On a budget? Make your money go further with these 101 ideas for things to do in London that cost between 1p and £10.
Cheap eats
Satisfy your sweet tooth and indulge in handmade luxury chocolates and truffles at Prestat (from £4.50).
Grab a tasty lunch, such as a burrito or mac’n’cheese, from a street food truck (around £5).
Bite into a sweet or savoury pancake at My Old Dutch (from £6.75).
Breakfast in Mayfair doesn’t have to be expensive. Eat a hot sandwich (from £3.50) or full English (from £8.50) at Cardinals of Mayfair .
Buy a freshly cooked lunch from a stall at foodie paradise Borough Market (around £6).
Tuck into piping hot chips and crispy battered fish at one of London's famous fish and chip shops (from £5.50).
Eat affordable and authentic Chinese food in Chinatown .
Munch a mouthwatering frozen yoghurt at Snog (from £2.45).
Treat yourself to a delicious pastry, cake or cupcake at one of London's best cake shops .
Choose from 120 different types of cereals and more than 30 different varieties of milk and toppings at the Cereal Killer Cafe (from £4.50).
Grab a burger at one of London's top 10 burger bars .
Fun for families
Be wowed by aquatic life from around the globe in London’s oldest aquarium at the Horniman Museum (£8 for adults).
Meet goats, ponies, alpacas and other farmyard animals at Belmont Children's Farm (£7).
Home from home
Soak up the historical atmosphere at Sutton House , the Tudor home of Thomas Cromwell's protege Ralph Sadleir (£8.50).
Explore the home of Dr Benjamin Franklin, scientist, diplomat, philosopher, inventor and Founding Father of the United States, at Benjamin Franklin House (from £8).
Visit the Hampstead-based home of Sigmund Freud and his family at the Freud Museum (£10).
Discover the former home of two talented musicians with Handel & Hendrix in London (£10).
Culture for less
Be dazzled by the moon, constellations and planets at a live planetarium show at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich (£10).
Take a tour of Highgate Cemetery , where revolutionary Karl Marx is buried (£4).
Step inside James I’s drinking den at Banqueting House .
Take a tour of Wilton's Music Hall , the world's oldest and largest surviving grand music hall (£8).
See an arthouse, cult or classic film at the Prince Charles Cinema (£10 for weekday matinees).
The write stuff
we visited the charles dickens museum at 48 doughty street. i last went many years ago, with my mother. she had come to paris, where i lived, to have her chemo at the american hospital in neuilly. one weekend when she felt well enough, we went to london and stayed at the basil street hotel (it was my favorite, and i miss it.) she had never been to london, and there were so many sights to see. the two she wanted to visit first were the dickens museum (she was an english teacher, our bookcases were filled with his novels, when we were babies she read them to us) and a church where my father had taken shelter during a bomb raid during the war. maureen and i didn't visit that church this time, but we saw (happened upon—maureen noticed as we walked by) the west side of the victoria & albert museum, bearing scars of bomb damage. we felt the presence of both our parents during this trip.
A post shared by Luanne Rice (@luannerice) on Apr 23, 2019 at 5:13am PDT
Learn about one of the UK’s most famous novelists at the Charles Dickens Museum (£9.50).
Discover the story behind Dr Johnson and his dictionary at Dr Johnson’s House (£7).
See paintings, prints and relics belonging to poet John Keats at Grade-I listed building Keats House (£7.50).
Curtain's up
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. #TheTempest This weekend, we say goodbye to our Summer Season, and what a summer it’s been. Photo: Clive Sherlock #ShakespearesGlobe #GlobeTheatre #Shakespeare
A post shared by Shakespeare's Globe (@the_globe) on Oct 12, 2019 at 5:52am PDT
See an authentic Shakespeare play by buying a £5 standing ticket for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre .
Find standing tickets for as little as £3 for productions at the Royal Opera House .
Buy standing tickets for the London Proms at the Royal Albert Hall (from £6).
Visit the TKTS booth in Leicester Square for cheap last-minute tickets for West End shows.
Park life
Rent a deckchair in the summer in Green Park, Hyde Park and St James’s Park (£1.80 for one hour).
Swim in the historic men's, ladies' and mixed ponds on Hampstead Heath (£2 per adult per day).
Time to travel
Take a Thames Clippers boat from the London Eye to Greenwich.
Enjoy a cheap sightseeing tour of London by taking the 74 bus from Putney to Baker Street, via South Kensington, Harrods, Hyde Park and Selfridges (£1.50 with a contactless payment or Oyster card).
Take a canal boat ride from Little Venice to Camden (from £10).
Complete your London experience with a ride in one of the city's black cabs (from £3.20).
Glide above the Thames in the Emirates Air Line cable car (£3.50).
Winter wonders
Sip a mulled wine in one of London’s Christmas markets (around £5).
Get your skates on and take to the ice at one of these festive ice rinks .
Tuck into a Bratwurst hotdog at Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland (around £5).
Experience the festive magic and get merry at the many carols and concerts in London this Christmas.