I’ve never been to London and Roy hasn’t either. Considering we are such keen historians ourselves (and Kieran the 7yr old looks set to be the same) it is surprising we haven’t made the effort before now. Our aim in the next year or so (hopefully the next year!) is to take a trip down to London as a family for a long weekend.
I want to see the Palace, I want to see the shops, I want to visit the infamous food markets (it might be worth us going self catering if we are gong to be buying bags of yummy food unless we want to transport them all home!), I want to see and do everything and I want to share the experience with the whole family.
I know there are many sides to London and to explore these I think Roy and I would visit again on our own. I like the idea of the little hidden pockets, the side streets filled with wonderful little shops and more however the first time around….. we will be tourists (bum-bags and all!) and will be doing what tourists do.
Being the frugal family that we are we will probably use Tesco vouchers to pay for our train journey and possibly a Travelodge somewhere if we don’t find a discounted self accomodation place we can travel to and from. We’ll get travel cards, a London Pass and take packed lunches everywhere. Actually I’m quite looking forward to the idea of it all. You may well see a post in the future titled “Doing the Tourist Thing in London on a Budget” 🙂
My question for you all today is this: Where is the must-visit place for families doing the tourist thing in London? Kieran will tell you it is the London Zoo, Roy the Tower, myself anything historial and Taylor…. well if it sells ice-cream it will be a winner.
*This post was written in collaboration with the mentioned business yet it true to my own thoughts, feeling and experiences.
We try and go once a year, it’s less than an hour by train.
We usually travel by taxi because it often works out cheaper than than 4 travel cards. We do the long part of the journey by taxi then walk back to the hotel by way of attractions.
Sam’s favourite was the science museum, which is next to the Natural History museum. We then walked up along past Harrods, past Buckingham Palace and onto Trafalgar Square.
Other times we’ve been to the zoo or on the London Eye, great for seeing the Houses of Parliament.
You can do it relatively cheaply. We use Tesco vouchers to eat out too. We stay in Premier inn’s because kids get free breakfast and we fill them up on that in the morning, grab a treat for lunch (something like an ice cream sundae) and then head to pizza express for dinner, using tesco vouchers.
Just let me know if you want some more tips!
Thank you!
By train it would take 4-5 hours for us which is a bind but I’m still determined to go. I’ll look at Premier, I didn’t realise they were on Tesco now!
I’d undoubtedly vote for the absolutely fantastic cablecar over the Thames – I posted about it on my blog went we went on it – it’s cheap as chips and gives a fantastic view for a far better price than the London Eye!
I bet that is amazing on a clear day!
I’m absolutely obsessed. The first time I visited, I spent a whopping 6 hours in there soaking everything up and wandering around the grounds. It’s beautiful and full of history. I’ve been back twice since 😉
The history is exactly why I’m so keen to go!