Hey everybody, I hope you’re all safe and well ❤

Today I’m back again with another “travel on a budget” blog, this time focusing on London again and some of the incredible things you can do for free within the city. As I’ve mentioned before, I love London, and I’ve visited the city multiple times which has given me the chance to identify a variety of free activities that you can do in the Big Smoke. So if you’re looking to visit the Capital once we’re allowed to travel again, or if you’re just looking to find out more about the city for the future, please keep reading..

1. Go to the Museums

Possibly my favourite thing about London is the museums. When I was little I was fascinated by every single museum I visited and dragged my parents around every exhibit (and the gift shop of course). As an avid an of museums I’ve visited quite a few of the great museums have on offer and would definitely recommend taking some time out of your trip to explore their history. While the museums do offer free entry, you definitely should give a small donation if you can as they rely on this to keep the museums open and keep the history alive. There are a wide variety of museums in London so I thought I’d give you a quick list and you can pick out the ones that you fancy the most.

• The British Museum
• National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery
• Museum of London
• Royal Academy of Arts
• Natural History Museum (the best!!)
• The Science Museum (a close 2nd best!!)
• Imperial War Museum
• National Maritime Museum
• Victoria and Albert Museum
• Tate Modern and Tate Britain
• Queen’s House
• Royal Air Force Museum
• Horniman Museum and Gardens
• British Library
• Museum of London Docklands
• Bank of England Museum
• Serpentine Galleries

If you want to find out more about these museums before you visit, please follow this link to find out more 😊

2. Take a stroll around the Parks

Another great thing that London has to offer are their parks. As I tend to visit the city during the Winter these are something I haven’t explored much of, however I have visited one or two and have seen incredible photographs of the rest on some of my favourite travel Instagram accounts, so I figured I’d add them to the list. One thing I particularly like about the parks is that it reminds me of home, so if I start to get a little homesick while I’m away or long for the beautiful greenery of the countryside, a trip to the park can sort me right out. So I thought I’d give you a list of some of the bigger parks in London which you should definitely consider taking a trip to during your holiday to London.

• Hyde Park (one I’ve personally visited and loved)
• Regent’s Park (another one I’ve visited)
• Richmond Park
• St James’s Park
• Victoria Park
• Greenwich Park
• Hampstead Heath
• Kensington Gardens (another one I’ve visited)

And that’s just to name a few, if you fancy visiting some parks that are less well-known, check out this Visit London link to find out more.

3. Strawberry Tours Walking Tours

I stumbled across this amazing organisation when my friends and I visited London and we wanted to go on a Jack the Ripper tour, but every one we looked at had sold out. When deep diving google to try and find a company that had availability, we stumbled across this one. Since then I’ve been on a Strawberry Tours Jack the Ripper tour twice, once in Summer when it was still light out and once in the Winter when it was dark and eerie. Both times were amazing. If you’re considering a trip to London I would definitely consider a walking tour with Strawberry Tours because they are a great way to see all the areas of the city with a very knowledgeable guide giving you a huge amount of information at the same time. Strawberry Tours operate on a basis of offering “free” tours, however at the end tour goers are given the opportunity to tip their guide, and I definitely think you should do this just as a way to thank them for the time they have taken to show you around. Strawberry Tours offer a wide variety of tours, so I’m going to list them below:

• London in a Day tour
• London Landmarks Tour West
• London Landmarks Tour East
• London Landmarks Tour South
• Harry Potter tour
• Jack the Ripper tour
• Street Art and Graffiti tour
• British Museum tour
• Soho Walking tour
• London Food tour
• Ghost tour
• Historical Pub tour
• London Pub Crawl

These tours all cover different parts of London from a different perspective, and all look really interesting! I’m eager to go on the ghost tour, and the Harry Potter tour when I can, and I’d also love to do the Jack the Ripper tour again. If you want to find out more about Strawberry Tours please follow this link.

4. Window shop on Oxford Street (and surrounding areas)

If there’s one thing I’ve neglected to do in London, that’s shop. I’ve yet to go on a shopping spree in the city, but it’s definitely on my list of things to do for my next trip away. That being said, I have spent a lot of time window shopping in the city, and I’d definitely recommend doing some window shopping on your trip to London. There are so many great shops in the city, shops that you can’t find elsewhere and shops that I definitely don’t get back home in my little village, or even in the cities nearest to me. London has some shops which are just staples of the city which you definitely have to visit, even if you don’t intend on buying anything. So I thought I’d put together a little list of the shops you should definitely visit during your trip to London:

• Hamleys Toy Store
• Harrods Department Store
• Selfridges
• Harvey Nichols
• Lush (the Oxford Street store is one of the biggest in the UK)
• Primark (again its one of the best in the UK)
• The Disney Store
• M&Ms World (Leicester Square)
• Morphe (Westfield Stratford Shopping Centre)
• Deciem (Covent Garden and home of ‘The Ordinary’ products)
• Covent Garden Market (great for unique pieces and keepsakes from your trip away)

And that’s just to name a few. If you’re interested in finding out more about the shops that London has to offer, follow this Visit London link to find out more on their street by street shopping guide.

5. Take a walk around the Sites

Personally I love the City of London, and by that I mean the borough at the centre of London which houses some of the cities greatest sights. I love that so many of the cities greatest sites are within a walking distance of one another which is why I always try and do as much walking as possible when I’m in the city (on a trip at Christmas time I walked 37,000 steps in one day). Just as an example of what you can see when walking I thought I’d tell you about a route I take when I visit the city.

When I visit London I usually stay in London Excel Travelodge. To get into the city from here I take the DLR to Tower Gateway which gives you amazing views of the O2 Arena, the Emirates Cable Cars and even the London 2012 Olympic Stadium. I hop off the train at Tower Gateway and walk across to Tower Hill tube station which gives me the chance to take a look at the Tower of London on my way. I then hop on a circle line train to Embankment (or I walk this route, however it takes a while) and take the exit closest to the Thames. I cross the bridge (after stopping to take photographs) and walk across to South bank where I like to stop for a drink. I walk past the London Eye, past the London Dungeons and up to Westminster Bridge (to see the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben), before doubling back up the other side of the Thames, passing New Scotland Yard and ending back by Embankment station. I walk back through the station and take the other exit, and then begin the walk to Covent Garden before doubling back on myself to go to Trafalgar Square then Leicester Square, and finally to Piccadilly Circus. All of which can be completed in a nice leisurely walk, with plenty of opportunities to stop along the way and admire the view, all while being totally free.

And that concludes my list of free things to do in London, I’ve actually completed all of these activities myself and thoroughly enjoyed all of them so I would definitely recommend. And while some of these are “free” it’s always polite to give a donation to the museums, or a tip to your tour guide because while these activities are “free”, these organisations do need money in order to keep doing the great work that they do. And offering “free” things in a city that’s expensive as London really is a great thing for them to do so we should definitely show our appreciation.

If you have completed or are looking to do any of the activities on the list, let me know in the comments section below ⬇, let’s chat all things London. I really hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post and that you’ll stay tuned for my travel blogs in the future.

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