Destination Guide

London like a local: where to go first

I lived just north of London for three years, long enough to fall for the version of the city that is not on the checklist. London rewards the traveler who slows down and picks a few neighborhoods to actually inhabit. Here is how I would spend a first trip, and where I would send you back for a second.

Kay JonesTravel Advisor & Retreat Curator · Destination Guide · 5 min read

Tower Bridge over the River Thames in London lit at dusk — Tower Bridge at dusk. The postcard, and a fine place to start.

See the icons, then keep walking

Do the greatest hits on your first trip: Westminster and the river, the Tower of London, a show in the West End, the great free museums. Then keep walking past them. London is a city of villages, and the best hours are the ones spent wandering one neighborhood rather than sprinting between landmarks.

Stay in a neighborhood, not just near a sight

Where you sleep shapes the whole trip. I match the base to the traveler: Marylebone and Mayfair for elegant calm and walkability, Chelsea and Notting Hill for leafy charm, Covent Garden and Soho for theater and buzz, South Bank for river views and galleries. The right postcode turns a good trip into a lived-in one.

A row of brightly painted pastel townhouses on a street in Notting Hill, London — Notting Hill. London is a collection of villages, and this is one of the prettiest.

The London people remember is rarely the one on the itinerary. It is a pub garden, a park at golden hour, a market you wandered into by accident.

Eat well, which London finally does

London is one of the best food cities in the world now, from Sunday roasts to the food halls to some of the finest Indian cooking outside the subcontinent. I book the tables that need booking and leave room for the ones you stumble on, because both are the point.

The parks and the pause

For a city this size, London breathes. Hyde Park, Regent's Park, Hampstead Heath, and the garden squares are where the city exhales, and where I build in the unscheduled afternoon that keeps a trip from becoming a to-do list.

Golden autumn leaves along a tree-lined path in Hyde Park, London — Hyde Park in autumn. Build in the slow afternoon; the city is better for it.

Day trips worth the train

London is a launchpad. Windsor, Oxford, Bath, the Cotswolds, and even Paris are an easy train ride away. On a longer trip I fold in a night or two beyond the city, because the contrast, capital energy and then green English quiet, is where the trip finds its shape.

Want it street by street? My full Insider's Guide to London, published for Fora, a Virtuoso agency, names the hotels and neighborhoods I recommend.

Pairing London with more of Europe, or traveling as a group? See how the levels of support work, or read where to go in Italy next.

Start Planning Your London Trip

Photography via Wikimedia Commons: Tower Bridge London Dusk Feb 2006 by Diliff (CC BY-SA 3.0); Colourful houses in Lancaster Road, Notting Hill - 2020-07-05 by Bex Walton (CC BY 2.0); Hyde Park , autumn leaves - geograph.org.uk - 7902766 by Jim Osley (CC BY-SA 2.0).