Before you say it – I know, there’s too much in London to see it in a day. However if you want to hit the main tourist sites and get a feel of the place with only a day to spare, you’ve come to the right guide. Below you’ll find easy tips and tricks to have a smooth visit to the capital.

Here’s a quick itinerary of the route we took, which is explained further below:

• Fire of London Monument
• Tower Bridge
• Borough Market
• Westminster bridge, views of Big Ben & Houses of Parliment
• Buckingham Palace
• Harrods
• Liberty’s
• Hamley’s (& Oxford St area)
• Leicester Square (Where most of the theatres are)
• Covent Garden

Just to put you in the picture, London is BIG. There are around 8 million people living in London – there’s only 5 million in the entirety of New Zealand. However thankfully the rail network makes it super easy to get around. We came from East Anglia/Norfolk area, so we could either hop on the train from Norwich/Diss to London Liverpool Street or drive to the first of the central line (red) underground stops which is Epping. It only costs £2.50 for all day and night parking(!) so it was a no brainer.

I tried to look into the best option for us to use the trains, I know there are ‘oyster cards’ but it seemed as though you had to have them sent to you, so we just bought a travel card at the station, which worked in zones 1-6 (6 being Epping) and only cost £13.75pp to use unlimited amounts in the day.

From Epping we then carried on through to London Liverpool street and then got off to walk our route. We followed the roads south towards the River Thames, stopping off at the fire of London monument (which is huge!!) then kept going till we reached the river, and walked along London bridge. Just to point out – London bridge is a plain bridge, the famous one is Tower bridge. You get a great view of it from London bridge but if you want to walk on it you need to head east which is a bit of a trek.

On the other side of London bridge, below the roads is the bustling Borough Market. The market has the highest quality foods, like delicious sourdough bread, and meats & cheeses of all kinds, along with foods from around the world, like vegetarian dishes from Ethiopia and bratwurst from Germany. It is well worth a visit, and you can find yourself circling around discovering more of it all day. (side note – most accept card but some are cash only so keep a few pounds on you!)

From here we went to the London bridge underground station just next door and then hopped off at Waterloo station, which then meant we only had a little way to walk to Westminster bridge, where you can walk across and see the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. (Big Ben is currently having work done to it so is all covered up apart from the clock face 🤦‍♀️ but you know its there) & the London eye is to your left.

This is where you will come across most of the tourists. I think its a good time to mention that pickpocketing is quite a big thing in the capital, so never ever leave your wallet or phone in your pocket, and always be aware of your backpack/handbag, try hold it in front of you if you can.

Once you get to the other side of the bridge, you’ll see about 6 red telephone boxes all lined up down the road, and about a hundred tourists taking their photo next to it (of course I forced Connor to do this too, he looks so happy about it 🤣)

From here we headed straight on and walked alongside St James’s park, which once you get to the end, you will find Buckingham Palace. You can walk up to the fence and see the guards standing outside or you can stand on the Queen Victoria monument in the middle to get a good view. If the queen is home, then the flag will be up (which is was for us!).

We were lucky enough to turn up at the right time and catch the changing of the guards, and watched them head off down the road on their horses. This happens at certain times of the day, but we were just lucky to be there at the right time.

Our next stop was to head to Harrods the department store. I really wanted to show Connor this famous store, and I recommend visiting because it is quite something to see the food hall and all the different things you could afford if you were a millionaire 😂. To get there we walked along Constitution Hill road (to the right of Buckingham Palace) and kept heading north, walking along Knightsbridge road, until we got to Harrods.

At this point we were pretty hungry and tired, so we wanted to get some food and sit down. Being on a pretty tight budget we assumed we would never afford anything in that area, and headed in oxford street direction. However, looking on google maps there is a McDonalds and a Pizza Express just a bit further up the road from Harrods.

To get to Oxford st area we walked through Hyde park, and took a right, walking along Bond Street. We found a mcdonalds, but realised it didn’t have toilets, and subsequently couldn’t find toilets anywhere. After a bit of googling I came across this map which actually really came in handy https://www.toiletmap.org.uk/loos/5810e12d3fdc0700105f07cf (so make sure you save it) and we ended up heading to Debenhams for toilets, and also ate there too, because the resturant on the top floor was decently priced, and meant you could sit down without having to fight for a table.

We then carried on to our next stop, which was Liberty’s. Also a department store, but well worth visiting, even if you just see the outside, you can see it is a Tudor built building which opened in 1875 so its pretty old, and when you’re inside, it has a central area where you can look up to view each floor (as pictured below).

Just down the road is Hamleys toy shop. Not an essential one, but I had wanted to go since a kid, as it’s the world’s oldest and largest toy store, dating back to 1760. It’s a bit crazy, and you’ll find the sales assistants dressed up as wizards or playing with all the toys or even singing and dancing, but I can imagine it to be pretty magical for a kid!

From here you really are in the bustle of London and can head in any direction, but we decided to head to Leicester Square where all the theatres are, with screens on the buildings (although not as many as Times Square NYC!) There are stalls dotted about where you can purchase theatre tickets that day (some at heavily discounted prices) which I hope to do on my next visit.

At this point it was about 2.30pm and we were shattered (me especially) so we walked to Covent gardens which only took 5 minutes, but rather than exploring more we decided to head back. To get back on the central line, we had to walk another 5 minutes to get on at Holborn, but this then took us all the way back to Epping.

Like I said earlier, you can’t do everything in a day, but if you want to hit the main touristy areas, it is possible. Just to finish it off, I’ve put a few more handy tips below to make your trip smooth sailing. I hope you found this guide helpful, please drop a comment to let me know where you’ve been!

Recommendations:

• Check out this map created by the original bus tour, it’s quite handy to help you decide which sites you want to visit & whereabouts they are.
• http://www.tubemaplondon.org/ save this underground map on your phone!
• Get there early (we left at 6.30am to make sure we had a full day)
• Take your phone charger, you’ll be using google maps quite a bit, and there’s always plugs in coffee shops/McDonalds if you need it.
• Wear comfy shoes – seriously, you’ll be walking A LOT.
• Quite a common scam at the moment is to steal money from people via their contactless payments, so try to keep your cards in a case (such as this one) and it stops that from happening (better to be safe than sorry).
• Take a bag that isn’t easily pick-pocketed or accessible.

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