London: Free museums and endless neighbourhoods

London is expensive to sleep in and surprisingly cheap to enjoy: the great national museums are free, the parks are enormous, and the best food is in markets rather than restaurants. Treat it as a collection of villages rather than one city, pick two or three a day, and don't try to tick off every landmark.

Getting Around

• Tap in and out with a contactless card or phone — no ticket needed, and daily and weekly caps apply automatically
• The Underground is quickest across town; buses are cheaper, slower and better for seeing things
• The Elizabeth line crosses the city fast and serves Heathrow
• Walking beats the tube for short hops: Covent Garden to Leicester Square takes longer underground
• Airports: Heathrow and Gatwick are the main ones, Stansted and Luton are budget bases well outside the city

What to See

• British Museum, Natural History Museum, V&A, Tate Modern, National Gallery — all free, all worth a half day each
• Westminster, the South Bank walk and St Paul's — the postcard London, best done on foot along the river
• Tower of London — paid, busy, and genuinely good if you go at opening
• Borough Market for food, Columbia Road for flowers on Sundays, Brick Lane for curry and vintage
• Hampstead Heath and Richmond Park for a day that feels nothing like a capital city
• Greenwich — the observatory, the meridian and the fastest river trip out there

Where to Eat

• The food is genuinely excellent and wildly international: Bangladeshi on Brick Lane, Turkish in Dalston, West African in Peckham, Chinese in Soho
• A proper Sunday roast in a pub is the one British institution to plan for
• Markets — Borough, Maltby Street and Broadway — do lunch far better than most restaurants
• Pub prices climb steeply in the centre; a couple of stops out makes a real difference

Where to Stay

• King's Cross — superb transport links, including trains north and the Eurostar next door
• Shoreditch and Hackney — nightlife, markets and better value than the centre
• South Bank and Southwark — walkable to most sights
• Anywhere on the tube in zone 2 or 3 will save you money and cost you fifteen minutes

Don't buy a travelcard before you arrive. Contactless caps your daily spend automatically, and it's usually cheaper than any pass a tourist site will sell you.