When you visit a city as large as London, you need to go prepared with your best options for getting around town to see all the sights. After spending a week in London with my husband and kids, we tested out pretty much every option available so we could share our best tips with you. This totally free app is absolutely essential for getting around in London. You can type in your destination and the app will give you several options for getting there along with the estimated cost and expected time for each one. I used the Citymapper app to help my family travel through all of London in a wide variety of ways over the course of our week and we had so much fun. The most useful methods of transportation for tourists includes: The London Underground is truly something you need to experience during your visit. With a little preparation in advance, you’ll be ready to hop on a train your very first day. The Underground is one of your very best options for getting around in London because it is fast, mostly reliable, safe, clean, budget-friendly, and fun. Don’t panic at the sight of the tube maps, if you’ve got the Citymapper app on your phone, you’ll be able to navigate the system like a true Londoner. Be sure to check out the full list of my essential travel apps I keep on my iPhone. There is so much to know about the Underground, I wrote a separate article about it with tips and tricks for newbies. I answer all your questions like:
Should you get an Oyster card? How do you pay for your fare? How do you read the tube map? And so many more . . .
Read my Beginner’s Guide to the London Underground here. When you’re utterly exhausted, totally overwhelmed, or the weather is just miserable, it can be nice to splurge on a direct ride from point A to point B. We found the Uber app to be most useful for these scenarios because we could call for the car right from our phones. We never did ride a black cab because I discovered their fares are more expensive than Uber and I wasn’t totally certain our entire family would fit in one car. Be absolutely sure you have the Uber app set up on your phone before you go even if you plan to use the tube exclusively. Sometimes it is just nice to take that break. NOTE: Street traffic in London can be absolutely HORRIBLE. Do not assume that a taxi or uber would deliver you to your destination faster than the tube. Plan to use this option to give your feet a break, not to save time. The suggested re-route was to hop on a local red bus to reach our destination and it was shockingly wonderful. The bus was nearly empty except for a few friendly police officers that offered up a lunch recommendation for us! The local red buses are part of the public transportation system but they only run certain routes. The classic double-decker red bus you’re probably imagining is the tourist driven Hop On, Hop Off Bus routes that need separate tickets to enjoy. We boarded the boat at the pier right under the London Eye ferris wheel. It is part of the public transportation and runs every 30 minutes. We rode the boat from the London Eye all the way down to Greenwich and then walked under the river via tunnel and took the DLR train back to the tube to get back to London. The whole adventure took us most of an afternoon but was an extremely memorable part of our trip. This over the ground train goes right through Canary Wharf and is a great way to sightsee through the area. There’s a pair of matching domed gates on either side. You can walk down a staircase or take the elevator down to the bottom floor and then walk right under the river to the other side. My engineer husband loved this. Our family walked 20,000 – 30,000 steps every single day even though we used all the transportation methods listed above!
