United Kingdom · England
Plan your London trip
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01Your itinerary
02Where to stay
Soho & Covent Garden
Best for first-timers who want everything on the doorstepThe theatrical dead-centre of London — bars, restaurants, theatres and shops packed into a few square streets that never quite go to sleep. You pay for it and you hear the nightlife, but nowhere is more walkable to everything.
Hazlitt's Hotel
Pick a small boutique off the main drag so you keep the location without a full night of pavement noise under the window.
£££Ham Yard Hotel
The Covent Garden side is marginally calmer than Soho proper and puts the theatres and the piazza a two-minute walk away.
££££The Z Hotel Tottenham Court Road
The new Elizabeth line station here connects the whole city fast, so a plainer room buys you an unbeatable transport hub.
££Shoreditch & the East
Best for repeat visitors, night owls and design typesWarehouse cool turned mainstream — street art, vintage shops, the best curry houses and cocktail bars in the city, and a Sunday flower market on the doorstep. Younger, looser and better value than the West End, with fast links in on the Overground.
The Hoxton, Shoreditch
The area's signature look — exposed brick, rooftop bar, a lobby full of laptops — steps from Brick Lane and Columbia Road.
£££A stylish stay near Old Street
Slightly west of the noise but still walkable to the bars, with a Tube station that drops you into the City in minutes.
££South Bank & Bankside
Best for culture-first travellers and river walkersThe riverside culture strip — Tate Modern, the National Theatre, Borough Market and a mile of Thames-side walking, with St Paul's and the City just across the bridges. Central, cultured and surprisingly calm once the day-trippers thin out at night.
Sea Containers London
Wake up to the Thames and walk to three major galleries before lunch; ask for a river-facing room and mean it.
££££H10 London Waterloo
A block back from the water the rates soften while Borough Market and the Tate stay a short stroll away.
£££Notting Hill & the West
Best for a calmer, more residential stayPastel terraces, garden squares, the Portobello Road market and a moneyed village calm. Further from the museums but a lovely, leafy base — this is the London of quiet mornings, good coffee and independent shopfronts rather than neon.
The Portobello Hotel
The classic Notting Hill address — white stucco, a private communal garden, and Portobello a five-minute walk downhill.
££££The Phoenix Hotel
Edge east toward Bayswater and Paddington and rates drop while Hyde Park and a fast airport train stay close.
£££Greenwich & the Southeast
Best for families and value-minded travellersA proper riverside town with a royal park, maritime history and none of the central-London price tag. You trade being in the thick of it for green space, village pubs and a scenic boat commute up the Thames into town.
A quiet hotel near Greenwich Park
Wake up beside the park and the Observatory, with the Thames Clipper and the DLR both running you into the centre.
££A riverside apartment in Greenwich
Self-catering by the water suits families and longer stays, with Borough Market's produce a short boat ride away.
££Affiliate notePostcardRoute is reader-supported. Some links to Booking.com (stays, flights, car hire, tickets and tours, airport transfers) are affiliate links, tracked through CJ Affiliate: if you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend places we would send a friend.
03Tickets & tours
British Museum
Two and a half million years of human stuff under a great glass-roofed courtyard — the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon marbles, the Sutton Hoo helmet.
Tip Do not try to see it all. Pick two galleries, go straight there when the doors open at ten, and leave before the school groups arrive mid-morning.
Tate Modern
Modern and contemporary art in a converted Bankside power station, with a cathedral-scale Turbine Hall and a free top-floor viewing level looking…
Tip Skip the lift and take the escalator to the tenth-floor viewing gallery for one of the best free panoramas in London, no ticket needed.
Borough Market
London's oldest food market, huddled under railway arches by London Bridge — cheese, oysters, sizzling grills, and enough free samples to make lunch…
Tip Go on a Thursday or Friday rather than the Saturday scrum, and come hungry with cash and patience for the queues at the best stalls.
Columbia Road Flower Market
A single East End street that erupts every Sunday into a riot of blooms, cockney barrow-boy patter and packed independent shops.
Tip Arrive by nine before the crowd thickens, or roll up at two when the traders slash prices to clear stock and shout their bargains.
Hampstead Heath
Eight hundred acres of wild, hilly parkland in the north, with swimming ponds, ancient woods, and the view from Parliament Hill that takes in the…
Tip Climb Parliament Hill for the panorama, then reward yourself at a Hampstead village pub — the walk back down through the streets is half the pleasure.
Greenwich & the Royal Observatory
A riverside town with a colonnaded naval college, a royal park climbing to the Observatory on the hill, and the Prime Meridian line where east meets…
Tip Take the Thames Clipper boat down rather than the train — it is cheaper than a tour, and arriving by water is how Greenwich is meant to be seen.
Tower of London
A nine-century-old fortress on the Thames that has been royal palace, prison and execution ground, now guarding the Crown Jewels behind Beefeaters…
Tip Book online for a meaningfully cheaper ticket and a timed slot that skips the walk-up queue, and arrive at opening to see the Jewel House before the tour groups fill it.
Sir John Soane's Museum
The house of a Georgian architect kept exactly as he left it, crammed floor to ceiling with sarcophagi, casts and paintings hidden behind folding…
Tip Free entry, but go on the first Tuesday evening of the month when it opens late by candlelight — the atmosphere is genuinely spellbinding.
The Wallace Collection
A palatial townhouse of old masters, armour and gilt furniture just off Oxford Street, free to enter and blissfully quiet while the shopping crowds…
Tip Duck in for an hour to escape the Oxford Street madness, and take tea in the glass-roofed courtyard restaurant afterwards.
Day trips from London
Oxford
An hour by train to the dreaming spires — honey-coloured colleges, covered markets and riverside pubs.
Day tripWindsor
Half an hour out to the largest inhabited castle in the world, still a working royal residence, with the Thames-side town and the long tree-lined…
Day tripThe coast at Brighton
An hour south to the sea — a pebble beach, a gaudy Regency pier, lanes full of vintage shops and the maddest palace in England.
Day tripEverything to do in London
Skip-the-line tickets, guided tours and day trips, all in one place on Booking.com.
04Getting there & around
Getting around
Two rules solve most of London. First, walk more than you think you should — neighbouring districts that feel like separate worlds on the map are often ten minutes apart on foot, and the Tube map is famously deceptive, drawing short surface hops as long underground journeys.
Flights
Compare fares into London and pick dates that suit the days you planned.
Airport transfers
Book a private or shared ride from the airport so the first evening starts at your door, not at a ticket queue.
Car hire from London
Only worth it for day trips beyond the city — in town, the plan above works on foot and public transport.
Affiliate notePostcardRoute is reader-supported. Some links to Booking.com (stays, flights, car hire, tickets and tours, airport transfers) are affiliate links, tracked through CJ Affiliate: if you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend places we would send a friend.