The British capital, one of the most popular tourist destinations. It is surely on many of our bucket lists however, we are certain that many wonder, is London worth visiting in 2025? In this post, we will give our honest opinions about the top things to know before you go, as someone who has been there recently.
We visited London last December 2024 to celebrate the holidays. It was an amazing adventure overall, however we noticed that some of the things were over-hyped, while others are not mentioned enough. In this travel guide, we want to convey our version of the city, to show you what we thought about it, how much we spent, and to finally answer the most important question: Is London really worth the hype?
This city is quite reachable from many destinations around the world. There are various airlines with different time schedules and budgets, that could easily accommodate your own travel needs. There are six main airports in London, with London City Airport being the closest to the city centre and London Southend the furthest.
Since we are still in a long distance relationship (click here to discover Our Story), we each left from our own home country and decided to meet at Gatwick airport to start our journey. We luckily managed to find two flights that arrived approximately at the same time, which allowed us to budget effectively rather than having to meet somewhere first and leaving again together. If you are in the same situation as us, we highly recommend trying this when visiting big cities, as it saves both money and time.
The flights price for two adults, travelling with backpacks, and the final destination being France, cost us a total of €323. We thought that this was quite reasonable, considering that it was the holiday season and one of the most popular destinations we ever visited. Even though we usually like to travel with backpacks, adding a hand luggage wouldn’t have increased the price by a lot(approximately €20 per luggage, per way).
Overall finding a perfect price that accommodated both our travel schedules and our budgets was fairly easy and quite affordable. We must say that with London, there are vast choices when it comes to airlines, airports, and costs, making your holiday easier. It is important to keep in mind that from March 2025, everyone entering the UK must have an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), while those traveling from outside Europe may also be required to have a Visa, so make sure to check before visiting.
Accommodation is pretty expensive when it comes to London. There are plenty of choices ranging from different price points for hotels, apartments and even hostels. Websites such as booking.com and Airbnb are very helpful to find the perfect stay that suits you.
With regards to accommodation, we typically look for something private, close to the city centre, clean and comfortable. We are not very picky, however we try to stay away from hostels, while also being reasonable when it comes to price. Our accommodation choice usually depends on 4 main criteria:
We typically first set a budget before even starting to look for any type of accommodation (around €100/night). This helps us narrow down our choices while also maintaining reasonable spending.
Typically, the further from the city centre you are, the less expensive it is. However, if the price of transportation is high, the final price might still be more expensive than spending a bit more on a better located accommodation.
With big cities such as London, transportation might be vital hence, it is important to have some form of transport that is easily accessible to you. This is mostly helpful at night, after a full day of walking around and exploring.
We don’t care about how many stars a hotel has, but we do read reviews to check what people really think. This allows you to get greater insights, such as items that might not be working, or unexpected things for example construction that might be happening at the moment.
We personally stayed at The Z hotel Holborn, London when we visited. The price for two persons for four nights was €500, including any taxes and charges. This was the most expensive hotel we ever stayed in while travelling, even though it was the cheapest one we could find that met the above criteria. If you decide to book the same hotel, make sure you are comfortable with the person you are sharing it with as the rooms are quite small (ours was 9 m²).
Overall, the price was not bad considering that we were not far from some of the major attractions such as Big Ben, Trafalgar Square and much more. If your budget is lower than ours, you could still find accommodations that suit you such as hostels, shared apartments, or staying a bit further from the city centre. We can say that the accommodation was one of the trickiest parts about this trip when it came to finding a balance between the criteria above and our overall budget.
London has several modes of public transportation, that can be found all over the city. They have a system whereby you can either buy an Oyster card and top it up with a fixed amount of your choice, or simply just by using your own credit card. This allows you to not have to worry about where to purchase tickets from, while keeping your mind at rest that you will surely not lose the ticket.
After much hesitation, due to the many mixed reviews that there are, we finally decided just to use our bank cards to pay. We personally used Revolut (One of our Top 5 must-have travel apps) as we had converted our euros into pounds for this trip, which allowed us to not be charged any conversion fees. This was very practical and easy to use, and we finally realised that it was clearly the best choice, as we only paid as we go along, and didn’t have to pay a fixed amount to top up the card.
However, there are several precautions one should keep in mind if you plan to simply use your bank card. Make sure you use the same card to go inside the station and swipe the card again before you get out as if not, you will keep on being charged as if you are still travelling. Moreover, you won’t really know how much the ticket will cost you until the end of the day when they actually remove the money from your account. Furthermore, if you are travelling with kids, it is not possible to swipe your card for more than one person, hence each person needs to have his own credit card in order for this system to work.
We spent a total of €138 for both persons for transportation. This amount was made up of a taxi from Gatwick airport to the hotel of €86, and €52 for other public transportation. Overall, we thought that they have a pretty good transportation system that is very frequent, efficient and affordable, and that can be found easily all over the city.
Apart from the classical Fish and Chips, which is not our cup of tea, this British capital is famous for being the United States of Europe. Here you can find a vast mixture of cuisines especially American fast food places that are hardly found anywhere else in Europe. We really enjoyed going around and trying new food, that we only knew from social media.
One of our places to eat from was China Town. This consisted of a long street that is filled with different restaurants and vendors selling Asian Cuisine. We tried many different items from there but our top pics will forever remain the delicious corndog from Bunsik and the £8 Chinese buffet box. The food was not very expensive overall, and we suggest that if you are interested in trying new things, do not just go to a restaurant, but instead buy a few treats from many different shops, as to make the most out of it.
Moreover, we also couldn’t resist into trying some fast-food places such as Wingstop and Dave’s Hot Chicken. We loved both immensely, however it was very difficult to find a place inside to eat since it was severely crowded all the time, and to order at most places, there were queues that went all the way around the building. The fact that Dave’s hot chicken had just opened when we arrived, didn’t help with the fact of overcrowding however, it was still worth to try.
London is also famous for its food markets such as Camden Market and Borough Market. Both of these places are very overcrowded however, we still enjoyed and thought that the food was delicious. We personally tried the “Fiesta Gnocchi” from The Gnocchi Bar. Food in London is quite expensive, especially at these markets, you could easily pay the same prices at restaurants in for example Italy for the same pasta, however if we were to actually eat at a restaurant in London it would have cost much more.
Our “cheap” guilty pleasure was Greggs. It is a British bakery chain, that sells both sweet and savoury treats at a relatively low price. Since we did not pay for breakfast at the hotel, we used to go to Greggs in the morning and spend around £5 all-together, which is significantly cheaper than if we had actually paid to eat breakfast at the hotel. We highly recommend trying their famous sausage rolls and a pink jam filled donut, which were delicious.
In this city, you definitely cannot get bored. It is filled with attractions, activities and things to do, both free and not, for all groups of people. Moreover, it is also the place where you can find some of the world famous attractions such as The Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and The London Eye.
In this city, you definitely cannot get bored. It is filled with attractions, activities and things to do, both free and not, for all groups of people. Moreover, it is also the place where you can find some of the world famous attractions such as The Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and The London Eye.
One of our favourite attractions was the Big Ben. It is a stunning icon that can be seen from many places around the city. Furthermore, since it was Christmas time when we went, we were also mesmerised by the stunning street decorations and Christmas Markets found all over, such as the one in Trafalgar Square.
We also loved to visit the Tower of London, and attractions such as Madame Tussauds. If you plan to visit places where it requires for you to purchase a ticket, we highly recommend booking online in advance, especially during busy season. Even though there were plenty of people and long queues, we were pleased to find out that as soon as your time slots starts, you will immediately go in if you have purchased the ticket beforehand.
However, there are some attractions that we found out to be overly hyped on social media. For example, both The London Eye and Buckingham Palace, are quite basic and overall not that special. Apart from being highly crowded and expensive to enter, they were nothing more than just a building and a wheel. We suggest reading this question article before visiting, although it was posted 10 years ago, most of the things still apply regarding “Tourist attractions worth skipping”.
As a huge Friends fan, we also decided to visit the FRIENDS Experience while in London. Even though some of the sets were very realistic and well done, we did not feel that it was worth the €52 (for both) entry ticket. Moreover, it was quite far from the city centre which finally costed us more due to transportation. We highly recommend doing your research and looking at reviews before purchasing any tickets, as not to be disappointed or waste any money.
London is famous for its bad weather, generally rainy and cold. However, this is not necessarily bad for everyone, and you can easily make it to your advantage. Just make sure you have a good raincoat and umbrella, and head out to start your journey.
During our holiday, we were pretty lucky, as it only rained one of the days we were there, and it didn’t last more than a few minutes. However, it was very cold, and as someone who lives in a much hotter climate, we definitely suggest going prepared such as taking a good coat, scarves, gloves and even a beanie (temperature was between 0-5 degrees Celsius).
There are plenty of indoor activities you can do to get away from the rain. There are several big shopping malls such as the world-famous Harrods, but if that’s not your thing, there are also many alternative entertainments such as arcades, restaurants, escape rooms and more. In this city, you can surely find something to keep you occupied.
Nevertheless, you can take advantage of the bad weather if you are feeling a bit adventurous. The worse the weather is, the less people are usually outside, which can be your time to explore London more peacefully. This city is known to be overcrowded all year long, especially during the holidays, hence don’t fear a little bit of rain but rather, see it as a good thing to start discovering.
Our London Budget Breakdown consisted of 6 main categories, as seen in Figure 1 below. The largest two expenses from our entire budget where the flights and accommodation, that finally took more than half of our entire holiday spending. As already mentioned above, the flights were quite reasonable at €323 total, however the accommodation costed more than what we usually spend, as we couldn’t find a better alternative: €500.
Food in London is also quite expensive although, we could have been more careful if we wanted to and spend less. In total we spent €266 in food, counting all the meals even any snacks/drinks that we took from the airport. Total transport on site, meaning it doesn’t include the flights, was €138-divided into €86 taxi and €52 public transportation. Since we arrived very late in London, we chose to take a taxi from the airport to the hotel, which was quite expensive and took very long to arrive due to the high demand. A big chunk of this money could have easily been saved if we had planned better and took public transport, like we did to go back to the airport on the last day.
As you can see in Figure 2 above, our daily spending on site, was quite consistent at roughly €90 per day for both of us. However, in days 3 and 4, daily spending increased since on day 3 we paid for Madame Tussaud (€70) while on day 4 we paid for the FRIENDS Experience (€52). Again, this is highly subjective to what you want to do exactly and how much you are willing to spend on activities. The great thing about London is that there are many free activities such as the British Museum, Natural History Museum and much more, which can allow you to still enjoy while being on a budget.
Our total spending, for a 4-day holiday in London in December, for two persons travelling with a backpack was €1,405. This was the highest we ever paid for a holiday, since for example for Valencia (where we went to the World-famous Oceanographic Aquarium), which was the same number of days, during the summer period, we paid 37% less in total. You can see our most expensive expenses in Figure 3 below.
However, we think that London is quite opinionated when it comes to budgeting as it really depends on how much you are ready to spend. We believe that we could have done this holiday for less if we were a bit more careful, while also could have spent much more if we were willing to. Hence, we suggest establishing a budget in advance, and then determining the activities, accommodation and flights, around such a budget.
Now to divert back to the question we originally came here for, Is London Worth Visiting in 2025? We think that it absolutely is. Although, it comes with its own downsides, we believe that if you plan well and listen to our advice, you could easily make this one of your best holidays, like we consider that it was for us.
Even though it was severely crowded, and sometimes we were glad to arrive at the hotel to finally be a bit alone, it was still worth it considering the attractions, the activities both free and not, the food and the amazing atmosphere.
When it comes to budget, even though some stuffs are expensive and likely unavoidable such as the hotel, you will notice that there are alternative things to make up for it such as the many free activities that are available all year round. It was truly one of the most enjoyable and chaotic holidays we ever did, and we would both gladly do it all over again in the future.
Don’t forget to check out some of our previous posts such as the one on Bordeaux, France and tell us what else you would like to see. To conclude, let us know if you are planning on visiting London any time soon, and if so, did any of our advice help you to make a certain choice? Moreover, what tips would you give to someone who is visiting London for the first time?
Also, don’t hesitate to visit our country pages such as France, Italy or Portugal. See you next time!
We are Martina and Cyprien, a long-distance couple with a passion for travelling.
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