London on Budget: Backpacking Tips to Travel Cheap and with Pleasure

by Lily B. Writer

London is a huge historic city with a big variety of interesting places to see. Backpacking is the best way to travel around and explore new territories. This is also a good opportunity to travel on a low budget. So, you can save money while visiting London solo. Every moment of your trip will be enjoyable.

Enjoy savings on accommodations

London is good for solo travellers as you can easily save money on accommodation. The city is full of special hostel spots for backpackers and attractive houses for big touristic groups. There are plenty of options for saving money on London accommodations. Of course, the cheapest way to find a room for cheap is couch surfing. This option helps to meet new people. What is more, you can also save on food if you are invited to have dinner with the house owner. There is also a variant to try camping. You can find a good camping from the web or privately.

Save on transportation with an Oyster Card

If you want to do in London as locals usually do, buy the Oyster Card and travel for cheap around the city by public transport: tram, tube, bus. You can pay fast with the card and link it to discounts for other UK travel services. You can also save money with Travel Cards available for certain parts of the city if you are planning your trip to one or another city district only. The card simply works with a simple tap, and lets you save your cash for other city attractions. Travelling over the country, city, it can be very helpful to hire a car in London to feel free going somewhere. It can be also a good saving for your budget.

Stay in touch without spending a bundle

It is not a problem to stay in touch even in London. Why don’t you use Viber Out’s VoIP service? This service helps you to make calls to and from the UK and other destinations, all for pennies per minute. You can use it via internet from your smartphone, tablet, or other device. What a big pleasure to feel free to make calls whenever you want and save money on it. There’s a pleasant bonus for all users: you may call to others Viber partners for free. You can also use the rest of service attractions like sending texts, voice and video messages.

Free museums make a plus to your budget

Travelling on budget, you still have an opportunity to enjoy your backpacking to London by visiting all free-to-visit cultural and historical places. Traditionally, you can find a lot of city museums and galleries free to visit. The most often visited are the National Maritime Museum and the National Army Museum for a look at England’s earliest foot soldiers.

Look for live entertainment, festivals, parks, and more

Free attractions are waiting for you at every step in London. The street festivals, season fairs, street markets welcome you. The city parks offer you to enjoy surrounding nature, take beautiful photos, and relax somewhere on a bench.

Museums: The best recommended free-entrance museums are National Museums of London, British National Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Scientific Museum. You can find more if you have enough time and list of available museums.

Parks: the best way to spend your time pleasantly in London is visiting a park. The city is big and green. The most of parks are free to enter. They are good for BBQ and playing games. What a big pleasure to walk through the Green Park at the Buckingham Palace. This is the greatest green spot to get some rest for free. The huge Hyde Park and the smaller Kensington Gardens are also recommended to visit.

Galleries: You cannot find free art galleries in such big city as London, but you can surely find the most popular of them free. They are the Tate Modern and Tate Britain galleries.

Markets: Probably, you think that London consists of boutiques and galleries only. Nevertheless, there are many good markets here. They are interesting to visit even with kids. There are three of them: Camden Market, Portobello Market, and Petticoat Lane Market.

The Waterfront: This part of the city is always free to visit. This is the best viewy and attractive place. You can observe the whole city from the London Eye. The museums, patios, street performances, small and big shops are around you. Feel free to visit any of them.

Theater: There are many cheap theatres in London. It can happen that you are not a big theatre lover. One way or another, you should take your chance to travel to London for free and see the theatre performance at least once.

Eat on a shoestring

Dining in the restaurants can be expensive. Of course, you can learn from the restaurant website about the special days to feed for free. There are also special hours in the restaurants to feed people for cheap for lunch of breakfast. This period of time is usually called the happy hours. Otherwise, it is better to buy food in the shop. There are two large market spots in London, called Aldi or Sainsbury’s. You can buy food for all occasions and keep it in safe in your fridge waiting for the moment of hunger.

Cheap pubs to visit

It can be funny to visit London’s top clubs for cheap. As a rule, the prices are high. You can do wisely and find the most atmospheric places at the place you live in. Thus, such large hostels as St. Christopher’s and Generator boast their indoor bars and pubs. You can buy some drink there and meet new people, close to your interests. This is your chance to find locals to learn more about the city secrets and find a new partner for backpacking. Honestly, local pubs are always pleasant to visit. Going to have fun in the pub, you should stay your car in the parking zone and use taxi or public transport to come back home late. There are many night buses here and there over the city, ready to take you to any city district. It is cheaper than taxi.