5 step guide to plan a short trip to London

Planning a short trip to London isn’t an easy job since there are so many attractions to cover in such a huge metropolitan city of UK. However, if spending only a couple of days in London is the only choice you have, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to sacrifice on the quality of your travel. With some planning guides I’m going to list down here, you can still have a fruitful visit to this one of the top travel destinations in Europe.

Here are my 5 steps guide to plan for such a short travel to London:

1. First you have to decide those top places you are dying to see in London in such a short stay. Don’t be too ambitious in your itinerary. Instead of rushing around attractions after attractions without going in depth, it would be more memorable and worthwhile to pick only a few tourists spots and spend a bit more time there to appreciate and enjoy. If you are clueless, I would suggest you to visit tourists spots such as Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, London Eyes, Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, British Museum,  Soho, Leicester Square and China Town, without which your visit to London would not be complete;
2. Secondly you have to estimate and allocate your budget in traveling to London. This includes budget in accommodation, transportation, foods, and entrance fees. Depends on your itinerary, cost of traveling in London can vary substantially. Off course it would tie back to your purpose of visiting London, either for shopping, sight seeing and attending exhibition like what I did recently. However, if you are clueless again, try allocating between £35 to £90 a day, from backpacking to flashpacking style depends on your budget.
3. Thirdly you have to decide the time of year to visit London. If you are visiting London for galleries or exhibitions with specific opening time period, try going in normal days to avoid huge crowds. If you are admiring snowing seasons of London, don’t plan a visit in September. If you are planning a trip to the London Olympic Summer Games 2012, starting planning it now! If you wish to visit London in really tight budget, start eyeing on those low cost air fares and many low season London hotels special offers throughout the year for you to plan and book;
4. You should now start planning where in London you should stay for the short stay. There are too many hotels in London to choose from. The extensive local transport including London Underground trains, Red buses, Black cabs, or even trains made picking hotels in London a much easier job to do as long as the hotel is within Zone 6 of central London which means you are covered by the London transport network. If you are planning for a really short trip, as what I did this year, choose hotels within Zone 2 and you can reach most of the attractions by underground! The only factor in choosing hotels in London in this case is your budget and your required level of comfort. ;
5. With the above steps followed, the last thing you will need to do is packing your luggage. What shall be included in your packing list of course depends on how you would travel around London, where you are going to stay, when you are flying to London, and what you will probably buy from London. Lastly, don’t leave your camera at home!

Again, short term travel to London should be your last option to choose if you have a second choice, unless you are a frequent flyer traveling to London every now and then. 🙂 – Travel Feeder, your ultimate photo travel guide to Europe

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.