How to Spend 4 Days in London

London is a must-see destination for many travelers. If you only have a few days to visit, here’s how you should spend 4 days in London!

If you’re planning a trip in the near future, make sure you register for travel insurance before you go.

You can also check out my list of essential items for backpackers!

---

On this trip we had 4 days in London to see the sights, drink tea, and explore the city. So, we needed a London 4 Day Itinerary.

It’s not always easy to know what to do in London for 4 days, but luckily I had been to London once before and had a general idea of what we should do while we were there.

Of course, we didn’t have time to do *everything* we wanted to do.

Even some of the things we had planned to do ended up being failures due to issues with our understanding of the public transportation system and a tragic lack of WiFi access.

I’m going to run you through what we did while we were in London, as what we didn’t do but wish we did.

I’ll also share the costs associated with our trip so you can get an idea of what to expect in terms of budgeting for a visit to London.

Lastly, you’ll learn from my mistakes when I share my “what I wish I knew” items.

Ready?

Here’s What We Did:

Double-Decker Bus Tour

Yes, we went on a super cheesy-ridiculous bus tour.

BUT, you guys, I had never been on one of those super touristy-tours before and I thought it would be a fun and easy way to make sure we took in all the sights.

There are several different bus tour companies in town, but we went with Big Bus Tours.

Tower of London

This is a CAN’T MISS item. I’d recommend going early in the day because it can get really crowded.

Guided tours are given every hour or so. The groups are usually pretty large, but invaluable if you want to learn about the incredible history of this place!

The Shard and London Eye

Okay, so we didn’t actually go *inside* of this gigantic building, but it was pretty neat to see it up close.

You can see it from pretty much anywhere in the city, and it looks beautiful on those rare days when blue skies are peeking through.

The last time I was in London, The Eye had opened just 5 months before. I didn’t have time to go up on it the first time, so we decided it would be worth a laugh and bought our tickets.

I won’t lie, the loading and unloaded process was interesting as you have to get on and off a moving carriage.

Anyway, the view from the top is pretty incredible.

Parliament and Big Ben

So, there’s not really an easy way to tour the inside of Parliament, and you can forget about any ideas you may have about going up inside the clock tower to see Big Ben.

You can “see” the building from most places in the city, but it’s still fun to get up close and check out the architecture.

The Eye is just on the other side of the river, so you can just walk right over the bridge to get a closer look after your ride.

Buckingham Palace and The Changing of The Guard

I’m probably going to have tomatoes thrown at me, but I wasn’t impressed with the Changing of the Guard. I didn’t love it fifteen years ago, and I wasn’t impressed with it this year, either.

I know it’s on most people’s “must-see” list, but honestly the ceremony is just a bunch of Queen’s Guards marching around really, really slowly.

Plus, it’s so completely crowded that you can’t see anything anyway.

Okay, I’m officially ducking under my desk to avoid being hit with rotten produce.

Just go see it for yourself, come back and tell me about it, and I’ll try really hard not to say “I told you so.”

Enjoy the Food

We ate well for the entire trip and didn’t gain an ounce.

A LOT of walking to be done when traveling in foreign cities, especially ones with huge Underground systems accessible only by many, many flights of stairs.

We both vowed to stop using the elevators and escalators back home.

Here are some dishes you absolutely have to try while in London:

Fish & Chips – you can’t visit London without having some fish and chips. Don’t forget to try some malt vinegar on your chips!

Yorkshire Pudding – contrary to some weird idea I had in my head, this is not in fact some strange type of meat dessert. It’s a lovely, puffy side dish made from eggs, flour, and milk. Almost like a really small, savory puffed pancake.

Meat Pie – I must have tried different variations of meat pies at at least four different pubs on our trip. SO GOOD.

Beans on Toast – If you see beans with toast on a menu just order it and give it a try. It’s oddly delicious.

Tea – We drank SO MUCH TEA. Tea in the morning, tea in the evening, tea at suppertime. I take my tea with a sugar and milk. And biscuits (which are what we call cookies).

Other things we did which deserve mention but I don’t feel like talking about: Sherlock Holmes Museum, Cutty Sark, Scotland Yard Headquarters, and the National Maritime Museum.

Here’s What We Didn’t Do:

High Tea

When we asked around for places to have “High Tea,” locals looked at us like we were out of our minds.

I don’t know if maybe we just asked the wrong people, or were in the wrong part of town, or if that really just isn’t something that they do over there anymore.

Indian Food

I REALLY wanted to eat some awesome Indian food while we were in London.

Alas, we never quite got around to it. Just thinking about this grave loss nearly brings me to tears.

Cost of The Trip

Here’s what the two of us spent (total) spent on our 4-day London excursion (not including airfare):

• Lodging (Hostel): $187.64 ($62.55 per night for private room + breakfast)
• Public Transportation (Underground): $93.38
• Private Transportation (Taxi): $173.85 (Heathrow to Greenwich)
• Food (including drinks and tips): $445.47 (average of $27.84 per meal, per person)
• Admissions & Tours: $184.60 (Big Bus Tour, Tower of London, London Eye)

TOTAL: $1,084.94 ($542.47 per person)

Now, you can definitely do this trip cheaper!

Staying in a dormitory instead of a private room would have saved us almost $100 at our hostel ($30 USD for two dorm beds per night).

We also spent quite a bit on food and entrance to tourist sites. There are lots of free things to do in London (like check out one the 23 free museums!).

Of course, that taxi ride really screwed us, too.

If you stay in a dormitory, skip the big bus tour, drink beer at the hostel instead of at a pub, and avoid taxis like the plague, you could easily do 4 days in London for under $400 per person.

I know plenty of travelers who visit major European cities for under $30 a day. That usually involves cooking your own cheap meals, avoiding alcohol, and crashing in the cheapest hostel available.

Just figure out what things are important to you, and be sure to budget for it. Eating local cuisine in restaurants is one of my favorite parts of traveling, so I always have a big “food” budget!

What I Wish I Knew

Ah, yes. I always come back from these trips with a list of “things I wish I knew before I went.” Here’s what you need to know:

Beer

You’ll notice in most pubs and restaurants that they’ll indicate a difference between “Real Ale” (also called Cask Ale) and regular beer.

Real Ale is typically unfiltered, unpasteurized and is served without pressure from nitrogen or carbon dioxide (read: carbonation).

Ordering in Pubs

In a bar, pub, or restaurant in the U.S., you might order a drink from the bar, but if you are going to sit down to a meal you are typically seated at a table and served by waitstaff.

Our first meal in London, we sat down in a pub, looked over the menus, and waited.

And waited.

And…. finally got up, walked up to the bar, and asked if we could order some food. The bartender looked at me a little funny, but gladly took my order and handed over the WiFi password.

We quickly looked up standard food-ordering protocol in London and learned that in bars and pubs, everything is ordered up at the actual bar itself.

You pay when you order, food is brought to your table, and when you are done you simply leave. I actually prefer it to the whole waiting-around-for-the-check thing we do back home.

Tipping

When you order food up at a counter and pay for it at the same time, there’s not a lot “table service” going on and not a lot of opportunity to leave a tip.

After a bit more googling, we found that while tipping is common in full-service restaurants, pubs and bars with pay-at-the-counter type operations don’t typically expect or receive additional tips from patrons.

You should check out this article on tipping in the United Kingdom to get a good run-down of common practices.

Tower Bridge

This is the Tower Bridge. It goes up and down. Contrary to Fergie-logic, the London Bridge does NOT. Two different bridges, people.

Public Transportation

The public transportation system in London is pretty good.

While it was convenient for us to book a hop-on, hop-off sightseeing tour, there are plenty of public transportation options that are much more cost efficient.

With some of the all-day passes, you can hop on and hop off any of the buses, underground and overground trains, and the lightrail, too.

You also may want to check out the Oyster Card system if you’re spending more than a few days in the city.

When we landed at Heathrow we thought we’d take public transportation to our hostel in Greenwich (which is quite a ways away!), but we were so brain fried that we couldn’t figure it out and just took a taxi instead.

Which, you know, cost us $173 dollars.

Seriously. $173.

We got smart and took public transportation from Greenwich back to the airport for about $18 per person. It was hot and we were hauling our luggage, but we saved $137!

Big Ben

Just so you know, Big Ben is NOT the name of the clock or tower at the Palace of Westminster. It’s actually the name of the BELL inside of it. The tower is known properly as Elizabeth Tower. The more you know!

---

Phew! That was a lot of knowledge to drop on you all just now. I think it’s about time for me to kick back.