London
Five world-class museums with no ticket, and one room that eats half the budget
- When to go
- September 16° · 12 rainy days
- Per day
- ~85 · 200 · 395 €budget · mid · comfort, per person · checked 7 Sep 2026
- How many days
- 3–5days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 13 km London City · 24 km Heathrow
- Right now
In London the free things are exactly the ones that would cost the most anywhere else. The British Museum, the National Gallery, Tate Modern, the V&A and the Natural History Museum ask nothing for their permanent collections, and that isn't a promotion but the rule for every national museum since December 2001. What you pay for is what you didn't budget: the bed, the Tower, and every ride.
The split is simple once you see it. The big museums' permanent collections are free, but temporary exhibitions in the same buildings are ticketed separately. The royal palaces, the Tower and Westminster Abbey charge in full, so those two or three tickets go into the budget, not the museums. Even the view needn't cost anything: Sky Garden, the glasshouse on top of an office block in the City, charges no entry but wants a slot booked ahead.
For transport you buy nothing in advance. Tap in with a contactless card or a phone, at the same fares as Oyster, and the system counts for you: once the day's tapping reaches €10 for zones 1–2, everything after that is free for the day. From Monday to Sunday there is also a weekly cap of €52 for the same zones, on a card and on Oyster alike; it counts from Monday, not from the day you arrive. Buses have their own, lower daily cap of €6.10.
Don't drive into the centre: the congestion charge is €21 a day, 7am to 6pm on weekdays and noon to 6pm at weekends, plus €15 of ULEZ if the car misses the emissions standard — and that's before you've found a parking space. Without a car the bed is the biggest item, and the saving or the loss there comes from the neighbourhood and the Tube line, not the stars.
Guides for London
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
London in 3 days
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Day trips from London
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Where to stay in London
→Six London neighbourhoods to sleep in, with the price for two a night, the zone, the station name and the drawback the…
What London costs
→What London really costs a day — from €63–76 with a hostel and a meal deal to €339 with a hotel in zone 1 — and where…
London free and empty: a 35th-floor glasshouse and a sarcophagus
→Ten things London doesn't put on postcards — a glasshouse on the 35th floor with no ticket, an architect's house with a…
What to see in London
The museums that charge nothing
The permanent collections are free, and on Fridays three of the big museums stay open into the evening: the British Museum to 8.30pm, the National Gallery to 9, the V&A to 10. Tate Modern is open to 9 on Fridays and Saturdays. On a Friday, then, the museum goes in the evening and the day goes on what closes earlier.
The Tower of London
An eleventh-century fortress holding the Crown Jewels. Allow at least three hours, so it goes first thing in the day on a slot booked online, not squeezed between two museums.
Westminster
The Abbey has been the coronation church since 1066 and charges €36 for adults; it's open to visitors Monday to Saturday, and on Sundays only for worship. Services are free every day — though then you sit rather than tour. Across the road are Parliament and Big Ben, which you look at from outside for nothing.
The London Eye
A 135-metre wheel on the South Bank; a turn in an enclosed capsule takes about half an hour. Booked online it's from €34, at the desk €45 — so buy on your phone even when you're already in the queue.
Borough and Columbia Road
Borough Market, under London Bridge station, runs Tuesday to Friday 10–5, Saturday 9–5 and Sunday 10–4; it's closed on Mondays. The Columbia Road flower market is Sundays only, 8am until about three, so Sunday morning is the only time for it.
Theatre and day seats
Cheaper same-day tickets are released in the TodayTix app at 10am, and some shows also run a lottery. A few theatres still sell day seats at the box office from 10am, first come first served — price and number of seats depend on the show.
Stories from London
How it actually was when we were there, and what was worth it.
A London weekend for two: where the bill has a ceiling
→A London weekend's bill isn't made by the city but by what's paid before you leave. In London itself almost everything has an upper…
Why London's museums charge nothing, and what you still pay for
→Behind the words 'admission free' sit one tax clause and one political decision, not a curator's generosity. Here is how it works, and…
Three things you probably did not know
The world's first underground railway opened in London in 1863, pulled by steam locomotives. The tunnels filled with smoke, so the trains carried tanks to condense their own steam, and passengers were advised to smoke as a remedy for the fumes.
When the Thames stank so badly in 1858 that Parliament hung lime-soaked curtains in its windows, Bazalgette was told to build a sewer system. He worked out the pipe size he needed and then doubled the diameter, just in case. That is why the system still works.
In the middle of London sits the City, a 2.9 square kilometre authority with its own police force and a Lord Mayor unconnected to the Mayor of London. About eight thousand people live in it and over half a million work there.
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