Free Things to Do in London

Best Free Things to do in London

Hey Owlets,

I always love getting messages from you asking for advice when you’re travelling to the UK, but the number one thing I hear is that you want to visit London but you’re worried about how much everything will cost. London is an incredible city to explore but it can be EXPENSIVE; going to the big attractions can set you back as much as £30 a ticket and in my opinion it’s just not worth it to be rammed in with hundreds or thousands of other tourists doing the exact same thing.  Instead, turn away from the big attractions in favour of these gems that make exploring London a lot more affordable, but also unique.

Best Free Things to do in London

Sky Garden

If you've heard of any of the places on this list then it's probably Sky Garden. It seems to have gained a lot of hype on Instagram all of a sudden, but that's for good reason. Sky Garden is at the top of the Walkie Talkie building and offers an incredible view across the city similar to The Shard, but where you'd pay £30 a ticket to go to the top of The Shard you can book a ticket to visit Sky Garden for FREE. Honestly it blows my mind that this is possible - I still haven't had chance to visit but it's at the top of my list when I'm next in London. Be warned, you do need to book in advance via this link, you can't just turn up.

Best Free Things to do in London

Explore London's Markets

One of the best ways to experience London is just to get out there and see what you find. London has incredible markets for just about everything - Portobello Road is great for antiques, Borough is great for trying amazing new food and Columbia Road is the place to go for beautiful flowers. Despite constantly hearing that Londoners are rude and hate talking to people visiting markets will show you that the exact opposite is true - if you ever want to know anything you can guarantee a stall holder will know and they're usually happy to suggest other unique places for you to visit. If it's your first time visiting London or you're travelling solo then heading to the markets will give you an amazing sense of history and local life - it's an absolute must-do!

Best Free Things to do in London

Visit a Museum

If you enjoy art, culture and history then London is one of the best places you can go - you could take up several days just visiting all of the free museums across the capital to learn something new. My top picks are the Natural History Museum, the V&A, the Science Museum and the National Gallery. There's also an amazing selection of smaller museums to visit that very few people know about, so if you like to go a little off-piste then some great options for you include the Horniman Museum and Gardens to see a huge collection of musical instruments, the V&A Museum of Childhood to spend the day playing with old-timey toys and the Serpentine Galleries that host different art exhibitions throughout the year and is a great place to discover emerging artists.

Best Free Things to do in London
Photo: Londonist

Feed the Parakeets

For me a "must do" in London is paying a visit to the parakeets in Kensington Park; no one knows where they came from or how long they've been there, but pack an apple and head into the park to offer them some lunch. Londonist has a great guide on the best place to find them, so if you decide you want to go bird spotting have a read of their directions.

Best Free Things to do in London

Just Walk

These days travel often involves hours of scrolling through Instagram to find the best photoshoot locations, researching the best restaurants on Yelp and asking Twitter where you should go, but do you ever just start walking to see where you end up? London is the perfect city to explore because it doesn't matter where you walk, you'll probably still be close to a tube station to get back to where you started. Find a street you like the look of, start walking and see where you end up - there's no end of beautiful winding alleyways and you might even find somewhere that hasn't been Instagrammed to death. Put the phone down and take a stroll! I recommend starting at London Bridge, walking down a side street and getting lost for a while.

Best Free Things to do in London

How to Get Around London

London can feel incredibly overwhelming when you first arrive, but it's very quick to get used to. Getting around in London (click here for a detailed guide) is much easier than you think. There are five main options - walking, bus, tube, bikes/scooters and taxi. All bikes have a computer kiosk next to them where you can hire one without using your phone, whereas for scooters you'll need your phone to download the app. 

If you want to stick to the touristy areas then the Hop On Hop Off bus will take you to all of the main sights and you can get a ticket for multiple days if you want to rely on the tourist bus - the only issue is that it doesn't run very late into the evening so you might have to fork out money for a taxi if you're exploring in the evening. 

For taxis, either make sure you have Uber on your phone or hail a black cab. Black cabs are more expensive but every cabbie has had to memorise all of central London and pass a test to prove their knowledge, so you can hop in and ask for suggestions. 

Taking the tube is the public transport option (and one of the most affordable), but it can feel overwhelming the first time. Download the TFL app, Citymapper or Moovit and you'll be able to put in your destination and be given directions via tube. You can also do this with Google Maps but it's not as user friendly, although you can type wherever you'd like to visit and Google will tell you the nearest tube station. To ride the tube, you can either buy an Oyster card for a £5 deposit and top it up at any machine inside a tube station, or use your contactless bank card. 

Walking is obviously the free option, but make sure you've got a good data plan and Google Maps at the ready because it's easy to get lost!

Hopefully this has given you some inspiration for how to make the most of your trip to London on a limited budget - if you've not yet visited London should definitely be on your travel bucket list! Honestly, my biggest tip is to spend as much time in the city as you can - you need at least two days in London just to see the main attractions! If you'd like a part two of things that are cheap to do, let me know as I always love writing these kinds of posts! If you have any ideas of other places to visit while in London please let me know on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram or in the comments below.

If you're looking for inspiration on other places to visit, here's a few of my favourites:




Love and Feathers, 
 The Owlet 💜 
You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest

No comments:

Post a Comment

Have your say; it's a hoot!