Think you can do London in one day?
Disclaimer as always: If you’re not the walking type, feel free to take Uber, that will only cost you few hundred £ extra.
This is how to do almost all of London’s main attractions in ONE DAY. If you can keep up, you will have seen:
- Buckingham Palace
- St. James Park
- Westminster Abbey
- Big Ben
- London Eye
- The Shard
- Tower Bridge
- Tower of London
- St. Paul’s Cathedral
- Covent Garden
- Trafalgar Square
- Piccadilly Circus
- Oxford Street
In this order, in a single day.
Good Morning: let’s start
Wherever you are staying, you may want to wake up early for this. Let’s say you leave your place at 8:30 A.M. Take the nearest tube to St. James Park station. From there, Buckingham Palace is walking distance away.
Stop 1: Buckingham Palace
If you’re lucky, you witness the change of guards. But don’t count on it. Spend some time looking at the architecture, guards, people and the doors.
Stop 2: St. James’ Park
London has MANY parks, Londoners take their fresh air time very seriously. The major one inside London in Hyde Park, St. James is a miniature version of it. The reason we do St. James is because it is literally next to the Buckingham Palace, and easy to get through from it to the rest of the attractions.
Do walk inside the park not outside, following the park lake. It’s beautiful, especially in Autumn or Spring.
After walking the entire park, you have two options. If you are into British politics (eh), head to 10 Downing Street. it’s walking distance away from the exit of St. James. Otherwise, Westminster Abbey is next.
Stop 3: Westminster Abbey and Palace
By far the best abbey I’ve ever seen — Joey Tribianni
Near the abbey is probably the most London London gets (no I didn’t write London twice). While you’re here, take some time to walk around the Parliament Square Gardens, if you’re into statues, they have many. And of course, check out the houses of parliament.
Stop 4: Big Ben & London Eye
You probably know what to do from here. Big Ben, Westminster Bridge and the London Eye are close together. So make your way around, cross the bridge into the London Eye.
Cross the Bridge for a London Eye close-up.
Get as close as you can to the Eye, the next train will leave from Waterloo Station, which is walking distance.
Stop 5: The Shard, Tower Bridge
From London Eye, look up Waterloo Underground station.
Next up, London Bridge station. From Waterloo, London Bridge station is 10 minutes away via Jubilee Line underground trains. Get off (in British English get off is ‘alight’)at London Bridge.
If you’re lucky, you’ll be doing this at night. And if you’re super lucky, you’ll be doing this when the bridge opens. That’s right, this thing splits once in a while. photos below. You can read about when the bridge opens, Google tower bridge lifting dates.
The next step can be easily guessed. We cross the bridge.
Stop 6: Tower of London
On the other side of the bridge is a 1000-year-old monument, the Tower of London. And, the view from the other side is even better. As a bonus: there’s one of the prettiest coffee places in London near the tower, coppa club.
From here, make your way to Tower Hill underground station, your next sop will be St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Stop 7: St. Paul’s
Take the Circle line from Tower Hill to Mansion House, around 7 minutes by train. and make your way to St. Paul’s Cathedral. One of the most iconic Cathedrals in the UK. It was rebuilt based on the original St. Paul’s, which was burnt down in the great fire of London (need a separate blog just to talk about the London Fire)
After the cathedral, you can cross the Millenium bridge, the view is stunning across. Otherwise, if you want to stick to the plan, we make our way to Covent Garden.
Covent Garden is 15 minutes away by bus and 18 minutes by tube from St Paul’s.
Stop 8: Covent Garden
Alight at Savoy Street, from there Covent garden is walking distance. Covent is very pretty during Christmas, but it’s always a nice sight.
The next photos are from the Christmas period. P.S. London does THE BEST Christmas celebrations in the world. I highly recommend going there in the second half of December for the best experience possible.
Stop 9: Trafalgar Square
This is a nice place to chill and have some food and enjoy street art performances. It is about 10 minutes walk from Covent Garden.
From here you will have to walk all the way up to Picadilly Circus, as shown in the map below. You can take a bus or the tube, but I suggest you walk, it’s a nice London walk.
Stop 10: Picadilly Circus, Regent Street, Oxford Street
This is the end of the day, the later you get here the better, as long as it’s not 10 pm. I’m assuming you found a place to have lunch somewhere near tower bridge, or picked up a meal deal at least from Tesco or Sainsbury’s by London Eye.
I’d highly recommend coming here during Christmas, The photos I’m showing are from the Christmas period, by far my favourite time in London.
When you arrive in Picadilly Circus, walk up Regent’s Street, all the way to Oxford Street. This is the heart of London, there’s literally everything you can think of. Oxford Street is where most outlets are, save your shopping until you get here.
The End
This was a condensed plan if you want to see most of London’s main attractions in one day. Of course, London is A LOT more than what I’ve shown in this article. It would take AT LEAST 5 days like these to comfortably say that ‘I have seen London’. It is a wonder city that I think every traveler should visit at least once in a lifetime.
These are a few places I love in London but could not fit into a day’s schedule:
- Canary Wharf
- Little Venice
- Camden Town
- King’s Cross
- Liverpool Street
- Hyde Park
- Harrods
and a lot more….
