22 Tips I Wish I Knew Before Visiting London

These 22 tips to know before visiting London are what I wish I knew before my trip to London.

Hopefully these travel tips will help you from making some of my mistakes when traveling through London!

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I just spent a full month in London and let me tell you there are a lot of things that I wish I knew before going so I’m going to tell you all those things right now first thing is that there are six main airports in London three that you’ll realistically be flying in or out of as a tourist and those are going to be Heath thr Gatwick and stanstead honestly it doesn’t matter which one you go in and out of I’d recommend going into whichever one is going to offer the cheapest flight and that’s because it’s going to be an equal pain in the butt getting two in from the city center from any of those airports and it’s all going to cost the same getting tuned from the city so expect to pay between probably $50 and $100 on that trip I know it’s expensive it can be cheaper if you use public transportation but honestly that’s probably only best for like solo Travelers and folks without bags it’s a big hassle using bags on the tube and other public transport so I’d probably just book an Uber in advance and pony up the money cuz if you’re going to London you should already be expecting to spend a lot of cash also I think a lot of tourists make the mistake of saying oh I’m getting in at like 5:00 p.m. I’ll have no problem making it to town for like a 6 p.m dinner don’t not going to happen you should plan for worst case scenario all those airports in my experience take somewhere between like an hour to 2 hours to get into the city realistically again it depends on traffic but expect a long trip there next thing is note that London in the UK is different than Europe in terms of the travel ports that you’ll actually need to charge your devices most European ports it’s going to look something like this that’s not going to work in the UK in the UK you need something like this funky thing uh this thing I’ve been using for a while now it works great it’s the UPA I don’t know I picked it up on Amazon I think it was like 20 or 30 bucks I’ll link to it down below but make sure you bring the right charging port so you’re not stuck without battery when you get to the UK next thing to note is London is pretty good with having credit card options and tap to pay options but if you do want cash do note you don’t need to waste your time going and getting cash before your trip most ATMs in London don’t actually charge any fee for using their ATM so note that going in next up we got tipping in the US tipping culture it’s kind of crazy and there definitely is a tipping culture in the UK typically around 10 15% but what I want to warn you about is a lot of restaurants I’d say like 60 70% of the restaurants that I went to actually just put it automatically on the bill and it’s as a service charge so check the bottom of the bill when it arrives and check to see if that service charge is already there if you already see that 12 1/2% service charge then no hey that’s the tip you do not need to tip on top of that if you don’t see that then you can certainly leave a tip if you’d like to now if you’re going to London you’re likely going to hop on the tube at some point the tube and all the other public transportation in London is really well integrated with tap to pay so you can just use your credit card or your phone walk straight up to the terminal and they don’t need to know where you’re going they’ll calculate it on the way out it’ll save you some time save the effort of trying to figure out which ticket to buy and it’ll make sure that you’re on time for whatever train you’re trying to catch cuz things move quickly in London now a lesson I learned the hard way is that when you’re in the tube you’re going to be pretty far underground which means you are not going to have self service so if you’re a tourist and you don’t know exactly where you’re going just make sure that before you trip you know exactly which stop you’re going to get off at that way you can be tracking it on the tube cuz your phone it’s definitely not going to work down there so be prepared for that also note that Wi-Fi throughout the city is really really bad which surprised me I know I could have just been a fluke but I did spend a full month there and I never figured out the Wi-Fi game it was pain point the whole time now luckily I have a solution I’ve been using this app called heom and basically what it allows you to do is download an eim so the way it works is you download this app on your phone you purchase an eim which gives you data so when you land in the UK your phone just works you can’t do calls and texts with it but it’ll give you regular internet usage it’ll work all over the city it works really well I’ve been using it for over a year cuz I move to a new country every single month if you’re new here hi that’s what I do I move to a new country every single month so I can make videos like this for you guys so highly recommend there’ll be a link in the description below so you can see if that makes sense for you on your trip this next tip is for all those Harry Potter fans out there if you’re going to visit Platform 9 and 3 quarters which is a must if you’re going to London right that Platform 9 and 3 quarters do note that there are a ton of tourist and there’s a very long line the line actually ends up going outside so I’d highly recommend going in the morning because typically if you wait till like noon there’s going to be a lot of families a lot of kids and you’re going to wait for well over an hour in that line speaking of skipping lines if you’re going to be visiting Buckingham Palace I actually found that the best time to avoid lines there is actually around Sunset somewhere in that late afternoon right before the sun sets it’s great for getting your photos because you’re not fighting the Swarms of people so if that’s important to you maybe check that out around then another tip that I highly recommend is get outside of London if you have the opportunity one of my personal favorites especially if you’re a tad lasso fan is a little town called Richmond it only takes about 45 minutes to an hour to get outside of the city and you can take the tube all the way there it’s one of the last stops and it’s fantastic Richmond really gives you a feel for what local UK culture is outside of London it is a magical little town they actually have the pub where Ted lasso is kind of based at right it’s called the prince’s head and there’s also paved court is what it’s called and along that you’ll get to see kind of where Ted lived or where his fake apartment was and they actually have the little biscuits which we did try and man they were fantastic even if you’re not a Ted lasso fan Richmond is well worth the visit because of Peters sham Meadow and just they have this river that you can walk along it turns into the meadow and it is just gorgeous gorgeous scenery again very different feel from the city overall it was actually one of our favorite experiences in our time in London so highly recommend taking the train and getting out to go see some of those other places now I found that good food was really hard to come by in London so I want to give you some specific recommendations on where I was able to find good and some help healthy food as well because I found the food to be really unhealthy but first I want to tell you a bit about some of the markets and which ones might fit your Vibe depending on what you’re looking for so most people will have probably heard of the PTO Bello uh Market that one is up in nodding Hill and it is a spectacular Market there’s some good street food but also a lot of Trinkets and just like knickknacks it’s a really cool experience I highly recommend getting out there but also the burrow Market burrow Market is going to be food focused and I found some of the better food to be there so I’d highly recommend that Camden town is a really unique area of town it is just a lot of young people really like I don’t know artsy kind of gritty fun spunky it’s its own Vibe it is completely different than the rest of London and I highly recommend it making it out there top two name if you ask me I also want to warn you about a tourist trap carnaby street is a really neat little Street and I think a lot of tourist ends up there but it’s pretty much a tourist trap yes there’s some shopping but I don’t know I didn’t find anything too great around there and that was kind of true around Chinatown as well really cool place definitely worth the visit but I wouldn’t plan on eating any meals over there you’re just not going to get the best food there but let’s talk about some of the best food because there is some good food if you know where to look so the best place by far is going to be Brick Lane now Brick Lane it’s got a reputation and in my opinion the reputation is this it’s where the food actually has flavors now if you’re looking for a true Street around Brick Lane go to a place called Bagel bake Brick Lane it is this hole in the wall and it is absolutely spectacular get one of their salt beef Bagels I know that sounds weird it is it’s it’s spectacular make sure you get it with everything on it probably the best thing I had in my entire time in London basically think street food not actual like sit down place but it’s got culture and it’s got actual flavor top tier and if you’re looking for a healthier Meal which can be very difficult to find in London there’s a place called grain kitchen and they have some wonderful bowls it is also prepacked all the time probably because it’s so good but I highly recommend it anything on the menu there is going to be great so definitely check them out and if you are looking for a place that is just like hey I need to go I need a place that I can sit have good Wi-Fi have decent food and just yeah be okay there’s a place called The hawkton and it’s a hotel and the hawkton is a great Hotel primarily because they’ve got the fast Wi-Fi in town it’s free to use they’ve got good coffee good small bites it’s not an actual like restaurant that you sit down you’re just sitting in the hotel lobby but it’s really bougie really comfortable and just I don’t know it’s a great experience there’s multiple Hawkin all over the world and I always try to go to them CU they really do provide a good experience and maybe my most important tip is if you’re spending time in London get the heck out of London and make it up to edinb and don’t listen to people when they say oh yeah you only need a day or two up there I think it’s well worth spending like a week if not more it’s a spectacular place so if you’re wondering what I wish I knew before visiting edmer don’t worry I got you covered you can click on this video right here or if you want to know what I loved and hated in London you can click this video right here so thanks for watching hope this was helpful and we’ll catch you guys next time