50 Fun and Unusual Things to Do in London (Local Picks, With Prices)
I still remember the first time I got off the train at Borough Market before eight in the morning, when the stalls were still setting up and the smell of frying bacon rolls was doing more advertising than any sign could. That is the London worth chasing — not just the postcard stops but the ones that smell like something. This list mixes both, with real prices so you can plan without guessing.
Only-here experiences
1. Watch the Changing of the Guard properly, from the right spot
Everyone shuffles toward the Palace gates and sees shoulders. Get to the Victoria Memorial roundabout 40 minutes early instead, or follow the guards' route down Birdcage Walk for a clearer view with a fraction of the crowd. It runs most days in summer, fewer in winter — check current schedules. Free, unless you'd rather have someone explain what you're looking at.
Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace London Walking TourCheck availability on Viator →
This one is for anyone who wants the ceremony explained in plain English instead of squinting at a program — a local guide times your position and fills the wait with the actual history of the regiments.
2. Ride the Thames Clipper like a commuter, not a tourist
Skip the £25 cruise and take the river bus from Westminster to Greenwich for the same view of St Paul's, Tower Bridge and the Shard, tapped in with contactless like the Tube. It takes about an hour, runs every 20 minutes, and gives you a proper wind-in-the-hair London morning. From roughly €5–8 depending on distance.3. Get lost in the Barbican on purpose
This Brutalist estate near Moorgate confuses everyone the first time — raised walkways, a lake nobody expects, tropical plants inside the Conservatory (open limited Sundays, check current dates). It is the most photographed "accidental" spot by architecture nerds in the city. Free to wander; Conservatory entry is usually free too but ticketed.4. Sunday at Columbia Road Flower Market
East London stallholders shout prices for bunches of tulips and trays of ferns from 8am to 3pm, and by 10am the whole street smells like a greenhouse. Buy nothing if you like — the theater is the point — or carry a bunch of peonies around Shoreditch for the rest of the day. Free to browse; flowers from about €6.5. Climb Tower Bridge's glass floor
Most visitors just walk across it at street level and miss the point entirely. Pay to go up into the high-level walkways and stand on the glass floor 42 meters above the traffic, with the Thames sliding underneath your shoes. Late afternoon light works best. Around €12–14; read more about Tower Bridge before you go.6. The Postman's Park memorial wall
Tucked behind St Paul's, this small park holds a wall of Victorian ceramic tiles memorializing ordinary people who died saving strangers. It takes ten minutes to read them all and it stays with you longer than most museums do. Quiet, shaded, almost never crowded. Free.
Food and drink
7. Borough Market before the crowds
Arrive by 9am on a weekday and you get the market to yourself — cheesemongers slicing samples, the coffee guy who remembers regulars, and no elbows in your ribs at the scotch egg stall. It closes early on Sundays and is shut Mondays, so plan around that. Browsing is free; a full breakfast runs about €12–18.8. A proper food tour through Borough and London Bridge
Going in without a guide means you miss half the good stalls hidden behind the famous ones. A structured tasting crawl with seven stops covers the range — cheese, charcuterie, baked goods — in about three hours, which beats wandering hungry and indecisive. From €88.
London Bridge & Borough Market Food Tour with 7 Must-Do TastingsCheck availability on Viator →
Good for a first-time visitor who wants a real meal's worth of London food history explained stall by stall, not just a market map.
9. East End curry and bagels, back to back
Brick Lane's food story is Bangladeshi curry houses next to 24-hour bagel shops that have not changed their recipe since the 1970s. A guided tasting route through the East End covers both plus a few surprises most guidebooks skip. Roughly 3.5 hours. From €106.10. The Ultimate London Cheese Crawl
Britain makes serious cheese and Londoners are quietly obsessive about it — this is a two-hour crawl through specialist shops with tastings paired against context on how each cheese is made. Good midweek activity when the market stalls are calmer. From €46.11. Sunday roast at a proper pub
Order the roast, not a sandwich, on a Sunday — Yorkshire pudding the size of a fist, gravy on request, and a pint of bitter to go with it. Most decent gastropubs need booking by Saturday morning in busy areas like Notting Hill or Islington. Expect to pay around €18–25 per person.12. Historic pubs crawl with a guide who knows the ghosts
London's oldest pubs have survived fires, wars and gentrification, and a guided pub crawl threads through several with the stories attached — Dickens' regular haunt, a 17th-century cellar bar, that sort of thing. Good for an evening that starts as sightseeing and ends as a proper night out. From €42.
London Small Group Tour of Historical PubsCheck availability on Viator →
For travelers who like their history served with a pint in hand rather than behind glass — this one has more reviews than almost anything else on this list, for good reason.
13. Afternoon tea without the £60 hotel markup
Skip the famous hotel rooms and find a smaller tearoom in Marylebone or Bloomsbury doing the same scones, clotted cream and finger sandwiches for half the price. Book a couple of days ahead on weekends. Roughly €25–35 per person depending on where you go.14. Beigel Bake at 2am
This 24-hour Brick Lane institution sells salt beef bagels for under €7 to everyone from night-shift workers to people stumbling out of clubs. It is not glamorous — fluorescent lights, a queue out the door on weekends — but it is one of the most honest food experiences left in the city. Cash and card both fine.Outdoors and green London
15. Hampstead Heath at sunrise
Climb Parliament Hill before 7am and the whole skyline — the Shard, the Gherkin, St Paul's — sits laid out below you with almost nobody else around. Bring coffee. It is a proper hike-feeling walk within Zone 2, unusual for a city this size. Free.16. Kew Gardens' treetop walkway
Not just flowerbeds — the Xstrata Treetop Walkway lifts you 18 meters into the canopy on a metal walkway that sways slightly in the wind, which is either thrilling or unsettling depending on your nerves. Spring blossom season is the best time. Entry runs around €18–22, cheaper booked online in advance.17. A bike ride through the classic landmarks
Cycling past Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and the South Bank with a local guide covers more ground in 3.5 hours than walking would manage in a full day, and you get context at each stop instead of just photos. From €59.
London Classic Landmarks Bike Tour with Local GuideCheck availability on Viator →
This suits someone reasonably fit who wants the highlights reel without queueing at every single one — you get the story from a saddle instead of a script.
18. Little Venice canal walk
Follow the Regent's Canal towpath from Little Venice toward Camden and you get houseboats, willow trees and an entirely different pace of London, about 45 minutes on foot. Weekday mornings are near-silent. Free, aside from a coffee at one of the canal-side cafés.19. Richmond Park deer at dusk
Wild deer have grazed this park since the 1600s, and at dusk in autumn you can hear stags bellowing during rutting season from a respectful distance. It is the wildest London gets without leaving the city limits. Free; bring a zoom lens if you have one.20. Skate the Serpentine Lido
In summer, Hyde Park's Serpentine Lido opens for swimming in a genuine lake in the middle of the city — cold, a bit murky, entirely worth it on a hot day. Winter turns some park spaces into pop-up ice rinks instead. Lido entry around €5; ice rinks vary by year, check current pricing.After dark
21. Jack the Ripper's Whitechapel at night
The fog-and-gaslight version of London tourism, done properly — a two-hour guided walk through Whitechapel's actual crime scene streets after dark, with enough restraint to be genuinely eerie rather than campy. Not for young kids. From €26.
Ultimate Jack the Ripper : Guided Tour of LondonCheck availability on Viator →
Recommended for anyone who wants a good scare with real history underneath it, rather than a theme-park version of Victorian London.
22. A West End show, but book the day-of TKTS booth
The half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square sells same-day seats to major shows at a real discount — arrive when it opens for the best picks. It is a gamble on what is available, but a good one most nights. Prices vary widely, often €35–70 for seats that would cost double at full price.23. Sherlock Holmes' foggy Marylebone after sunset
A two-hour walking tour through Baker Street and the surrounding Marylebone streets covers the real locations behind the fiction, timed well in early evening when the gas-style lamps come on. Good for readers more than casual fans. From €24.24. Rooftop bar over the City skyline
Several bars around the Sky Garden and the City offer skyline views without an entry fee if you book a table — arrive right at sunset for the best light on the Gherkin and the Shard. Free entry with reservation; drinks from about €14.25. Ronnie Scott's late set
This Soho jazz club has hosted serious names since 1959, and the late set after 11pm draws a mellower, more local crowd than the early show. Tables fill fast on weekends — book ahead. Tickets typically €25–45 depending on the act.26. Dinner cruise down the Thames
In winter especially, a dinner cruise turns a cold night into a warm, lit-up tour of the riverside landmarks with a three-course meal included. It is touristy by nature but the views of Tower Bridge lit up at night earn it. Prices run higher than sightseeing cruises — budget €60–90.Rainy day plans
27. The British Museum, but pick one wing
Trying to see all of it in one visit is how people end up exhausted and cranky by 2pm. Pick the Egyptian sculpture gallery or the Enlightenment room, spend a real hour there, and leave wanting more. Free entry, always.28. Churchill War Rooms and a WW2 walk combined
A guided walk through wartime Whitehall followed by entry into the actual underground bunker rooms Churchill worked from gives context you would miss reading the placards alone. About 2.5 hours total. From €79. Good for history-minded travelers who want the underground rooms to feel less like a museum and more like a story someone is telling you in real time.29. The National Gallery on a Friday evening
Open late on Fridays with thinner crowds than any weekend daytime slot, this is the best time to actually stand in front of the Van Goghs and Turners without a shoulder in your peripheral vision. Free entry, donations welcome.30. Leadenhall Market under glass
This Victorian covered market near Bank has ornate ironwork, painted ceilings and enough Harry Potter film-location trivia to keep fans busy, all while staying dry. Good lunch spot too. Free to wander; lunch from about €10.31. Sir John Soane's Museum
This eccentric architect's house near Lincoln's Inn Fields is stuffed with antiquities, mirrors and a sarcophagus in the basement, arranged exactly as he left it in 1837. Small, strange, completely underrated compared to the big-name museums nearby. Free, donations appreciated.Free and nearly free
32. Tate Modern's turbine hall
The scale of the old power station alone is worth the walk in, before you even reach a single painting — and the members' bar view of St Paul's across the river is one of the best free vistas in the city. Free entry.33. Greenwich Meridian Line
Stand with one foot in each hemisphere at the Royal Observatory, then walk down the hill into Greenwich Park for a view over Canary Wharf that most itineraries skip entirely. Getting into the observatory building costs a small fee; the line marker outside is free.34. Sunday morning at Hampstead's flea market vibe
Not a formal market so much as a neighborhood ritual — vintage shops open, cafés fill, and the walk up from the Tube station feels like leaving London for a small English town. Free to wander.35. Natural History Museum's blue whale hall
Hintze Hall's blue whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling replaced a dinosaur a few years back and it is still a genuine "oh wow" moment for kids and adults alike. South Kensington, best visited on a weekday morning. Free entry.36. St James's Park pelicans
Pelicans have lived in this park since the 1600s, a gift from a Russian ambassador, and they are fed most afternoons near Duck Island — check current times at the park office. The view back toward Buckingham Palace across the lake is one of the prettiest free frames in London. Free.37. Free evensong at St Paul's or Westminster Abbey
Choral evensong is free to attend most weekdays around 5pm, and hearing a full choir under one of these ceilings costs nothing while the daytime entry fee runs €25–30. Arrive 20 minutes early for a seat. Free. More on St Paul's Cathedral for daytime visits.Only-here markets and neighborhoods
38. Broadway Market on a Saturday
Smaller and more local than Borough, this Hackney street market mixes food stalls with vintage clothes and a canal-side pub at the end of it. Best between 10am and 1pm before it thins out. Free to browse; lunch from about €10.39. Neal's Yard's hidden courtyard
Tucked just off Covent Garden's main drag, this candy-colored courtyard of cafés and health shops feels like someone painted a Mediterranean village into central London by accident. Easy to miss, worth the two-minute detour. Free.40. Camden Market's food stalls, not the tourist stalls
Skip the leather jackets and head straight for the food section near the Stables Market — a genuinely global spread of stalls, from Ethiopian to Venezuelan, at reasonable prices. Go for lunch, not for souvenirs. Meals from about €9.41. Maltby Street Market
A smaller, less-crowded alternative to Borough just a short walk away under railway arches, with a rotating cast of small producers and one of the best flat whites in the area. Weekends only, morning is best. Free to browse; coffee and a pastry around €7.With kids
42. Warner Bros. Studio Tour: the Harry Potter sets
This is the obvious one, but it earns the hype — Diagon Alley and the Great Hall are full-size film sets, not replicas, and even skeptical teenagers go quiet walking into the Great Hall. Book weeks ahead in school holidays; it includes transport time from central London. Roughly €50–110 with transfer. Check the Harry Potter studio guide before booking.43. London Zoo's early opening
Regent's Park's zoo opens before most tourist crowds arrive elsewhere in the city, and the penguin feeding sessions in late morning are a reliable hit with younger kids. Budget half a day. Entry typically €30–35 for adults, less for children.44. The London Dungeon, if your kids like a scare
Actors in character walk you through gory chunks of London history — plague, fire, executions — with jump scares built in. Better for ages 10+ than younger children, who sometimes find it genuinely frightening rather than fun. Around €30, cheaper booked online.45. Horse Guards Parade changing ceremony
A smaller, calmer alternative to the Buckingham Palace crowd, this daily ceremony near Whitehall lets kids get right up to the barrier and see the horses close up. Around 11am on weekdays, 10am Sundays — check current times. Free.Day trips worth the early train
46. Stonehenge, Windsor and Bath in one long day
This is a genuinely full day — three sites, one coach, roughly 11 hours door to door — but it solves the logistics problem of trying to do this by public transport yourself, which would eat two separate days. From €74. Best for travelers with limited days who want the countryside highlights checked off without renting a car or juggling three train timetables.47. Windsor Castle on its own, half-day
The State Apartments and St George's Chapel are worth a slower visit than the group day trips allow, and Windsor town itself has a decent lunch scene along the river. About an hour each way from central London by train. Entry around €30; read more on Windsor Castle.48. The Cotswolds for a proper village lunch
Honey-stone villages, low stone walls and sheep in fields that look staged but are not — a day trip out here is less about ticking a sight and more about slowing down for a few hours. An optional village lunch add-on is worth the extra. From €106. Good for anyone who has done the London icons already and wants a genuinely different pace for a day — bring a coat even in summer, it is cooler out there.49. Bath's Roman Baths and Georgian crescents
Bath earns a full day if you can spare it — the Roman Baths museum is better than photos suggest, and the Royal Crescent's curve of honey-stone townhouses is worth the walk uphill. About 2.5 hours from London by train or coach. Combined day trips from around €74; see Bath for details.50. Oxford's colleges on a term-time morning
Term-time gives you the strange thrill of walking past students in gowns rushing to lectures inside 800-year-old quads — arrive before 10am for the quietest colleges. About 1.5 hours by train from London. Entry to individual colleges runs €8–12 each; check Oxford for current opening days.
One honest opinion before the planning notes: the London Eye is overrated at peak midday prices when a free walk across Westminster Bridge gives you nearly the same skyline for nothing — save it for sunset if you go at all. And the most underrated thing on this whole list is evensong — free, extraordinary, and half-empty most weeknights.
| Trip length | Focus | Good add-on |
|---|---|---|
| 1 day | Tower, river cruise, Westminster | 1-day itinerary |
| 2 days | Add Buckingham Palace, a show | 2-day itinerary |
| 3 days | Icons plus free museums and Stonehenge | 3-day itinerary |
| 4–5 days | Greenwich, markets, second day trip | Day trips guide |
How to plan it
- Base yourself in Southbank, Covent Garden or Marylebone for walkability — all three sit within 20 minutes of most sights on this list by Tube or on foot.
- Three days covers the icons plus one day trip comfortably; five days lets you add Bath, the Cotswolds or a slower neighborhood pace without rushing.
- Use contactless card or phone on the Tube and buses — it caps your daily spend automatically and beats buying paper tickets.
- Book the Harry Potter studio, Tower of London timed entry and any West End show as soon as your dates are fixed — these sell out first.
- Pack a light rain layer regardless of season — an umbrella has saved more river cruises and walking tours than sunscreen ever will.
- Check the full range of London tours if you want to compare more options once your rough plan is set.