My family of four recently spent a week visiting London and another five days visiting Paris. This was my husband’s and teens’ first international flight and visit to Europe. It was a great introduction to traveling beyond the Americas and the Caribbean. Here is how we spent our week in London!
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Travel Logistics
Flights
As mentioned in my post Why Travel Hacking Makes Sense, using credit cards has opened up more exotic travels for my family. First I accrued points on my Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Then I transferred these points to Virgin Atlantic airlines to book direct flights to London from Austin. For only 48,000 points and $600 in taxes total, we were able to take an easy overnight flight.
Lodging
I wanted to book a hotel I had stayed at before for our week in London. So I decided to use cash on our hotel as I couldn’t find a book on points option. We stayed at the Premier Inn London County Hall Hotel in a family room which cost about $250 per night and included breakfast. I was worried we wouldn’t have enough space, but it was perfect! It’s in a great location right across Westminster Bridge from Big Ben and Parliament.
Our family room had three beds. One was a bit smaller than a U.S. queen bed and one was a standard twin bed. The other was a converted couch with a real mattress. This one was smaller and shorter than a standard twin and a bit harder than the other beds, but it worked for my daughter. Best of all, the A/C worked great!
Side note – a flight change required us to spend an extra night in London. Our original hotel wasn’t available, so our first night was spent at a Hyatt Place London Heathrow Airport in two twin rooms. This was compliments of Virgin Atlantic. Then we transferred to Premier Inn for the rest of our trip. This hotel is very nice and good for a one night stay on the day of arrival or departure, but too far away from the city to make it a good choice for touring. Airport hotels are a lot less expensive than city central hotels, but you often have to have two rooms for families of four so the price will be about the same or more than a family hotel in city center.
Transportation
We primarily used the London Tube, train, and bus system to get around. We could have gotten a child discount for my youngest teen in London. But that would have required us to get an Oyster card and estimate how much we would spend and preload it. Instead, we all took the easy way out and used chipped credit cards. Our week in London ended up costing us about $190 for public transportation. Generally, I recommend budgeting $10 per day per person on days you plan to use public transportation.
Public transportation is easy to use in London. We used the Google Maps, CityMapper, and TfL Go apps to tell us the best way to get around. I would usually consult Google Maps first, then check CityMapper to see if it recommended anything different. CityMapper also has pricing, which comes into play for longer trips. TfL Go was handy since it has metro maps so you can chart your path when you are on public transportation.
We also used ride share a few times when public transportation was available but inconvenient. In addition, we took a ride share from the airport to and from Windsor Castle, from the airport to our hotel, and to the train station from our hotel. We used both Uber and Bolt during our week in London and spent about $150 total. Expect a ride share from the airport to a city central hotel to cost about $75 and shorter jaunts to be around $30 each.
Meals
Perhaps our most shocking expense during our week in London was food. We ended spending approximately $200 a day total on food. We weren’t particularly economical in our food choices, and I didn’t hesitate to say yes to requests to ice cream and special treats. However, we did share some meals and didn’t go anywhere outrageously expensive other than high tea at the Swan. A family could eat cheaper than we did, but I recommend budgeting about $50 per day per person for family trips with teens to Europe.
Activities
I spent a lot of time analyzing the Go City Pass options in London. I made a list of everything I wanted to see and looked up their prices on the website. Then I looked at the Go City Pass website to see what those passes covered. Ultimately, I decided that buying passes would be more expensive than booking directly on attraction websites. But it’s always worth it to check!
Itinerary
There’s so much to see and do, there’s no way to cram it all into a week-long vacation in London. Plus I wanted to make sure we weren’t too overscheduled and allow time to do things we discovered along the way. We had 5.5 days to experience all London had to offer plus squeeze in a few day trips. Here’s how we tackled our time.
Saturday – Arrival & Windsor
We arrived in London mid-morning on a Saturday. I wanted to help everyone adjust to UK time as soon as possible, so I didn’t allow naps despite the fact our hotel rooms were already available! We dropped off our bags at our hotel near the airport and took a rideshare to Windsor. We had a lunch at a little café by the castle.
Windsor Castle
Our timed entry tickets to Windsor Castle were valid at 2 p.m. and included an audio tour guide. I discovered quickly that my teens were not interested in audio tours! In hindsight, I should have encouraged them to listen to the children’s version of audio tours when available as those contain far less information and are usually more entertaining!
We toured the State Apartments first, then visited St. George’s Chapel. Afterwards, we saw the hourly changing of the guard ceremony. Queen Mary’s Dollhouse had a long line. I suggested we wait, but everyone else vetoed the idea. Since I saw it on my first trip to London a few years ago, I decided not to inconvenience everyone. My family sped through the entire experience in less than two hours. But I suggest that you plan to spend 3-4 hours touring the castle, especially if you use the audio tour and wait to see the dollhouse.
Thames Riverboat Tour
We left the castle and stopped for ice cream nearby. We decided we needed to find something else to do to avoid going to bed too early. So we bought tickets for a Thames Riverboat Tour. It was a good way to kill some time and see locals enjoying their Saturday out on the water. But I think a Thames riverboat tour in London would have been better.
Afterwards we had an early dinner at a lovely brasserie right by the boat dock. Then we took a rideshare back to our airport hotel and crashed about 8 p.m.
Sunday – Harry Potter in London
Harry Potter Walking Tour
We slept in and then made our way to our London city central hotel the following day. We dropped our bags and had a quick Starbucks breakfast across the street from the hotel. Then we launched into our Harry Potter day.
Instead of doing the “normal” tourist route to begin our week in London, we went on a Free Tours by Foot Harry Potter walking tour from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. This tour covered sites from the Harry Potter books and movies and places that inspired J.K. Rowling. The tour and our guide were amazing.
I knew this was a good idea for my teens as they have no interest in learning about British politics and care very little about British history. Harry Potter sites were more their speed, and I had already added other “must-see” AKA “boring” historical sites to the itinerary.
Free Tours by Foot also has more traditional tours for families not into Harry Potter. For example, this Westminster tour takes you by all the major sites in the area. This would also be a great way to launch your week in London!
Warner Bros. Studio Tour London
We had tickets to Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter starting at 6 p.m. We had lunch near our hotel and got settled into our room. Then we made our way via subway to Eustace Station to take the train to Watford Junction. Finally, we boarded the free shuttle to the studios from Watford Junction.
We allowed three hours for this journey, and it took almost all three hours! It turns out that there are both multi-stop and non-stop trains between Eustace and Watford. Either allow at least three hours or make sure you get on a non-stop train! Or both. You receive timed tickets to Warner Bros. Studios, but I think if you show up early, they will let you in or at least let you browse through the expansive gift shop!
If you enjoy Harry Potter movies, visiting the studios is a must-do activity. You can spend hours wandering through sets, seeing costumes and props, and learning more about the magic. There are terrific photo ops, interactive elements, great souvenirs, and even Butterbeer! Plan to spend 3-4 hours there and more if you are the type to linger in museums. It’s a must for all Harry Potter fans or people who enjoy learning how movies are made.
We ended up on another multi-stop train on the way back because the non-stop train was broken down. But it stopped less on the way back, so our journey back took less than 2 hours.
Monday – North & South of the River Thames
Westminster Abbey
Our first order of business on day 3 was visiting Westminster Abbey. Along the way, we admired views of Big Ben and Parliament buildings. Our tickets for Westminster were valid at 10 a.m. and included audio tour guides. My kids skipped the audio tour, and I ended up not listening to it either, since I was trying to keep up with them! I was glad I had visited Westminster Abbey before.
Westminster Abbey is chock full of beautiful stained glass, monuments, and memorials that are truly amazing to see. But my kids kept asking what Westminster Abbey was and apparently ignored me every time I responded because they asked multiple times. They really weren’t impressed with the church and all the tombstones, nor with the idea that this was the location of all of the coronation ceremonies and where some really famous historic people were buried liked Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots.
If you are traveling with teens who aren’t fascinated by history, you may want to find some historical fiction movies or books to share with them so that they are more interested in the sites you are visiting. It’s also OK to just skip some of these “must-see” activities if other travel companions aren’t interested, either.
Jubilee Exhibit
Westminster Abbey has a Jubilee Exhibit that is ticketed separately. It is upstairs in an area of the abbey that has never previously been open to the public. The exhibit has artifacts that have never been on display before. My favorite things were 21 funeral effigies dating from the 14th-17th centuries. The best part about the exhibit was that it is not too crowded. You also had great views inside the main part of the abbey from above. It was definitely worth the small upcharge and extra time to see it!
Afternoon Tea at the Swan
We had afternoon tea at the Swan. Located by Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, this restaurant’s dining room has views of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the River Thames. We each selected tea and enjoyed our sandwiches, pastries and desserts.
Our savory items were chicken salad on brioche bread, smoked salmon sandwich, egg salad sandwich. and a Waldorf salad tartlet. We each had two small scones, one with dried fruit and one without, along with clotted cream and jam. The desserts were very cute – panna cotta decorated with a honey bee, chocolate and hazelnut mushroom, a macaroon, and a little flower made of icing on top a pear flavored gummy candy (officially called blueberry and blackberry bavarois with pear pate de fruit). It was all delicious!
I made reservations well in advance for this, and I was able to change them several times. If you want to go I recommend making a reservation so you are guaranteed a table.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
Stuffed, we headed over to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre for our tour. Opened in 1997, the Globe is a faithful representation of the structure that burned in 1613 when a special effect involving gunpower went wrong. Today, it’s the only structure in London to have a thatched roof as they are banned since the Great Fire of London in 1666.
We had a great tour guide who regaled us with tales about how attending a 17th century Shakespeare production would have been like. If you weren’t wealthy, you would stand in the middle of the theater for hours with way too many other people who paid a penny to get in. Everyone would stink because nobody bathed in those days. People would also go the bathroom right there since they would have to pay another penny to get back in. And they would be drinking a lot of beer, so there would be a lot of need to go to the bathroom!
Today you can watch a play in the same area for £5. It would be a lot more pleasant as they have bathrooms and most people bathe on the regular. But I still wouldn’t want to do it. You can also buy tickets for the seated area which is more tempting. But we decided to save our theater money for another day.
The gift shop at the theater is great. It is one of the few places we all wanted to buy something. There’s also an interactive exhibit that we thoroughly enjoyed walking through. The best part was an area where you can try on hats and costumes from some of their productions. We each enjoyed trying on the various hats!
Leadenhall Market
Our final stop of the day was Leadenhall Market. This historic market was on my daughter’s list of Instagrammable places in London, so I planned for us to have dinner there. It was a bit of a let down for us. It is visually stunning. But the shops were closed at the time we arrived and none of us were hungry for dinner yet.
As I wrote in my 10 Top Tips for Traveling with Teens post, sometimes it’s a good idea to split up your group during a long family vacation. My daughter wanted to shop, so we browsed in a few clothing stores near Leadenhall Market and then had a snack at a pub. My son and husband headed back to the hotel and ate dinner at a restaurant near there. We regrouped back at the hotel a few hours later.
Tuesday – Old & New London
Halfway through our week we had our favorite day. It was a great mix of old and new London!
Tower of London
We were up early to be among the first to enter the Tower of London. Lines to see the Crown Jewels get very long, so it is best to go there as soon as the tower opens. We arrived about 15 minutes before the tower was supposed to open and the lines were massive. But once they opened it didn’t take more than about 10 minutes to scan in. Make sure to buy tickets in advance so you can skip the longer line to purchase tickets there!
After seeing the Crown Jewels, we took the first Yeoman Warder’s tour of the day. This might have been a mistake as there were at least 100 people waiting and only one Yeoman Warder AKA Beefeater. But he managed to hold everyone’s attention and gave us a great tour. Definitely make time for this tour during your visit. The tour is free and the Beefeaters are all hysterical!
After the tour, we walked through the White Tower, Bloody Tower, and Medieval Palace. The White Tower has some interactive exhibits that are good for kids, so we lingered there a bit. We skipped other parts of the complex and wrapped up our tour in about 3 hours. British history fans can spend 5-6 hours here, but 3 hours is enough to see the Crown Jewels, take a Beefeater tour, and see the main sites.
Tower Bridge
We had a quick lunch at Pret A Manager across the street from the Tower of London. Pret A Managers are all over London and is a good option for an affordable and tasty lunch. Then we walked over to Tower Bridge. We walked over the bridge but elected not purchase admission for access to the elevated glass walkways and exhibits on how this drawbridge works. In hindsight, I think we should have done it. Next time!
London Dungeon
Our favorite activity of the entire trip was London Dungeon. My kids had it on their lists of must-do activities. I thought it would be silly or too scary, but they insisted, so I booked it begrudgingly. I’m so glad I did – we all enjoyed it immensely. The London Dungeon has actors who lead you through the sometimes dark and spooky history of London. It is a perfect way for teens to learn about British history!
After our tour, we spent some time in the London Dungeon’s tavern. The tavern has a creepy atmosphere and offers fun alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. We enjoyed relaxing and laughing about our dungeon experience.
London Eye
Another activity on the kids’ must-do lists was the London Eye. I bought a combination ticket for this and the London Dungeon. This saved us a bit, but it was still shockingly expensive! And when we checked in an saw the hour-long lines to enter the Ferris wheel, I bought skip the line tickets for an additional $36!
We were all disappointed in the London Eye. I thought we would have a container to ourselves and that it would load, spin around once or twice, then unload. Instead, we were packed in with a bunch of people and it only loaded and unloaded. Still, I think it’s a must-do with teens. They would have seen it and wanted to do it if I hadn’t booked it!
Leake Street Arches
After our spin, we went over to Leake Street Arches. Located beneath Waterloo Station, these former railway arches feature London’s longest legal graffiti wall. Anyone can paint on the walls, but we weren’t prepared with our spray paint cans. Instead, we admired others’ work and had dinner at a restaurant there.
Wednesday – Palaces, Poses & Plays
I had intentionally left this day in our trip somewhat unstructured. I thought by that point in the trip, we would be ready for some spontaneity or that we might have discovered something we wanted to do. However, we did have one solid item on the itinerary from the very beginning, which was to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.
Buckingham Palace
We arrived to the palace about an hour earlier than the ceremony was supposed to start. Even this early, the railings right in front of the palace were full of people. Even worse, the steps of the Queen Victoria Monument right in front of the palace that offers elevated views of the ceremony were roped off. Ultimately, we decided to stand in a spot at the railings on the left side of the palace. This offered a decent view of the changing of the guard, but we could not see the processions into and out of the palace grounds.
The ceremony is quite long, and it was hot. Fortunately, we had an umbrella to block the sun a bit. But my husband and kids abandoned me about 45 minutes into the ceremony. I found them after it was over relaxing under a tree in Hyde Park!
On my first trip to London, I saw the Changing of the Horse Guard. Of the two options, it is far more accessible. It happens on more days of the week, is shorter, and is frankly more entertaining!
Neal’s Yard
Another place on my daughter’s London Instagram list was Neal’s Yard, so we decided to go there for lunch. Located in Convent Garden, this small alley is brightly painted and has several restaurants, cafes, and shops. We ate at Homeslice. The pizza was delicious and surprisingly affordable.
I had thought we might do something else this afternoon. But given some navigational challenges, we only had a few hours to spare. We decided having a few hours to chill in our hotel room was our best option.
Musical in the West End
After an early dinner, we navigated our way to London’s West End to the Apollo Victoria Theatre. I bought tickets to see the musical Wicked from TodayTix about two weeks before our trip. I was surprised by how affordable they were compared to the traveling shows in my area. We didn’t have the best seats but we were in the center and had a great view. The show was phenomenal and the kids loved it. I’m so glad we did it.
Thursday – Day Trip from London
When visiting big cities, I always make sure to include a day trip to the countryside or a smaller village. I think you get a better sense of the culture and how most people live in a country if you visit different types of places. For London, many of the day trips include a visit to Stonehenge and Windsor or Oxford or Bath or some combination of these. You can also book day trips to the Cotswolds, Stratford-upon-Avon, Cliffs of Dover, and Canterbury.
Despite the fact that I had visited Stonehenge and Bath during a previous trip to London, I thought this was the best choice for my family vacation as well. After all, Stonehenge is such a “must-see” place and I thought my teens would enjoy visiting the Roman Baths in Bath.
I booked a guided bus tour for our day trip. We debated driving a car and going ourselves, but I had remembered having a great tour guide on the bus tour I previously took. I thought the kids would like hearing all of the stories/information shared. Unfortunately, our tour guide was not that engaging and provided little value. We could have saved about $100 by doing it on our own. But in the end, we decided not having to figure out anything ourselves plus not having to drive on the “wrong” side of the road was worth $100!
Stonehenge
Our first stop was Stonehenge. The kids were far less fascinated with this than I thought they would be. As usual, they also refused to use audio guides in all places, so they simply walked around the stones and begged to go to the gift shop and to get lunch. We didn’t have time for lunch, but we thoroughly investigated the gift shop! We also looked the Visitor’s Center displays and the collection of reproductions of huts that ancient people would have lived in.
Bath
We continued on to Bath. When we arrived, we had about an hour to have lunch before our time to enter the Roman Baths. We ate lunch at the first restaurant we saw by the baths. It was good but overpriced. We would have been better off walking a block or two away from the main square. Better yet, do some research in advance to find a place with good reviews and good prices!
My teens enjoyed the Roman Baths far more than Stonehenge. I encouraged them to listen to the audio tour geared to kids, and that’s what I did, too. The children’s audio tour is less detailed and focuses more on storytelling, which makes it more compelling for those of us with short attentions spans!
After touring the baths, we wandered around the charming village. We got ice cream and visited a few shops. We also walked over the bridge to get a nice view of the older part of the city. I really enjoyed having a few unstructured hours in Bath. My previous trip had Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath included on the bus tour. Our visit to Bath only included the Roman Baths with no time to experience anything else in the city. I liked that we visited Windsor separately and had a little more time in both places.
Still, it was a long day! We arrived back in London around 8 p.m. My husband and son had dinner at a place by our hotel, and my daughter and I skipped dinner and packed up for our departure the following day. Our time in London had come to a close and we were off to Paris!
Friday – Train to Paris
We were up early to catch the Eurostar train from London to Paris. We could have taken a flight for about the same cost as the train, but I wanted the kids to experience train travel. And train travel is so easy! Plus I was enamored with the idea of going under the English Channel through the “Chunnel.” We spent the morning traveling and started our Paris touring that afternoon. Check out my post on the Paris portion of our vacation as well!
More London Options
For the purpose of this post, I’ll end with a few suggestions of things I think would be good options for traveling teens to wrap up your week in London:
- Visit one of London’s great museums such as the British Museum, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, Science Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Tate Modern, or the British Library. There’s truly something for every interest. Best of all, every single one of these museums are free to enter!
- Give into the temptation of one of London’s tourist traps that just might end up being your favorite part of the trip, like our experience with the London Dungeon! You can visit Madame Tussauds, Sherlock Holmes Museum, or Shrek’s Adventure.
- If you have teens that love animals, visit SEA LIFE London Aquarium or the London Zoo.
- Take a hop-on/hop-off bus tour or Thames riverboat tour. But shift the itinerary around and do this earlier in your trip as these give you a good overview of the city.
- Take another day trip! There are many options available that will allow you to see the Cotswolds, Stratford-upon-Avon, Cliffs of Dover, and Canterbury.
- Explore some of London’s famous markets. Foodies will love Borough Market, thrifters will adore Spitalfields. Antique lovers must visit Portobello Road. And Camden Market will have something for everyone.
- Get a birds-eye view of London from The Shard or Sky Garden.
- See where the young royals live by taking a tour of Kensington Palace.
- Visit Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and slide down the ArcelorMittal Orbit.
In fact, there’s so much to do in London that I think I need to start planning another trip there! Good thing I have a direct flight and a good points option to get there!
What’s on your itinerary for a week in London?
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And don’t miss our other posts on traveling to London with teens:
