I don’t like the planning or research aspects of traveling , either. My solution is to enlist the grown kids in that. An additional upside is that they get to do activities/see things that they are interested in.
That said we all enjoyed the HP museum. We also did a food tour, which was amazing.
If you want to do tea, make reservations for the one at the Dorchester Hotel. It’s not cheap, but it’s wonderful!
I prefer Cambridge to Oxford if you are choosing one. Punting on the Cam is very fun - might be chilly.
Those are my additions to what others have already suggested.
Make sure to get a tour guide at Tower of London. I thought Winston Churchill museum a must see, even named our new kitten Winston. Enjoyed Bath. I also suggest the hop on and off bus to get an overview.
Viator has a lot of tours that don’t require much from you.
All great ideas above. I would stick to London with day trips for your time frame. Lots to do, too much for 7 days in fact, and it will be much more relaxing than racing all over the UK. I met one of my young adults in London a couple years ago for 5 days. He requested the HMS Belfast which is moored on the Thames as a museum ship. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. We spent hours - there is an audio self-guide and the ship is set up as it would have been in various eras of use. We also took a day trip, easy by train, to Bletchley Park, home to the WWII cyber code breakers. Well designed renovation with another very good audio guide. We spent the entire day and I want to go back!
There are some very good old CC discussions on this topic. I remember getting ideas for my last visit, even though I have visited London many times. Have a great time - very easy place to travel and easy for various family members to go their own way if there isn’t a meeting of the minds for every minute of the vacation. Enjoy - I just canceled a planned January London trip since I need to be in Australia in February. Now I’m wondering if I can perhaps handle both…
We took a first trip to London a year ago in September. We walked our legs off, and there’s so much to do you’ll have no trouble filling a week. There were so many places we didn’t get to see, we’ll have to go back again. We squeezed in a day trip to Cambridge. We went to the British Museum twice (we were staying next door so it was easy). Their cafe had really really fantastic scones. It was nice to have a sit down activity in the evening. We did get tickets to Harry Potter and really enjoyed it. Go to Kings Cross station late at night. No crowds at platform 9-3/4 then!
We also visited Europe (our daughter was studying abroad and we took a trip to visit her) in mid-March of this year. No crowds, very nice. Cold! It drizzled or rained most of the time we were there and didn’t ever get above 50 degrees. Spring is definitely less predictable weather-wise. We still had a fantastic time. We got tickets to an opera and a symphony. Went to a local street fair.
This information is fantastic! Thank you all so much! Think we might spend all 7 nights in London, perhaps taking a day trip out. Kind of nice to not have to change hotels.
I’m wondering where the best area would be to stay. The prices of hotels look rather depressed, so we could probably stay somewhere very nice. I’m somewhat concerned about crime and terrorism, so is there an area that is convenient, yet safe, that you can recommend?
Has anyone here done London as part of a tour group? It sounds unnecessary, but they would take care of the small details.Probably not worth it.
Since the family is going and you plan on staying a week, you might want to consider renting a flat over a hotel.
We don’t travel with tours and I don’t think it necessary for London (it’s pretty easy IMO) but you can look at tour itineraries to help get a feel for things to do and a framework/strategy for laying out your visit.
Not a tour person. With that bias disclosed, I still say that a tour is absolutely NOT needed for London. If you want an overview, do one of the Hop On Hop Off buses. Get Oyster Cards (public transit) for each family member. Tubes are easy to use, ask for a bus map as well. A good tourist map will make the walking easy. Much less crime in London than a typical US city. DS and I walked thru Hyde Park early evening after dark as it was a convenient route back to our hotel. While we were alert, I wouldn’t consider anything similar in most US cities that I don’t know well. London is very spread out. I like Bayswater, but I have yet to find what I consider an ideal location for everything.
We used hotel credit card points. We stayed at two different hotels. One was the Hyatt Churchill. It was in an upscale shopping district. The other was the Montague on the Gardens next to the British Museum. The Hyatt was easy to get to from the airport. We liked the location near the British Museum better for getting around to other places, and just liked that area a bit better. More our vibe I guess. A free breakfast at the hotel would have been nice. We didn’t have concerns about safety in either location. I’d suggest staying somewhere in central London. There’s so much to see and do, you don’t want to be wasting time traveling from too far back and forth each day.
I did A LOT of reading on TripAdvisor forums to get an idea of the areas.
The most confusing thing was figuring out which transport pass would work best.
London was an overwhelming place to plan to visit. So many options, so little time. We loved everything we did and I think we could go spend another week, see totally different things, and love it again. I wouldn’t bother with a tour, but we don’t ever bother with tours.
Also don’t spend too much time worrying about crime and terrorism. European cities are at least as safe as US cities. Do your big city due diligence and leave it at that.
I wish I could put “Helpful” and “Like” on all of the posts, because they are all helpful and I like them all!
We will probably go towards a hotel instead of a flat, because of the ability to cancel/change at the last minute. Our trips tend to get revised/cancelled pretty fast.
We would love to see some type of show, also. Though both of the kids are software engineers, one is also an actor and really enjoys plays/musicals.
Re Brexit: I am planning a trip to Britain in June. What changes could I expect? Will the exchange rate be better for US dollars?
We just returned from a stay in London. Hubby LOVES theater. It is super easy to get tickets for almost all shows (excluding Hamilton) on the same day - at a large discount. There are authorized sellers of available tickets located in Picadily Circus. We got fantastic seats at a 50% discount.
Get an Oyster card for London. It works for all the transit systems. If you think you will be taking ‘the tube’ from the airport it’s best to have the Oyster card in hand. You can order the online and they will be delivered to your US doorstep. There’s an additional fee for trackable delivery, but we found it worth the $$ to avoid the hassles. Load the card with 25 BPS and you should be good for several days.
I know you prefer a hotel but I’ll throw this out anyway. We’ve also used an organization called London Connection for lodging. They are based out of Utah and manage a number of very nice properties in London and in Paris. They are easy to work with and very responsive. If you like ‘ease’ they can arrange to pick you up at the airport and drop you off again. All for reasonable pricing. We loved staying in a home rather than a hotel. We staying at one of the properties with our son and a couple of his friends. It worked out so nicely. Happy to provide more detailed info if you like.
Some rentals are flexible with last minute changes or cancellations. You just need to check the booking details.
Staying in one place for a week, we find rentals allow for added living space, a kitchen to store drinks, snacks, breakfast items, and laundry facilities - all of which make our travel easier for relaxing, saving $, and traveling light.
@TatinG, do you hold a US passport? I can’t think that there will be many differences for US citizens traveling. Possibly longer immigration queues if there is no possibility for EU citizens to use a designated line. The immigration queues are often so awful already, however, that I don’t see how things could get much worse. Three hour lines instead of two???
The UK never gave up the pound sterling as their monetary unit; they have never used Euros. I wouldn’t expect a change in the exchange rate on the Brexit date - but I’m not an economist. My thinking is that any Brexit related impact on the US/UK exchange rate has already been factored in since the decision to Brexit was made a couple years ago. Interested if any economists or currency speculators out there think differently!
Last time we stayed at the Rembrandt Hotel, across the street from the V&A. I would definitely stay there again. The first time we went with two teens we rented a flat near Buckingham Palace.
Yes. US Citizen with US passport. Someone above was predicting shortages? So nothing is expected to affect visitors? Good.
I don’t believe that, as of this moment on 11/26/18, Parliament has ratified any specific terms of exiting although Brexit is set to occur in March 2019. My understanding is that a deal has been proposed and placed in front of the politicians to approve, modify, reject. Stay tuned for the next episode??? I would not hesitate to plan a trip to the UK in the next few months or into next year - but that’s me.
By the way, for anyone interested in politics, one of the more interesting things DH and I have ever done was to attend a session of Parliament.
If you stay in the central part of London you can get a Underground pass. It will get you near just about anything you could imagine in the Central London district. The London Underground is a fantastic way to get around the city. This would allow you to visit the London Museum, Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London, and many many many other sights. We didn’t use anything other than the underground and trains the entire 11 days except for 1 cab in Paris (a two day side trip).
Bath can be an interesting side trip that can be taken in a day. Seeing ancient Rome in Britain is fascinating. My parents enjoyed the Cotswolds. We didn’t make it but we were considering visiting York.
A warning. The museums when we visited were all free, however, when we rested in Regents Park after arriving from the states, the lounge chairs sitting conspicuously around were a pound to sit in. We were all suffering from jet lag and were walking in the park while waiting for our room to be readied. We saw the chairs and all just wanted to shut our eyes for a few minutes. Suddenly this nice young lady with what we thought was a wonderful accent informed us we owed her 4 pounds. We were all quite startled but even though it seemed a bit rich for our 15 minutes, we needed them and they were appreciated. That was in 2000.
I like Rick Steves’ guide books. He seems to have a good grasp of what important and how to get the feel of where you are visiting. Enjoy.
If you like historical stuff and will be going outside of London, I suggest a drive out west to Wiltshire where you can take in both Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral. In addition to being a great old gothic cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral has on display one of the four original Magna Cartas signed by King John himself in AD 1215.