Top 5 ‘Cheap London’ Tips
Having been to London recently as a ‘LIP’ and not a local, I was reminded of just how expensive it can be. It cost us £50 before we’d even started…just to get from the airport (Stansted) to our hotel Marriot at Marble Arch. That’s like 357 subte journeys in Buenos Aires (their equivalent of the underground). Shocking.
Here are top 5 LIP Tips learned from our recent trip & with a bit of insider knowledge from an ex-local:
- Travel: Get an oyster card for the Tube which gives you the best value single ticket prices or if you are there over a bank holiday weekend, get a 3 day travel card.
- Travel: Rather than use the tubes, take the bus - an all day bus card which entitles you to travel on any of the buses costs £3.50 (US$7) and you’ll actually get to see more of London at the same time.
- Food: For good value food head to somewhere like Edgware Road just off Oxford Street where you can get a great Lebanese meal for under a tenner.
- Accommodation: Use priceline.co.uk to book hotels in central London. If you’re patient, you can get a good 4 star hotel for less than £60 ($120) a night.
- Internet: It is well worth signing up for a wireless roaming service like Boingo or even the T-Mobile hotspots whilst staying in London. Using the hotel services is exorbitantly expensive - £15 ($30) for 24 hours so if you think $10 in the US expensive, you’ll have a fit in London! Boingo works perfectly (without any additional surcharges) in all the Marriott hotels in London, many of the Hilton hotels and all the Caffe Nero coffee chains.
Any more suggestions from you London locals out there?
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Comments
Thanks for this great tip Katie - I always forget how useful libraries can be as a resource - and clearly not just for books!
Linked over from the Carnival of Cities. Thought you and your readers might appreciate my collection of “cheap London” tips.
Go to the libraries for free wireless internet. You don’t have to have a library card to use their service, and they let you stay as long as you need (or until they close).