Yes, for the permanent collections, and it is a deliberate policy rather than a discount. The British Museum has never charged for its permanent galleries since it was founded in 1753. The National Gallery, the V and A, Tate, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime Museum are all the same. Temporary exhibitions are ticketed separately, which is where the confusion comes from.
What can you do in London for a day cheaply?
A whole day costs nothing but travel if you plan it. One large free collection in the morning, lunch somewhere that is not in a museum, one small collection in the afternoon, a park, and Evensong at five. The only thing worth booking in advance is Sky Garden, because free tickets there are capacity limited and go quickly.
What is free in London this weekend?
Every permanent collection named on this page is open at weekends, and the Wallace Collection opens daily. Evensong runs at 3pm on Saturday and Sunday at Westminster Abbey rather than the weekday 5pm. The exception to watch is Sir John Soane's Museum, which is open Wednesday to Sunday and closed Monday and Tuesday, so a weekend is the right time for it.
Do you have to pay to go into St Paul's Cathedral?
To sightsee, yes: £27 per adult at the time of writing. To attend a service, no. The cathedral's own wording is that it is free to attend for services but you need a sightseeing ticket to explore the building, and that you are welcome regardless of what you believe. Westminster Abbey operates the same distinction and states that everyone is welcome at its services free of charge.
Is Sky Garden free?
Yes, entry is free, but it is ticketed: you book a free timed slot in advance rather than walking in. The tickets are released ahead and go quickly, and walk in availability depends on capacity and is not something to plan around. At the time of writing the building has temporarily reduced its visitor capacity for lift maintenance and is advising flexible visitors to rebook, so confirm before you build an evening on it.
Where is Sky Garden in London?
1 Sky Garden Walk, EC3M 8AF, at the top of 20 Fenchurch Street in the City, the building most people call the Walkie Talkie. Monument and Fenchurch Street are the nearest stations. Free tickets cover 10am to 6pm on weekdays and 11am to 9pm at weekends, and the bars stay open to midnight, or 1am on Friday and Saturday.
What is Sky Garden?
Three floors of planted terrace at the top of an office tower in the City, with bars and restaurants and a public viewing deck that costs nothing to enter. It is the free alternative to London's paid viewing platforms, which charge upwards of thirty pounds a head for a comparable height a few hundred metres away. The restaurants are not free and do not need to be booked to use the garden itself.
What places can you visit in London for free?
Sixteen of them are listed on this page. The national museums and galleries all have free permanent collections: the British Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the V and A, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, Tate Modern, the Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime Museum. So do the Wallace Collection, Sir John Soane's Museum and the Wellcome Collection. Beyond buildings: the eight Royal Parks, Hampstead Heath, Sky Garden and Evensong at Westminster Abbey.
What is the best free place to visit in London?
For one visit with no particular interest, the V and A, because it covers the widest range and the building is the exhibit. For something you will not see anywhere else, Sir John Soane's Museum on Lincoln's Inn Fields, kept exactly as its owner left it by act of parliament. For a view, Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath. None of the three costs anything and only Soane has a closed day to watch for.
What are free things to do in London this weekend?
Everything on this page is open at the weekend except two: the Hunterian Museum and the Grant Museum of Zoology both close on Sundays. Sir John Soane’s Museum is open Wednesday to Sunday, so a weekend is the right time to catch it. Evensong moves to 3pm on Saturday and Sunday rather than the weekday 5pm. The Wallace Collection opens daily.
What free things are there to do in London today?
It depends which day today is, which is the part most lists leave out. On a Monday the national collections are all open and Sir John Soane’s Museum, the Wellcome Collection, the Hunterian and the Grant Museum are all shut, so stay with the big ones and catch Changing the Guard at 11am. On a Sunday it reverses: Soane is open and the Hunterian and the Grant are closed. Wednesday to Saturday, everything on this page is open.
What are free things to do in London with kids?
The Natural History Museum and the Science Museum are both free and next door to each other in South Kensington, and the Natural History Museum needs no ticket at all. After that the answer is outdoors: the eight Royal Parks, Hampstead Heath, and Greenwich Park with two free museums at the bottom of the hill. A park and one museum beats two museums. Under 16s also swim free at Parliament Hill lido before 9.30am.
Are there free activities in London on a Sunday?
Yes, and Sunday is better than its reputation. Every national collection is open, Sir John Soane’s Museum is open on Sundays although it is shut on Mondays and Tuesdays, and Evensong is at 3pm rather than 5pm. The two to avoid planning for are the Hunterian Museum and the Grant Museum of Zoology, both of which close on Sundays. There is no Changing the Guard on a Sunday either, since the King’s Guard changes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
What are the hidden gems in London that are free?
Sir John Soane's Museum and the Wallace Collection are the two that reward the trip most and take almost no one who has not come deliberately. Both are free, both are in central London, and both are five minutes from streets full of people who do not know they are there.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 61 in the guide.
Last checked 28 September 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
