58 Practical London Tips in 14 Minutes | Your 2025 London Travel Guide

If you are looking for that super practical video to get you ready for that trip to London, this is that video. Wow, that's big. That's big talk. We have a lot of practical tips. I haven't even counted them. We probably will. And some little fun facts, and I think it's pretty good. This is gonna be great. Hi, I'm Jordan. And I'm Erica. And we're your guides abroad. And we're in London. We're in Regent's Park right now. It's beautiful. The Regent's Park. You know. All right, London is huge. It is 607 square miles and home to nine million people. And the River Thames, which you can see behind me, cuts right through it. So fun fact, the River Thames, it is one of the cleanest rivers that runs through a major city. And it used to be biologically dead. And then London had the great stink and people started moving out. So they decided to clean it up. They monitor it. They installed oxygenators. And voila, you have the Thames. London is huge, right? But most visitors just stay in zone one and two. There's six zones for the transport for London. But also there's 32 boroughs. But anyways, you'll stay right in the central part of London during your visit. That's where most of the historical sites are. And even the fun tourist things to do too, like the London Eye. Like we're gonna go on and do some cool stuff right now. The city of London is actually only one square mile. And per the Royal Museum in Greenwich, 85% of it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. London is great to visit year round as long as you are ready for what the season holds. So in the summer, that's the most popular time to visit. But it can be hot and it can be crowded. But it can also be cold and rainy. So you wanna bring layers because you never know really what you're gonna get in the summer. Fall, this is our favorite time to visit because it's less crowded. You can find some deals on hotel rooms. Bring a jacket because it's crisp. Can be a bit chilly, but it's lovely. We're here in September right now. And look how empty it is. Like you rarely see Kensington Gardens this empty. Winter, probably our least favorite time to visit because it can be dark. The days can be really short. It can be cold, but Christmas is so lovely. The lights are pretty magical and the pubs are lively and warm. And then in the springtime, London really shows off. The flowers are beautiful. We love walking through the parks. It's gorgeous. So don't forget your UK adapter, power adapter when you go. In the UK, it looks like this right here. Let me get some light on it. It's a little dark in here. We're in a Harry Potter room at our hotel, the Georgian House. Make sure you bring this adapter right there. We mainly use it for charging our electronics. You don't wanna bring like heat devices like your hairdryer and stuff because then you'll need like a bigger adapter for the change of voltage so much. If you are heading to London, you definitely wanna check out our London itinerary. It takes you on pre-planned out excursion days around the city so you can see the best sites, eat at the best restaurants. And it comes with a video guide, an audio guide, a transportation guide, and our favorite restaurants. We have you covered. So head to yourguidesabroad.com slash London and make your trip planning so much easier and your London trip so much better. If you've landed in Heathrow, our three favorite ways to head into the city are either the Piccadilly Line, the Elizabeth Line, or the Heathrow Express. Piccadilly Line, cheapest, longest. Heathrow Express, most expensive, fastest. Elizabeth Line, right in the middle. So those lines might not get you right to a tube stop near your hotel. For us, when we have a lot of luggage and kids and that happens to us, like we take it to Paddington, we just pop out, take a taxi with all this luggage and get to our hotel easily so we don't have to navigate the stairs with the tube. And if you're using the Piccadilly Line or the Elizabeth Line, you can just use your contactless card or you can use an Oyster card if you have one. And if you're going on the Heathrow Express, you just buy tickets for that. So to get to Gatwick, the easiest way is by train and trains leave from London to Victoria and you can be on the Gatwick Express or the Southern Trains. They take approximately the same amount of time and they cost approximately the same amount. I know a lot of people say Gatwick Express is a ripoff because it's so much more expensive. For this journey, we priced it out, we booked tickets in advance and it was a difference of like less than a pound. I like Gatwick Express because it has the luggage things but truly you can take either one, it doesn't really matter. If you have a great practical tip for visiting London, leave it in the comments below so we can all learn together. You gotta use a tube to get around. It's the fastest way to get around London. It has a daily cap of eight pounds 50 so it's super easy to get around. You can use contactless card like your Apple Pay or your wallet on your phone to get in or you can get Oyster card. They make it really easy for you. You can also take taxi, Ubers around too. I mean, black cabs are great, right? They're iconic but you can get stuck in traffic and take longer than taking the tube. Also double-decker bus, you know, we love our double-decker buses. Anyways, our train is here and I love this old station. The London Underground is so rich in history and a fun fact, 55% of the London Underground is above ground. All right, we gotta catch a train. You're traveling on the tube, you do not need to get an Oyster card. What we like to use is our contactless payment method as long as it has those little lines on it or use your Apple Pay to do it too. But if you're traveling with 11 to 15 year olds, you can get an Oyster card and then a TFL agent can program it for teens and you can save 50%. And head to our website because we have a ton of super helpful information on traveling with the tube. Why do I have this Oyster card? It's just a prop. We just try to be as helpful as possible with these videos. Okay, let's talk about getting around London. There are two apps that I suggest you download. The first being CityMapper. We love using CityMapper for public transportation, figuring out what tube to take, what train, what bus. It even tells you when things are coming, what carriage to get on. But then I love switching to the second app, Google Maps, because once I get out of the station or off the bus, I find that the walking is just easier to use on Google Maps. So those are the two apps we use to get around London. Okay, I see our tube stop, let's go. Okay, the tube is fast, but we like to take the bus sometimes because we can sightsee. There are even leisure routes which take you around major sites. So we are on bus route nine, which I will say is our favorite leisure route. So you can hail taxis in London. It's actually not that difficult, but if you are in a place where there aren't a lot of taxis going by and you have big suitcases or you want to pre-book a taxi, using the Get app is really convenient. And this calls Black Cabs and then you pay directly from the app. Practical tip number 354, you need sneakers because we love to walk around the city. We find the easiest way to get around. You can do all those apps, check all that stuff, but walking is really easy. But talk about taxis, it is easy to say, hey, I'm from the street, throw your hand up. We're tipping a taxi, usually they just round up. That's the easiest way to do it. And then you're off, right Annie? We're off. And if you're heading out to Greenwich, you can take the Thames Clipper behind me and you can use your contactless payment card to ride it. And I must say, we like going out on the Thames to win a riverboat tour. They're kind of touristy, I get it, but they're really affordable and it's a great way to get fun facts on the city and the history of the area. And they're really convenient, you can hop on them and just enjoy it. And yeah, nice way to get on the Thames and just get some great views too. When you're walking around London, the easiest place to cross the street is at a light with the walk signal or at a zebra or zebra crossing, which you can see over there at that stripe. If you are crossing at a corner or on a street where there are neither of those things, just watch out for cars because they might not stop for you. They probably won't. As we're walking past Imperial College in London, it seems fitting to talk about why the sun never set on the British Empire. What that means is that the sun physically never set on the British Empire. The sun was always shining at one part of the British Empire as the earth rotated. So it shows how large the British Empire was from Greenwich Mean Time to the middle of the Pacific Ocean the sun was always shining on the Empire. Not bad, Queen Victoria. Not bad. In England, the local currency is the pound. The slang for it is the quid. You also call a fiver a tenner. I'd show you what the money looks like, but London's a cashless city so we don't even really carry any pounds on us at all anymore. But if you are an ATM taking money out, we recommend always selecting the local currency because we find that your home bank rate is better than exchange rate offered at these machines. Same thing when you're at the restaurant and they hand you the little terminal to pay with your credit card. Same thing, select the local currency because that's usually the best rate. Anyways, that's it for money. And we're still talking about taking money out because some places still take cash. Like a few market stalls and stuff like that, but essentially every place is cashless. Where to eat when you're visiting London is a massive metropolitan city. So you can find things from Michelin star restaurants to chippies, to little hole in the wall places, to our favorite, pubs. I say head to a pub for a good pub meal and you can get some of those English classics like fish and chips, bangers and mash, shepherd's pie, just a burger if you like. We love pubs, we go to a lot of them. Right now we're at Borough Market. Lots of great markets around London. Borough Market's one of the busiest. It is in Southwark, which is on the south side of the Thames and it's a nice place to walk around, try different, lots of different types of London food, get produce. It is, I think, the oldest market in London. I think it started in the 12th century here. So, really cool place to visit. And believe it or not, kids are allowed in pubs in England. Usually 9, 9.30, you're suggested to leave. You'll get a feel of it when the vibe changes, time for the kids to go home. But we love to come to the pubs with our kids for dinner, for dinner only. There is cake everywhere. You will pretty much always find Victoria sponge cake, lemon drizzle cake, more cakes. There's a big selection. Anytime you go to like museums or we're at the Royal Opera House, Tower of London has a great cake selection. Get the cake. My two favorite museums in London are the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum, which is right behind me. It is the new dinosaur, the new Jurassic Garden they have out front. What do those two museums have in common? Reservations are recommended for those. Yeah, you recommend booking about a week out during the busy summer months. We're here in the fall right now, so we don't have to book anything. But those museums, book in advance. Also Tower of London, Westminster Abbey. What Erica says, if you have a favorite attraction that's really popular, check to see if reservations are required. And usually you gotta book a week or two in advance just to get a time slot you want to minimize your time in the queue. I hope that helps. All right, now we're gonna go inside and look at the dinosaurs. Once a day, we try and hit up one of the amazing parks in London. That's something we always put on our itinerary. Some tips to help you plan your own itinerary. Book things in advance like Jordan already talked about. Make sure you have some special things picked out while you're here. But don't overload your trip because you definitely want some time to just walk around the city and take things in. And we like to plan our days by neighborhood. That's how we do it in our itineraries that you can see on our website. But we try to minimize the amount of time we are going across town and just stick to a nice walkable area. Okay, fun fact, London is a forest. So 40% of the public space in London is green. So there are a lot of parks and I highly recommend you spend a good amount of time in them, exploring them, soaking in the vibe, the experience, watching everyone picnic. So here's my tips. I love going to cafes in the parks. They're all pretty reasonably good and they're just nice, a nice place to grab a quick meal. My favorite park, Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. I just feel like there's so much to do. There's also the flower walks which are absolutely beautiful. Also, you can rent bikes and go along them. You can rent boats and go in the serpentine. There's just a lot. So enjoy these parks. This tip is not practical at all. These are London plane trees. You'll see these throughout London. They're a mix of a plane and a sycamore tree. I think they started, they're hybridized in the 1700s. You'll see them everywhere. They grow really well in city soils. They're really compact. They're beautiful trees. And once you see them, you can't unsee them. You'll see them all over America also. They have like a camouflage bark Anyways, I love my London planes. It's a quick tip for anyone who is traveling with kids. London has some awesome playgrounds. You can Google them, Google map them all, see what's close to whatever else you are sightseeing for for the day. We're in St. James Park right now. It's a good one. If you want to check out more good ones, head to our website, yourgodsabroad.com. There's a link in the description below and we have some awesome playgrounds for you and your kids to check out. Okay, we're heading off to Gatwick Airport. Last of the practical tips is to make sure you download that one day London itinerary at yourgodsabroad.com slash London. And we're off. I hope you enjoy your trip to London. Those tips set a great foundation for you to travel to London. Have a wonderful trip to London. You're gonna love it. Check out these videos we put on the screen for even more information on traveling to London. You'll be all set, I promise.