5 Essential Tips for Visiting London

Important Information for London Travel Novices

The canon of guidebooks and e-resources dedicated to London tourism is massive enough to dam the Thames River, and I think I read every single one of them. Even so, I found myself feeling like an uninformed idiot on more than a few occasions during my time in London. Here are the top five things I wish somebody would have told me before I got on the plane.

5. Know Exactly Where You're Staying

For an absentminded slob, I'm surprisingly high-strung, semi-obsessive even, about my pre-departure travel organization. Because of this, I book just about everything in advance: lodging, in-country travel, tours, even the occasional meal! I technically stayed in London twice during my recent trip to the U.K. and Ireland: once at the beginning of the trip and once at the end. Because we wanted to experience as much of the city as possible in our limited time, I booked two different hostels in two different neighborhoods.

Both hostels were pleasant, but differed greatly in their location. The first hostel (St. Christopher's Southwark) was super-affordable, adjacent to a lively bar, and had an awesome location near the south bank of the Thames. The second hostel (which shall remain nameless) was equally affordable, but happened to be a fifteen-hour round-trip walk from the Tower Bridge (I know this for a fact because, being on our last day and too broke for rail or bus passes, we walked the entire way there and back.) At first, we weren't even sure which direction to start walking: the neighborhood we were staying in wasn't even on our overview map of greater London!

I almost wanted to go punch the hostelworld.com people in the face for even listing that property as a "London" hostel... but in the end, I know it was my own dumbass fault. A little pre-booking research in this instance could have saved me a great many blisters.

4. Bring Twice as Much Money as You Think You'll Need

If you've been in the planning stages for a while, you've probably heard or read this same advice at least two or three times already. If you're anything like me, you need to hear it again.