A Preflight Strategy for Maximizing 3.5 Days in London

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• • Buy Tickets Online

With a final itinerary for each day mapped out, you can buy most of your tickets online.  We bought tickets online for the following activities after totaling admission prices to see if we could benefit from buying a London Pass:

1. 1.  Heathrow Express Train from the airport
   2.  Buckingham Palace State Rooms
   3. Churchill War Rooms
   4.  Westminster Abbey
   5.  Theatre
   6.  Tower of London
   7.  St. Paul’s Cathedral

• • Request a Tappable Credit Card for the Tube

On a friend’s recommendation, I called my credit card company and ordered Howie and me tappable versions of our favorite credit card (with no foreign transaction fees).  We carried our credit cards in RFID-blocking sleeves and pulled them out to tap the card reader when entering and leaving London’s underground transit (Tube) turnstiles.  See the Transport of London instructions here.  You can also use mobile pay applications (like Google Pay and Apple Pay) on your phones unless, of course, your phone battery is dead after a long day of being a busy tourist and you left your portable charger at home.

• • Create a Handy Restaurant List with Website Links and Make Some Reservations

Finding and negotiating where and when you want to eat lunch and dinner can be unnecessarily time-consuming when you’re hungry and rushed for time.  For each day of our itinerary, I used Google Maps and used the “Nearby” button to search for restaurants close to where we would be touring.  I then identified a few restaurants for each meal/each day, copied their website links into a list, and emailed it to Howie along with the daily itinerary.  Howie then took a quick look at the restaurant menus to confirm the choices or suggest other options, and we were done with our research long before takeoff.

We didn’t always consult the restaurant list, but it made it much easier to come up with a quick daily plan.  Note that restaurants in the UK cities of London, Edinburgh, Inverness, and Oban regularly accepted reservations even for a party of two or three, so we made reservations whenever possible to conserve even more time. 

• • Print Out Walking/Public Transit Directions

When your Internet access is spotty (despite paying a hefty fee for international cell service), it can be helpful to have a paper copy of your daily walking/public transit directions in your pocket.  At home, I used Google Maps directions to choose the best route for the particular date and time on our itinerary.  I then printed out the directions and stapled them to our tour tickets for that day.

2. Conquer Jet Lag At Home

With only 3.5 days of fun, you don’t have the luxury of time to take it easy and gradually adjust to the time difference.  You can find my general strategy to conquer jet lag at home and sleep on the plane in our handy International Trip Countdown Checklist.  

On this trip, I finished packing three days before leaving for the airport and then gradually adjusted to the time change at home:

• • Day 3 — Finish Packing Except Toiletries
    • • • Check the weather at your destination
        • Print out instructions to get to your hotel

• • Day 2 — Jet Lag at Home
    • • • Set alarm for 4 a.m. (CT) for the next morning (it will 10 a.m. in London)

• • Day 1 — Jet Lag at Home
    • • • Go to bed super early and set the alarm for 2 a.m. (CT) for the next morning (it will be 8 a.m. in London).  

• • Day 0 — Take Evening Flight to London
    • • • Sleep on the plane and be able to function on the first day of the trip.

We hope that this list will help you tackle the preflight tasks that you can do at home to maximize your time in the vibrant city of London.   

3. H+A Takeaways

For our London trip, we had the following takeaways:

• • Packing:  Our weather in late September/early October was rainy and humid with temperatures ranging from a low of 36 to a high of 64 degrees F.  Although we packed in layers, what we didn’t realize is that the Tube and some public buildings did not have air conditioning. Unlike the locals, we were used to sunny 95 degree F weather and had lived for months in temperature-controlled indoor environments.  We were shocked that people were dressed in scarves, boots, and puffer vests (worn either over or under suit coats) while Howie and I wanted to strip down to our tee-shirts and regretted not wearing shorts whenever we were in the depths of the airless Tube or the British Museum.  Finally, we were glad that we had packed our hooded rain jackets, automatic umbrellas, and waterproof shoes. We never had to pull out our sunglasses.

• • Cash:  Although it’s prudent to have some cash on hand in a foreign country, we found that we did not need any on this trip.  For specific tips, see How to Pack Your Wallet for a Trip to Europe.

• • Airport Transportation:  Sometimes, it doesn’t make sense to schlep your luggage onto public transportation.  For reasons of speed and cost, we decided to take the Heathrow Express Train from Heathrow airport to Paddington Station (which was within a short walking distance to our hotel) upon arrival.  It was, however, faster and less expensive to take an Uber from the British Museum area than to get to the station to take the Heathrow Express back to the airport. For more detail, see How to Get From London Airports to the City.

• • Luggage Size:  If you think that you are going to schlep your luggage onto public transportation to and from the airport, carefully consider whether you can haul that luggage (in good humor) up and down multiple flights of Tube stairs.  Although Howie was fine, juggling 40+ pounds of bags (25” roller and 13” carryon) up and down flights of stairs was a little too much for me to handle.  If I had to do it over, I would have brought a 21” roller instead.

• • Refresher Course:  Depending on what sights you’re planning to see, try to do some basic research about the city of London and the Royal Family before your trip.  If the last time that you studied the history of London was in high school, you’ll need to do a little more legwork than the first two seasons of The Crown to get up to speed.  At the very least, refresh your memory by taking a look at some historical timelines or summaries:

• • • https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/visit-the-city/our-history/Pages/timeline.aspx
    • https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Timeline-of-Events-AD-700-2012/ 
    • https://www.britannica.com/place/London/History

• • Best experiences:  St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace State Rooms, and Churchill War Rooms 

• • Best fast food:  Pret A Manger (freshly prepared each day and unsold food is donated to charity at the end of the day)

Planning a trip?  We have organized our research below to get you started: