Hello from London. If you are coming to visit in the next year or so, there might be one major thing on your mind
how expensive London is. And listen, I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it’s a very expensive city, apparently the third most expensive city in the world to live in and the 6th most expensive to visit. So you gotta prepare for this.
But the good thing is there are quite a few ways where you can cut your costs but also still have a great time while you’re here.
Let’s start with the kicker accommodation.Â
Now, there’s not really that much you can do about the fact that your accommodation in London is going to be, relatively speaking, quite expensive. And prices for accommodation in London can really vary depending on many factors,
but for a very, very general number, you can expect to be paying about 100 pounds a night for budget accommodation, two to 300 for mid range and 400 a night plus for luxury.
That being said, I do have a couple of tips for you to help you keep that accommodation cost as low as possible.
So you could choose to stay a little bit outside of central London, because generally speaking, the hotels will be a little bit more on the affordable side compared to if you get something right smack dab in the middle of central London, the most popular part of the city.
Now, we have amazing transport here, so actually, even if you stay outside of central, you can usually get around the city pretty easily via the tube or a bus. But you do also want to take into account that you will have some extra travel time depending on what parts of the city that you’re trying to go to from your hotel. So just a little Google mapping to see how much transport you’ll end up doing. And you should also keep in mind that there will be a little bit of added cost to staying outside of the center for transport, but it’s not usually too much.
Now, I think the most cost efficient way to stay in London is by booking into a hostel.
Now, if you’re not familiar with how a hostel works, you usually will book a bed in a room with other people versus booking an entire room. And if that sounds a little bit odd, well, here’s the upside. You can pay dirt cheap prices per night if you do. That also can be a really fun way to make friends. Hostels are also great if you’re in a group of like four to five people, because you can book all of the beds in a room of four to six beds and then it just feels like you guys have your own private hotel room, which is quite fun and also way more affordable than actually getting a hotel room.
I also think food tours are really good value because you first of all will be so full after that you will skip at least one meal. So you saved your money in that sense. But it’s also the most cost effective way to be able to try small amounts of a bunch of different types of food instead of having to go to various different restaurants and various different food stalls and having to buy full portions of each of them, which will cost you way, way more. And of course, the cheapest type of tour you can book is a walking one, which we think is great use of money. Now, if you want some recommendations for tours that are absolutely fantastic in London, of course we know some really, really good ones.
So we’ll leave some links down in the description box to articles that will give you lots of suggestions.
We have a pretty good public transportation system here in London. So from the early morning until midnight, you can absolutely avoid ever having to pay for a taxi. Just hop on a bus or a tube or a train instead.
And I’m gonna give you a couple of money saving tips for transport to help you stay within your budget. So first off, never ever buy a daily travel card.
