You’ve made your list of things in and around London that appeal to you. It’s a single spaced, two-page list containing everything from attending a London Musical to Churchill’s War Rooms, and a day trip to Glastonbury. Now comes the hard part. Trim it down. Way down.
How do I do this? You ask. Your first step should be sorting the entire list by area. Put all the day trips on one page. Then take a map of the city, divide it into quarters, and list everything in each quarter on its own page.
Next, take a highlighter and highlight 2 items off each of the 5 lists. These are your “I have to see that or I will die” places. Now take a second highlighter color and mark 2 additional items on each of the 5 lists. Those are the “I really really really want to see this” items. Got that? Great.
Next, take your map and look at where within each of the 4 quarters everything lies. You will likely find several items from one list very close together while another quarter of the map has things spread out all over the place. That’s fine.
From here, you’ll need to do a bit of research. In order to maximize your time in London, you need to know what the opening hours for any museum, tour, or cathedral are for everything you’ve highlighted. You’ll find hours vary and if you’re going at low tourist season, some places might be closed one or two days each week.
Next, I want you to make a quick check mark by each of the places you want to see that are outside locations. That way you won’t be arriving at this amazing outside park armed with your camera, as the sun sets and you are plunged into darkness. Unless, of course that’s when you want to take your photos.
Once you are armed with all of this information, the real fun begins. Decide where you are going to rest your head at night. You don’t need to book a specific place yet. Just figure out what part of town is most centrally located for your adventure. And don’t forget to stay local and find a place close to a Tube Station. For a City like London with a lot of theatre and nightlife, you might want to stay near the evening entertainment. It’s a lot easier to incur a 30-minute tube ride first thing in the morning to arrive at a museum than to slog home 30-minutes on the tube at midnight after dinner and a show.
Finally, before you layout your actual day by day plan, it’s always a good idea to scan sports and concert tour calendars. You might not be a huge sports fan but if the cricket season is in full swing, why not go experience a match? You’d also hate to be on your flight home only to find out your favorite rock band played WImbley Stadium 2 nights ago! So scan those calendars and if something catches your eye, mark it on your calendar.
