London in a day: the 10-stop walking route
Most one-day London itineraries are written by people who have not walked them. This one flows in a single direction, west to east along the river, so you are never doubling back on yourself. Eight to ten miles, eight to ten hours with stops, starting at nine.
9 min readUpdated
Before you start
Wear the shoes you would walk a half marathon in. Bring a refillable bottle, there are fountains along the South Bank. Contactless or Apple Pay works on every bus, tube and tram, you do not need an Oyster card.
Two things need booking before you leave home: Sky Garden, which is free but releases tickets three weeks out, and the Changing of the Guard, which does not run daily and changes with the weather.
1. British Museum, 9:00am
Free, enormous, and packed by half ten. Go straight to the Rosetta Stone and the Egyptian galleries, then leave. Ninety minutes is enough for a first visit and you have a long day ahead.
2. Covent Garden and Seven Dials, 10:45am
Ten minutes on foot. Street performers in the piazza, then cut north through Seven Dials to Neal’s Yard, a small courtyard of painted buildings most people walk past the entrance to. If you are eating early, Dishoom, Flat Iron and Bancone are all within five minutes.
3. Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace, 12:15pm
Down Whitehall or through Admiralty Arch and along The Mall. The best photograph is not at the palace gates, it is halfway down The Mall looking back with the trees framing it.
4. Westminster, 1:30pm
Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and the Elizabeth Tower. The Westminster Bridge shot everyone takes works best from the south end, and later in the day than you think.
5. South Bank, 2:45pm
Cross the river and turn left. Skate park, book market under Waterloo Bridge, the National Theatre, food stalls. This is the stretch where London stops being a checklist and starts being a city.
6. Leake Street tunnel, 4:00pm
A graffiti tunnel underneath Waterloo station, repainted constantly, legal, and almost always someone working in there. Twenty minutes, and the best photographs of the day for most people.
7. Millennium Bridge and St Paul’s, 4:30pm
The view of the dome from the middle of the bridge is the shot. The dome climb is 528 steps and closes earlier than the cathedral, check before you commit to it.
8. Borough Market, 5:30pm
Most stalls wind down between five and six, so this is a snack stop rather than dinner unless you get there sharp. Go for the traders with a queue of people who look like they work nearby.
9. Tower Bridge, 7:00pm
Finish here. Blue hour, roughly thirty minutes after sunset, is when it photographs best. Walk to the middle of the bridge, then back to the north bank for the classic view.
The bits people regret
The London Eye at midday, when the queue is longer than the ride. Leicester Square, which has nothing in it. And trying to add the Tower of London to this route, it needs two to three hours of its own and will break the day.