Our 3 Day London Trip,
Hi there everyone, today I will tell you about our 3-day (Pitstop) trip to one of the most known cities in the world. We hope that with this blog we can answer most of your questions about how to travel there, what to see and how to save some money on your trip. Enjoy.
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London in England is known for one of the best-known Landmarks in the world, such as the Big Ben, Tower bridge and off course the place where the king is living (Buckingham Palace). The busy streets of London makes it even better, there is a nice Atmosphere, and the people are always kind enough to help. London has literally everything you can ask for, nice Pubs, Good restaurants, Museums, Landmarks and many more things!
How to get to England, London?
Almost always we search our flights by using the Skyscanner.com app or Booking.com.
If you travel by plane to London, you’ll probably land on one of three airports, Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick.
Here are the best ways to go to London:
From Gatwick airport we would recommend taking the train to Victoria Station (London). From the airport you’ll take a short Airport Shuttle to the main Train Station (free of charge). After that you must buy a ticket to Victoria Station (London) this will cost at around 20 Pound per person. Traveling time ca: 1 Hour.
At Stansted Airport are shuttle busses, we took the Shuttle from Liverpool Street station (London) to Stansted. This will cost about 15 pounds per person; however, nobody was asking us for tickets, and we didn’t know where we had to pay (we technically, took the bus for free so). Traveling time ca: 1 Hour.
We didn’t travel through from Heathrow, but it is closer to the city centre so easier to excess. Also, there are a Shuttles and busses who will bring you to the centre.
Off course you can also take the more expensive way to the city centre by taking a taxi. When so, I’d use the “bold” app or “Uber”. They are cheaper than the regular taxi services but do the same .
How to find your accommodation?
The best way of finding you accommodation is by using Booking.com and/or Airbnb. We stayed our first night in a hotel called Zedwell. Costs per night: Ca. 140 Pounds per night for 2 persons.
Zedwell is a Cashless hotel, so the service is good but a bit strange to be fair. You need to prebook everything in advanced (for example Breakfast). Finding the rooms was a bit of a challenge too hahaha. The biggest benefit of this is the place where it is at, in the middle of London at piccadilly circus. That’s why I would recommend it.
Our second and third night we stayed in an Airbnb, very nice, just a walking distance away from the centre. There was a shared kitchen and bathroom inside.
We would recommend Sleeping in an Airbnb, you can (most of the time) cook dinner or breakfast yourself, perfect when traveling on a budget.
How many days are necessary to explore London?
I think that you will see most of London between 2-3 days. Although London is a very big city, a lot of the sightseeing and landmarks are on Walking distance from each other.
This is how we did it:
Day 1, We started our Tour from Victoria Station down to Buckingham Palace where on this day the Mini Marathon was going on (marathon for children) after we Walked to the Westminster palace/Big Ben, from here we walked back to Piccadilly Circus to check into our Hotel (Zedwell). At this location is a lot to do, we were shopping/Looking around the Famous M&M Store (and off course we bought some as well ;)) snooping around Chinatown and much more!!
Day 2, This was a day with many steps being made. We first walked back from piccadilly circus to the Big Ben to watch the “London Marathon”, we Liked it so much to watch that we register for the London Marathon for 2025 ourselves.
After watching a while we headed to the Tower Bridge and because all the roads were closed we walked everything from the Big ben till there, A bit of a walk, yes, but we walked all the way along the marathon route to cheer and support the Marathon Runners!
After visiting Tower Bridge we had already done about 20.000 steps, while heading back we walked past the tower of London (more like a castle) and so back home through the city.
Day 3, This was more of a Relaxing day for us. We started the day Running and after we headed to the Chelsea stadium (if you like soccer) we would recommend going here. It is nice to see where the best soccer players have played but also a very good experience itself.
How to get Around in London?
It really depends on you, how you like to see places. We would recommend going with the original London Bus (you can easily pay contactless inside the bus), this takes you to places quite cheap and you see a lot from the city, this because the busses in London are Doppel Decker Busses and you can sit in the top part for an extra view.
If you only want to tour through busses we would recommend taking the Hop-on/Hop-off busses, for this you pay a daily ticket (you can buy this at every bus-stop) and you can hop-on and off from the Busses wherever and whenever you want (Note: The Upperpart from this bus is without a roof. It can be a bit colder or wet when it is raining).
Another way of traveling through London is by taking the Metro, this underground system is very ideal if you want to avoid the mass of people and if you want to go somewhere faster. Off course you will not see as much from the city because you’ll be underground (this is why we didn’t use it).
The more sportive way is to walk everything, this is very doable because everything is quite close to each other. Off course you need to like walking (we almost did around 30.000 Steps in half a day haha). Also, when we were there, almost all the important Roads were closed due to the London Marathon (so we kind of had to).
Which Supermarket to buy from?
There are a lot of small Tesco Supermarkets and souvenir Shops in the city centre, however you can only buy small snacks here or the most necessary stuff. If you would like to buy some normal (daily) Groceries, such as a good breakfast or something to make dinner with, you need to Search quite a lot or go outside of the city centre. We used Google Maps (works the best for us). Make sure that when you need to buy something on a Sunday, you check the opening times before hand :).
How to pay in London?
The currency in England is the “English Pound” you can easily change your money at the airport or at an exchange office in the city (no worries, there are a lot of them in London).
However, it is not necessary to have a lot of cash on you… This is because you can almost everywhere pay with card (also contactless).
In this case we recommend using a banking app which doesn’t charge you extra fees for a currency change.
Free Banking apps we use:
· Revolut
· N26
This banking apps come with quite some benefits for traveling, you can buy eSim cards for the country you are currently traveling in for a better price, you can search for hotels for better prices, and you can have a traveling insurance as well. So long story short, a lot of benefits for no extra service costs.
What clothes to wear?
The weather in England is changing all the time, one minute it can be rainy and stormy and the other minute it can be sunny. We would strongly advice that you always take an extra jacket with you (at least a wind proof one).
Off course it also depends on in which season you are traveling, the spring and summers here are very nice (Still a bit windy though), the combination of warmth and a bit of a breeze is nice. If you come in Autumn or in winter I would put on multiple layers and a good jacket, otherwise you will be quite cold.
All with all, our experience in London was great and we would recommend everybody to visit this beautiful city. A must see!!
If you have any questions, feel free to write us by writing a comment down below or to contact us..
We hoped we give you the right info by telling our experience in London.
Lovely Regards from the plane to Azores, Portugal. Where a new adventure awaits!!!
Sophia & Julian
P.s. please let us know if we wrote something wrong.