My kids have never been to London, I’ve only ever been a few times with work in past jobs and didn’t know much about it at all. I’ve always thought it was something to do when my kids were a bit older so now they have more walking ability and we don’t need to carry around quite so much stuff as when they were young, we decided it was time to try it (they were 8 and 12). For the half term holiday we planned a few days break in our capital city and off we went!
I honestly can’t say I was looking forward to it. I was envisaging crowded streets and busy tubes, getting lost and going to the wrong bits. But, with a bit of planning and a lot of asking around for recommendations, we had a brilliant time!! So here’s my quick guide to visiting London as a family…..
We booked a Hull Train well in advance to get the cheapest tickets. The journey was just under 3 hours and it went smoothly. We travelled down on a Tuesday morning and came back Thursday evening, avoiding busier weekend times, but still giving ourselves 3 days and 2 nights in London. We got an 8.30am train which got us into Kings Cross around 11.15am, coming back with got a 6.45 pm train getting in around 9.20pm.
There are lots of options, from Airbnb’s to a huge variety of hotels. We wanted to be as central as possible to avoid travelling a lot while we were there so we booked a family room at a Premier Inn, we love this chain and stay in them often. It wasn’t cheap but was still cheaper than a lot of other London hotels; they have lots of sites but we picked the one at Waterloo as it was pretty central, opposite the train and tube station and was right next to the London Eye (so it was easy to find the hotel and not get lost, we just looked out for the eye!).
After dropping our bag at the hotel we set off on foot and walked to all the major sites in the day. We started at the London Eye, went over Westminster Bridge to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, then through Horse Guards Parade to St James’ Park. We walked through the park to Buckingham Palace and stopped for a cafe pit stop. Then we walked up to Oxford Street for a visit to Hamleys and a meander down the road looking at the shops.
We headed on down to Leicester Square where we had pre-booked tea at the Jungle Cafe. It wasn’t the best meal ever but you are sat in a jungle and the kids thought it was really fun. Then we walked back over Waterloo Bridge to see the Eye lit up at night. There was a carousel running and a few stalls around the bottom of it too.
We didn’t use any other transport for all of these sites other than our legs! It is walkable. Depending on the age of child you may need to hop in a taxi or tube a few stops but we made it with a few pit stops.
We did get the tube to the museum’s, we’d booked the Natural History Museum for 10am and the tube stop at South Kensington is just a few minutes walk away. The tube was pretty quiet but my youngest hated the noise of the screechy breaks and my eldest was really claustrophobic, but at least they have experienced it! The Natural History Museum is AMAZING! It’s free but we booked a ticket in advance to get a time slot so we didn’t have to queue. It is massive and took us almost 3 hours to get around, we could have stayed longer. Next door is the Science Museum, not as good but still nice to wander round and also free.
Then we to Covent Garden to watch some street performers, and walked from their through Leicester Square and back to Waterloo for dinner. There is a big Brewdog at Waterloo station which my husband loved and wanted to stay all night (there is a slide for kids from the top to bottom floors and bowling alleys!). We went for a walk and found a nice Italian for dinner then had a wander through the railway arches to see some amazing street art.
We took an Uber water taxi from Waterloo Pier (operated by Thames Clipper); the pier is right under the Eye with amazing views. We sailed west, down river to Tower Bridge. There are various piers along the river to hop on and off and it’s a similar price to the tube but much more pleasant. Boats come roughly every 20 mins but if they are full they won’t take on more passengers so we did have to wait for a couple.
Getting off at Tower Bridge you are right outside the Tower of London. We didn’t go in as it’s very expensive!! But we saw a lot from the outside. We walked over Tower Bridge and explored the towers. We then walked all the way back East towards Waterloo seeing more of the major London landmarks, crossing various bridges to see both the north and south bank sights.
On the north side was Pudding Lane and the Great Fire of London Monument, also St Pauls Cathedral.
We walked over Millennium Bridge to get back to the south side and went into Borough Market, this was amazing and the kids loved looking at the huge cheeses, exotic fruit and buying a few things to try. We saw HMS Belfast on the river and the Golden Hind ship just near the market, we also had great views of the Shard. Continuing back along the south bank we passed the new Globe theatre and then discovered the south bank street artists. There is a place to watch skateboarders which my 12 year old son loved. There was a winter market at the time, but this changes seasonally to street food markets. We got noodles from here for tea and then went back to the hotel to collect our bags and headed back to Kings Cross.
We arrived at the station in plenty of time and had a good look around St Pancras and Kings Cross, found the Harry Potter platform 9 3/4 (and got a MacDonalds and a beer/lemonade in the pub opposite!).
When our train pulled out we were exhausted. It had been fun and really interesting but I was ready to leave and see some green fields. The family on the table next to us were from Beverley and we were laughing with them about how we couldn’t wait to get back to our slightly quieter (and cheaper!) corner of the country.
I hope this has helped you plan a visit, please let me know of any other ideas for visiting London and I will add them to the top tips list!
