If you’ve been following my story lately, you’ll know I moved to London to get my doctorate in April.

About twelve years ago, I also spent a year in Sheffield (everyone totally knows where that is, right?), England getting my Masters’ degree. And every friend who came to “England” really meant they were in London and did I want to take a 3.5 hour train to come see them. Which was always a yes.

It is so exciting when friends from home come visit. The sheer delight of one of my friends hanging out with my British friends or in my British environment and giving the same thing a side eye that I always side eye while my British friend gaslights me on my comment that whatever they’re doing/saying/eating seems a bit odd to me – priceless.

Paying nearly £40 to ride the London Eye for 6^th time… not so priceless.

So what to do about this?

The first thing is that if there is a big touristy thing I haven’t seen yet, I do not go until one of them are visiting.

But if you, like me, visited London (twice) before moving to the country and you’ve been here long enough for a few friends to visit, here are some ways to minimize the pain when you have to go to the Tower of London. Again.

Again.

Encourage folks to visit in pairs and meet up with them after they hit the prime tourist spots. Or pick one to revisit with them to be in some of their big “trip to London” pics.

If that’s not an option and this person is relying on you for a multi-day London extravaganza and you love them, so you’ve agreed to this – get the London Pass.

A two day London Pass will let you hit most of the biggies (other than that effing London Eye, which never has discounts) – Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Shard, Tower Bridge, Kensington Palace, Shakespeare’s Globe… and a ton of other smaller options too.

But you really get the bang for your buck on those larger entrance fees, which are primarily the places I listed there.

You can do between 1-7 days on the pass, though 2 is probably fine (and can be used across a weekend if you’re trying to balance work/school and being a good tour guide). The current cost is £94.

I recently had my BFF visit and London has been her dream stop for… pretty much her whole life. We did the 2 day pass and in that time we did:

• Tower of London £29.90
• Hop On Hop Off Bus Tour £41.00
• The View from the Shard £32.00
• Westminster Abbey £25.00
• London Bridge Experience £28.95
• Tower Bridge £11.40
• Kensington Palace £20.00
• Brit Movie Tour £15.00

So that would’ve been £203.50.

The BFF also had some ankle issues that resulted in us not doing some of our plans, so it’s certainly possible to squeeze in a bit more. I had also planned for us to pickup the Solve a Mystery games (there are two offered as part of the pass) where you pick up the game but can play it anytime. I figured we could do one (or both) of them later in the week. This did not pan out because I thought I would have a chance to circle back around to the pickup point later in the second day and it just didn’t happen.

A thing about the pass is that it has a lot of options, but some you may want to not bother with unless you’re buying a lot of days (and they have to be used in a row) because accounting for travel time can really impact how much you can see.

That being said, a ton of the biggies are in Zone 1. I actually think one of our mistakes was going out to Kensington Palace one day, which used up a lot of time getting there and going back towards Central for our next activity.

I also like that for the locals, there are a lot of weird little museums on there, so if you’re buying this thing, I would advocate for you to pick a random thing or two that you want to see too. I have big dreams of making it to The Postal Museum someday – where you get to ride in a mail train!!

If I were doing it again, I’d say we were not at all impressed by the Brit Movie Tour even though it was Harry Potter and we are both wild Potterheads. It was really long and really boring and I wish we’d done something else with that time.

I also was not a fan of the London Bridge Experience which was a kitchy horror thing – generally right up my alley – but it was more like a terror house (literally was chased by a guy with a chainsaw at one point) than like a gorey history of London. I am a huge fan of the Dungeons franchise, so if this is your jam, highly recommend going to the London Dungeon instead, though it is sadly not on the pass.

So – London Pass to knock out the highlights.

The London Eye is what is it. I never see sales or a way to go cheaper, though if anyone has some insider knowledge there, please drop it on me. This time I entertained myself by doing a timelapse.

It’s also definitely worth asking what your friend wants to see because very high on my friend’s list was Tesco.

Yup. Tesco. A book blogger she follows on Instagram once shot a video in one and it was quite impressive that I live by a Tesco Extra.

So that was a pretty inexpensive stop. She was pretty excited to see a Boots too.

I also put together this list of cheap things to do in London that don’t exceed £20. Weaving some of these activities in with the more expensive ones can help save some money.

Do you have any suggestions to add to this list? What do you like to do in London?