London in a day: How to make the most of 24 hours in the city

For many people visiting the city of London, poses the perfect opportunity for a short getaway or mini-break. There is after all, so much to see and do that you can’t possibly see the sights of London in just one day…or can you? With Christmas fast approaching, it seems that many couples and families are starting to tighten their purse strings and reign in the spending, mainly because of the inevitable overspending that Christmas usually brings.

Perhaps it is for this reason that many visitors to England’s capital are now only stopping by for a day trip rather than spending money paying for accommodation too. If your budget is large enough to allow for a few nights’ accommodation in Piccadilly London, then by all means, stretch out your sightseeing over the duration of your stay. However, if you’re just in the big city for 24 hours or less, then you’ll naturally want to make every single moment count.

The London Eye

Perhaps one of the quickest and most effective ways to see the whole of London is to get a birds’ eye view of it, and that’s just what you’ll get when you take a ride in one of the capsules on the London eye experience. The ride will take less than an hour to complete and you’ll get to take in the breath taking city scape as well as spot well known landmarks such as Big Ben (The clock tower attached to the Houses of Parliament.) That’s an hour well spent in anyone’s books, although the trip isn’t cheap and the price you’ll pay to see London this way will naturally increase the larger your group or family is.

The London Pass

This small card is your golden ticket, for want of a better word, to many of the most popular attractions in London, and once you have it, you just need to flash it at admission staff to get into places like Windsor Castle, the London Zoo, Westminster Abbey and many more besides. Having one of these passes makes is more convenient when accessing tourist attractions because it means that you won’t have to waste time queuing with those waiting to pay an admission fee, instead you can fast track and gain entry sooner rather than later- perfect if you’re trying to maximise every minute in the day!

Original London Sightseeing tour

This is a bus tour, yes, but you’re not obliged to sit all the way through it, so don’t go thinking that you’re in for a long boring bus ride. Instead, you can hop on and off at any destinations that take your fancy, including Buckingham Palace, (time it right and you might even get to see the changing of the guards!) the Royal Albert Hall, St Paul’s cathedral and much more besides. What is most convenient about this trip is that it stops all along the way, so you haven’t got to concern yourself with catching other bus services or working out transport links and times, you simply get on and off as you please.

A diverse shopping experience

Rather than use up your time perusing all of your favourite high street shops that can be found on Oxford Street (because let’s be honest, you can do that at home), take a trip to Covent Garden instead. You won’t be disappointed. The vibrant marketplace has stalls selling all kinds of things from independent fashion label clothes, to antiques, and there are even some incredible street food vendors to be found amongst the stall holders too. In fact, there is so much to discover here, that you could quite easily lose a few hours  in the afternoon just meandering your way around and admiring how wonderfully diverse yet united the people of London really are. Perhaps this would be best saved for the last stop before making your way home, otherwise you may spend so much time here that you won’t be able to do a lot else!

Of course, if you do find that you’re running out of time to see everything that you wanted to see before home time, you could always check with some of the London Piccadilly hotels to see if they can offer you a very last minute, preferential room rate. You never know what kind of hefty discount they might be able to apply if they think that the room may stay vacant. It’s true of almost all hotels that they would rather let a customer have a room at a heavily discounted rate and make a little money, than have rooms empty that are making them no profit. Therefore, as the old saying goes, sometimes ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get’.

That said, if you can’t secure a cheap enough room to fit in with your travel budget, then leaving things unseen in the city isn’t always an entirely terrible thing. If nothing else, it means that you’ll be eager to revisit London fairly soon in order to complete your itinerary and that can only be a good thing. In fact, with Christmas just around the corner, perhaps next time you visit, Winter Wonderland will be open in Hyde Park. What better reason to visit one of London’s royal parks do you need? This magical winter land features wood cabins that sell handmade fares, a bar serving mulled wine and spiced cider, an outdoor ice rink and hundreds and hundreds of twinkling fairy lights. If there’s a more magical sight in London at Christmas time, it is yet to be found.