London Itinerary: 1 to 7 Days

Step 1: Build your London itinerary from five areas

Build your London itinerary from five areas, and use as many of them as you have days. London is large, and each area has a cluster of sights that you can reach on foot or by one short ride. Pick the area, do it fully, and go back to your hotel.

Before you fix a budget, read the cost study of prices London for hotels, food and transport. The central sights in this plan sit in Zones 1 and 2, where contactless and Oyster stop at £8.90 a day. According to Transport for London's pay as you go page, you touch in and out with the same card or device. The getting around London guide covers the rest.

Where you sleep matters less than where your first two days are. On a first visit, a hotel near Covent Garden keeps you central. The Z Hotel Covent Garden is a 113-room hotel behind St Paul's Church in Covent Garden, with compact en-suite rooms. If the Tower day matters most, Motel One London-Tower Hill is a design budget hotel about 0.8 km from the Tower of London. For Westminster, Riu Plaza London The Westminster is a 4-star hotel near the river. The where to stay guide compares the areas.

With one day, do Step 2 and nothing else. Two days add Step 3. Three days add Step 4, and so on.

Pro Tip Put the day you most want to keep on a weekday, because Westminster Abbey is open to sightseers Monday to Saturday and only for services on Sunday.

Step 2: Spend day 1 in Westminster

Spend day 1 in Westminster, because the Abbey, the river and the biggest overview ride all start within a few minutes of each other. Westminster Abbey is about 300 m from Westminster station, a four-minute walk. Sightseeing runs Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 4.30pm, with last entry at 3.30pm. On Saturday it runs from 9.00am to 4.00pm, with last entry at 3.00pm. The Abbey is a working church, so it can close at short notice.

Go first thing in the morning. The Westminster Abbey entrance ticket is listed from €38.19 per person and rated 4.6 from 14,642 reviews. Free cancellation runs up to 24 hours before, and the visit takes about 2 hours. The listing says it is not a skip-the-line ticket, so queues are possible. The Abbey sells its own ticket too, at £32 for an adult, and says advance booking is highly recommended at busy times.

Prices and ratings as shown on GetYourGuide on 2026-10-24.

Spend the afternoon on a loop that shows you the rest. The City Sightseeing hop-on hop-off bus is listed from €66 per person and rated 4.3 from 8,859 reviews. The Red Route takes 150 minutes, runs every 15 to 20 minutes, and starts at 9:00. The ticket lasts 1 to 3 days, and you can cancel free up to 24 hours before. Think of it as a map you can sit on, then get off where you want a closer look. The page on hop-on hop-off bus tours in London compares the operators.

Prices and ratings as shown on GetYourGuide on 2026-10-24.

Do you need a tour for this day at all? Not for the Abbey, which you can book on its own site. A bus ticket is worth it if you want commentary and a first look at the whole city. If you only want to see Big Ben and cross the river, a walk costs nothing.

Key Takeaway On day 1, book only the Abbey in advance and let the bus loop fill the afternoon, because the loop starts again every 15 to 20 minutes.

Step 3: Spend day 2 in the City and at the Tower

Spend day 2 in the City and at the Tower of London, where the Crown Jewels, St Paul's and a food market sit in one chain. Do the Tower of London in the morning, before the day's crowds build. The Tower of London and Crown Jewels ticket is listed from €45.36 per person and rated 4.6 from 33,257 reviews. You can cancel free up to 24 hours before. The ticket includes the public Beefeater tours every 45 minutes and entry to the Crown Jewels. The page warns of long queues for the Crown Jewels at peak times and says an audio guide is not included.

Prices and ratings as shown on GetYourGuide on 2026-10-24.

Eat lunch at Borough Market, which is free to enter. Borough Market is open Tuesday to Friday from 10am to 5pm, Saturday from 9am to 5pm and Sunday from 10am to 4pm. It is closed on Mondays and busiest on Saturday afternoons. It is right next to London Bridge station.

End the day at St Paul's Cathedral. According to the St Paul's ticket page, an adult sightseeing ticket costs £27 and covers the cathedral floor, the crypt and the three Dome galleries. Sightseeing runs Monday to Saturday. The galleries are up 257, 376 and 528 steps, with stairs only, so skip them if your knees are tired.

The honest limit of this day is time. The Tower and St Paul's each take a good part of a day, so a first-time visitor with only two days should drop St Paul's and keep the market and the river views.

Step 4: Spend day 3 on the South Bank and the river

Spend day 3 on the river, because the Thames links the sights you have already seen and Greenwich is the best place to end up. The Westminster to Greenwich river cruise is listed from €20.53 per person and rated 4.5 from 25,702 reviews. It starts at Westminster Pier, runs by Thames River Sightseeing, and takes about 1 hour one way. Live English commentary is included, and you can cancel free up to 24 hours before.

Prices and ratings as shown on GetYourGuide on 2026-10-24.

You do not need a tour for the same trip. Uber Boat by Thames Clippers runs a river bus that takes contactless, and it takes about 20 minutes from Tower Pier to Greenwich. The cruise is worth the extra if you want commentary, and the river bus is better if you only want to get there.

Greenwich fills the middle of the day. The Cutty Sark costs £22 for an adult, and the National Maritime Museum and the Queen's House are free, with booking recommended. The Royal Observatory closes on 2 November 2026 for a redevelopment and is expected to reopen in stages from summer 2027, so skip it if you arrive after that date. Check the Royal Museums Greenwich opening times before you go.

Come back to the centre for the evening. Tate Modern is free and stays open until 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays. A ride on the London Eye lasts 30 minutes and costs from £29 online against £39 at the ticket office.

Step 5: Spend day 4 in the free museums

Spend day 4 in the free museums, and pick two, not four. The National Gallery, Natural History Museum, Science Museum, V&A, Tate Modern and Tate Britain all list free entry to their main galleries. The Natural History Museum asks you to book a free entry ticket, and the Science Museum asks you to reserve one in advance. The British Museum lists free entry too, and encourages a free timed ticket at busy times. Read more on British Museum tours if you want a guide.

Go for depth, not breadth. One museum at a time gives you an hour or two to see what you came for, and a second one in the afternoon is plenty. Opening hours differ, so check each museum's page on the day.

A short day in one area beats a long day across five.

Step 6: Use the spare day for a trip out of London

Use the spare day for a trip out of London, and choose between the Harry Potter studio tour and a castle or city by train. The Warner Bros. Studio Tour needs a ticket for a set time slot, and visitor numbers are capped. Its own ticket page says no tickets are held back for the day, and that once a slot is sold out, no extra visitors can be added. The average visit lasts about three and a half hours.

The Harry Potter studio tour with transfers is listed from €113.39 per person and rated 4.7 from 28,303 reviews. It takes about 7 hours in all, with about 75 minutes by coach each way from Victoria Coach Station. Free cancellation ends 3 days before, which is earlier than the other tickets here. Audio guides, the tour guide and meals are not included.

Prices and ratings as shown on GetYourGuide on 2026-10-24.

You can do this trip on your own. The studio's own page describes a train from London Euston to Watford Junction, then a shuttle bus that is included in the entry ticket. The coach tour is worth it if you want one ticket for the ride and the entry, and you do not want to plan the trains. The honest case against it is price: an own-train trip costs less but needs more planning.

Want a town or a castle instead? The London coach tours page lists Oxford, Windsor, Bath and Stonehenge. Windsor is the easiest by train. The journey from Paddington takes 28 minutes with a change at Slough, and a pay as you go fare costs £7.90 off peak. Windsor Castle is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and an advance adult ticket costs £32.

Step 7: Plan days 6 and 7 and book the big three first

Plan days 6 and 7 around the one thing you cannot do on a weekday, and book the three tickets that run out first. If your trip includes a weekend, a Premier League match is the biggest of those. The Premier League says to buy tickets only from clubs or their authorised partners. For Chelsea tickets, that means the club's own website or ticket office, and Chelsea says a membership is the way to get men's match tickets.

For theatre, the West End shows page covers the official ticket booth in Leicester Square. For a second river day or a walk, the London walking tours page lists guided options.

Book in this order: the Harry Potter studio slot, the Abbey and the Tower. These three have the tightest slots and the longest queues. Then look at the hop-on hop-off tour London options for your first day. Your trip length is also worth a second look in the how many days in London guide.

Key Takeaway Book three tickets first: the Harry Potter studio slot, Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London, because they are the ones with set slots or queues.

In October 2026, Things to Do in London counted 640 GetYourGuide listings in London and its day-trip area. Of those, 127 are rated 4.5 or higher from at least 100 reviews, so you can fill a day without guessing.