What to avoid
When you are here, make use of the public transport, but try to organise your time so you are not constantly travelling. Don’t waste your time sitting on a tube train zigzagging backwards and forwards missing out on the fun.
For example, Richmond to Tower Hill to Notting Hill to Greenwich to Paddington basin on one day would be exhausting, and probably impossible with so much travel time.
Mark the places you want on your map. This will help you understand the geography better.
Look at the must haves, and see what else there is in that general area. The thing you could ask is: while we are in that area, what else could we see that we might enjoy?
For example:
- Tower of London
- Tower Bridge
- Hay’s Galleria
- Southwark Cathedral
- Borough Market
- boat to Charing Cross
- Covent Garden
with stops for food, drink and a sit looking at the view would be a very satisfactory, busy and tiring day. Possibly impossible, as the queues at the Tower can be long and slow.
We’re big fans of mixing types of things up. There’s only one Tower of London and one Tower Bridge, and they are very different types of thing, and you don’t want to be going back to an area.
We don’t want you to detail every second. You can’t do that. It’s not a National Lampoon vacation. You can’t predict the weather, trains trikes, protests…
Have a wet weather plan.
Don’t put so much on the plan that you tire yourself out. Take time to enjoy the things you wish to really see. assume transport etc will take longer than you expect.
If you go home and say something like “We’d would have been interested to see Harrod’s but we didn’t make it, but we did see Richmond and had a boat down the river and Hampton Court and…” then that’s great. You can’t see everything. Missing Harrod’s may not be a great loss anyway.
More reason for coming back, too.