London, England

When we originally decided to visit England, people told us that you can easily spend a week just in London. Although we notoriously try to cram as many places as possible into a short amount of time, we only had 5 days budgeted for England, so we decided to stay in the capital city (with one exception).

We flew into Heathrow and out of Luton, so we got to experience two very different London airports. By and large, transportation in London is great. We got an oyster card which is a pre-loaded card that gave us easy, discounted access to the Tube. The Tube took us almost everywhere we needed to go during our trip so they oyster card was a great investment. As we were staying in the city, we also took advantage of the London Pass (we got the 3 day pass for £ 125) which gave us entrance to most of the attractions we were interested in (and some additional we wouldn’t have seen otherwise) by using a single card. We had the oyster card mailed to us so we could easily move from the airport to our hostel, and we picked up the London Pass once we were in London since we planned it so we wouldn’t need it until our second day.

To assist with planning, there is a great website called VisitACity which gives you customizable itineraries for cities like London based on the location and opening times of sites. We used this to help us organize our itinerary and adjusted it based on what we actually wanted to do and see.

Our itinerary was as follows:

Day one: We flew into Heathrow around 7 in the morning (we attempted to sleep overnight on the flight but failed miserably). We checked into our hostel (the Abercorn House) in Hammersmith to drop off our belongings. This was conveniently located about a 3 minute walk from the Hammersmith Tube station. We then took the Tube to Kings Cross Station, then to the British Museum, Trafalgar Square, and finally picked up our London Pass before going to bed early.

Day two: St. Paul’s cathedral, the Tower of London, the HMS Belfast, the Shard, Covent Gardens, and Piccadilly Circus

Day three: Westminster Abbey, Hyde and Green Park, Kensington Palace, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a show at the Globe Theater

Day four: The changing of the guards, a hop-on hop-off bus tour, Wimbledon, and then picked up our rental car

Day five: Got up very early to drive to Stonehenge, returned for a nap, and then went to the National Gallery and Eye of London

Day six: Took our rental car to Luton where we flew via RyanAir to Dublin, Ireland

There really was so much to do in London that we would recommend spending more time there in order to see more with less running around. We got very little sleep and were constantly on our feet, trying to make it to as many destinations as possible. We also kept rearranging our itinerary on the go, so what we ultimately did (detailed here) did not resemble our original itinerary at all. The oyster card made it easy to zigzag our way across London, but there definitely were more efficient ways to hit the attractions that we did. Extra time would also allow you to explore the rest of England, which we will have to do on another trip.

Stay tuned for details of our experience regarding which attractions were worth it and where we wish we had spent more time!