Things to do in London for Families

London, like most European capital cities is fun to explore, but it can get very expensive. I recently joined a family from Israel to spend a day in the city and by the time they had paid the train fares to get from St Albans to South Kensington, been ice skating, rampaged round the Science Museum, had ice creams and coffee, lunch, snacks and tea there wasn’t much left over for the rest of their holiday.

Thankfully, the next day they were planning to spend the day closer to where they were staying and were all set up to be entertained using the St Albans Treasure Trail. 

It got me thinking about things to do in London for families.

There is of course a wealth of stuff to do and it all depends what you are interested in, what ages the children are and what the weather is doing!  But good ideas about things to do can be found from any and all of these sources:-

Laura Porter writes about things to do in London and there is a wealth of information on the Go London website. Laura is very helpful if you have specific questions. She seems to be on twitter most of the time too, so you don’t have to wait long for an answer if you send her a tweet. 

Trip Advisor provides ideas of things to do in London under two separate categories - activities and attractions. And as you would expect there are masses of suggestions and others’ opinions and reviews of those activities and attractions. At the time of writing, the top ranking went to one of my most favourite places in London - the Wallace Collection - I am in good company! The recommendations do change though as people add their thoughts and ideas. 

Another source of information is of course Time Out. The magazine has been around for decades and its on line version is a rich source of inspiration. According to them “Real Londoners never just ‘go for a walk’: that’s for people beyond the green belt with time on their hands. No, we want action-packed urban ambling” which did make me laugh and the phrase action packed urban ambling could easily apply to Treasure Trails don’t you think? 

The press frequently feature things to do in London in various guises but the one that caught my attention was an article in August of last year entitled the 9 worst things to do in London! We will definitely be avoiding all those suggestions! These recommendations might be worth pursuing though.

And then there are the tried and tested tourist information centres. Visit London is the “official” guide to London and whilst it is possible to physically visit them, in this day and age most people will no doubt do at least some research before heading the capital. 

Last, but by no means least there is Days Out with the Kids.  Their list is topped by the National Gallery, which is of course worth seeing, but I am not sure that I ever would have taken my kids there as the number one thing to do in London!

Have you been to London recently? What did you do with your time there?