What to see
Three days in London: the itinerary we'd actually follow
A route that works geographically, costs about £120 a head in tickets, and doesn't have you crossing the city four times a day.
Most three-day itineraries are a list of famous things in no particular order, which is how people end up on the Tube for two hours a day. This one is built around geography: each day stays in one part of London, and you walk between most of it.
It assumes you want the classic first-visit trip. It costs roughly £120 a head in tickets across the three days, and about half of what you'll see is free.
Day one — Westminster and the river
The postcard day, done in the order that avoids backtracking.
Morning. Start at Westminster station. You come up the steps directly under Big Ben, which is the single best arrival in London. Walk past Parliament to Westminster Abbey (£31, or free if you attend a service). Give it two hours.
Late morning. Walk up Whitehall past Downing Street to the Churchill War Rooms (around £32, book a timed slot). The underground bunker where the war was run, left as it was in 1945. Ninety minutes.
Lunch. You're near St James's Park. Buy something and eat on a bench — it's the prettiest of the royal parks and you'll have walked enough.
Afternoon. Through the park to Buckingham Palace — look at the outside, that's genuinely all it is unless you're visiting in summer when the State Rooms open. Then Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery (free), which you can do in an hour or three depending on appetite.
Evening. Walk down to the river and across the Golden Jubilee Bridge at dusk. It's the best free view in London and costs nothing.
Day one total: about £63.
Day two — the City and the Tower
The oldest part of London, and the densest.
Morning. Be at the Tower of London (£37) when it opens at 9am. Go straight to the Crown Jewels before the queue forms, then take a Yeoman Warder tour — free with entry, leaves every half hour, and it's the best hour of the trip. Allow three hours total.
Midday. Walk across Tower Bridge — free on foot; the £18 exhibition inside is optional and skippable. Then along the river to Borough Market for lunch. Weekday if possible.
Afternoon. Walk to St Paul's Cathedral (£27) or, if the dome climb doesn't appeal, straight on to the Tate Modern (free) across the Millennium Bridge. Doing both is possible but tight.
Late afternoon. Horizon 22 — free, the highest viewing platform in Europe, book a slot in advance. Go about an hour before sunset.
Evening. You're in the City, which empties after work. Walk fifteen minutes to Shoreditch for dinner.
Day two total: about £64, or £37 if you skip St Paul's.
Day three — museums and whatever you've been wanting
Deliberately looser, because by day three you know what you actually like.
Morning. South Kensington. The V&A, Natural History Museum and Science Museum are on one street and all free. Pick one and do it properly rather than all three badly. The V&A if you like objects and design, the Natural History Museum if you have children, the Science Museum if you have a teenager.
Lunch. Walk into Hyde Park or up to Kensington Gardens. If it's raining, this is the day to swap in the British Museum instead and stay indoors.
Afternoon. Free choice, and here are the honest options:
- The British Museum (free) if you skipped it and it nags at you
- Greenwich by river bus (around £9) — the best-value boat trip in London, and a proper half-day
- Camden or Notting Hill if markets and browsing appeal more than another museum
- Kensington Palace (£24.70) if you want one more royal building
Evening. Theatre. London does the best theatre in the world and it's cheaper than Broadway. Same-day tickets from the TKTS booth in Leicester Square, or direct from the theatre's own website — never from a street tout.
Day three total: £0 to £25, plus theatre.
What it comes to
| Cost | |
|---|---|
| Tickets, three days | about £120–130 |
| Transport, three days at the Zone 1–2 cap | £26.70 |
| Total per person, before food | about £150 |
Food is the variable. Eat like our eating guide suggests and £30 a day is comfortable; eat next to the landmarks and it's double.
The four things to get right
Don't buy a London Pass for this. Six paid attractions across three days sounds like pass territory, but this route only has four, and the arithmetic doesn't work. We did the maths.
Tap in with a contactless card. No Oyster, no Travelcard, nothing to buy. The full reasoning is here.
Stay somewhere central. This itinerary assumes you can walk to the start of each day. From Zone 4 it becomes a commuting holiday. Where to stay.
Book the Tower and the War Rooms now. Everything else can wait. Those two run out of morning slots weeks ahead in summer.
If you only have two days
Cut day three. It's the most flexible and the least essential — everything on it is either free or optional, and the first two days contain the entire classic trip.
If you have four or five
Don't add a fourth museum. Add Hampton Court or Kew Gardens — both are properly different from central London and neither needs a train ticket beyond your travelcard. A day trip only starts making sense at five days or more.