London tourist information offices
The new main Tourist Information Centre at St. Paul's
Tourism information offices and desks in London
Here are the tourism information offices and kiosks in London, handy for maps, sightseeing tickets, the (free) monthly London Planner magazine, Oyster Cards, and more:
Tourist offices at London points of arrival
- Heathrow Travel Information Centre - Terminals 1, 2, 3 Underground Station Concourse.
- King’s Cross/St Pancras Travel Information Centre - In in the LUL Western Ticket Hall of the King's Cross half of this twinned rail station (exiting the tracks at St. Pancras, turn left/northeast to go through the brick arches into Kings Cross).
- Victoria Station Travel Information Centre - Opposite Platform 8 in Victoria Railway Station; Always incredibly crowded, but the people who work there are as helpful as a harried staff can be.
- Euston Travel Information Centre - Opposite platform 10 in the Euston Rail Station.
- Liverpool Street Travel Information Centre - in the Liverpool Street Underground Station.
Tourist offices once you're in London
- City of London, St. Paul's Churchyard (tel. (0)20-7332-1456) - A postmodern glass-fronted kiosk with wings on the S side of the cathedral, between Godliman St and Peter's Hill (the walk from the Millennium Bridge).
- Piccadilly Circus Travel Information Centre - In the Underground station.
- Holborn Information Kiosk - Just outside the Holborn Tube station at 88-94 Kingsway; Weekdays only.
- Greenwich Tourist Information Centre (tel. (0)870-608-2000) - Pepys House at 2 Cutty Sark Gardens in the village of Greenwich.
Frustratingly, none of the London offices—save the separate City of London and Greenwich ones—will answer phone inquiries.
Events magazines
The best way to find out what's going on around town, from shows to restaurants to events, is to buy a copy of Time Out magazine, published every Tuesday and available at newsstands.
You can also get listings from that Where: London magazine you see in most mid-scale hotels, as well as from the Evening Standard.
London tourism info links
- Visitlondon - Official tourism information site for London.
- Londonpass - Sightseeing and transport discount pass.Partner
- Londontown.com - Excellent independent tourism office and online guide to London.
- Timeout.com - Premier events, theater, and cultural happenings guide (plus food and drink) for major cities. In the U.K, covers London, Edingburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and Bristol, and Brighton
- Cityoflondon.gov.uk - The City of London has its own tourism site—and the only sizeable info kiosk in the center of London. they're also the only ones who will answer the phone.
- London Evening Standard - London's top free local paper has good events and restaurant listings
- Where London - This is that events guide and mini-guidebook magazine you get free in mide-range hotels all aroudn the world. Covers the top stuff, and current events, but a distant second to Time Out.
- Visitgreenwich.org.uk - Covering the semi-independent Royal Borough of Greenwich—part of Greater London, but really a (well worthwhile) daytrip in its own right.
Passes & Discounts links
- London Pass - Covers more than 60 major London sights and tours, plus discounts on several others, and an option to buy a transit pass to use on the Tube and buses.Partner
- iVenture Card - Covers several sights not on the London Pass, plus a handful of tours, free meals, 40% off last-minute theatre tickets, and other discounts. Worthwhile if you'll be doing the three popular sights it covers (St. Paul's, Madame Tussauds, London Eye).Partner
- English Heritage Pass - Covers Stonehenge, plus loads of castles, historic homes, ancient sites, and monuments across England.
Activities, walks, & excursions tours
- Viator.com - Best one-stop shopping site for all sorts of activities, walking tours, bus tours, escorted day trips, and other excursions. It is actually a clearinghouse for many local tour companies and outfitters, and since it gets a bulk-rate deal on pricing (and takes only a token fee for itself), you can actually sometimes book an activity through Viator for less than it would cost to buy the same exact tour from the tour company itself. (I once booked a Dublin pub crawl via Viator and later discovered that I saved about $1.50; also, the tour turned out to be sold-out, and they were turning away the folks in front of me in line, but since I had a pre-booked voucher I got in.)Partner
- Londonwalks.com - Since the 1970s, the gold standard in city walking tours and museum tours—and cheap, to boot. Just meet your guide at the appointed time and place (usually a Tube stop), pay your £10 (students or over 65s are £8; under 15 free), and prepare for a good two hours of amazing cultural insight and historic anecdotes. If you plan on taking three or more walks, buy a "Frequent London Walker" card for £2 from your first guide, then each subsequent walk costs £8. They also run popular excursions outside London for £18. Note that the fee just covers the guided tour; you pay for any admissions (or, for excursions, travel expenses) yourself.
- Contexttravel.com - This bespoke walking tour company doesn't even call its 200 tour leaders "guides." It calls them "docents"—perhaps because most guides are academics and specialists in their fields: history professors, archeologists, PhDs, art historians, artists, etc. Groups are miniscule (often six people maximum), and most docents can be booked for private guiding sessions as well. They aren't always the cheapest tours, but they are invariably the best. People rave about Context.Partner
- City-discovery.com - Chief rival to Viator (though with a less spiffy interface and often sub-par text descriptions), representing many of the same tours (at the same prices). However, it also seems to cover more destinations, especially secondary ones. When it comes down to it, City-Discovery and Viator have maybe 70% the same inventory, but then 30% will be completely different (some Viator has City-Discovery does not, other vice-versa) so it pays to check through the offerings from both.Partner
General tips of similar interest
Tourist information, guidebooks, maps, tips for niche groups (students, LGBT, seniors, disabled, etc.), and more
