Borough Market
Borough Market is London's oldest food market, trading since the 13th century beneath the Victorian railway arches by London Bridge in London. Entry is free.
City in United Kingdom
London
37 things to see18 of them free
London’s greatest national museums, the British Museum, Tate Modern, National Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Natural History Museum, all charge nothing for general admission, making it one of the best cities in the world for free culture. The parks like Hyde Park, the markets at Borough Market, Camden Market, and Brick Lane, and the riverside walks along the Thames give days of free activity, and even paid landmarks like the Tower of London are worth circling from the outside for nothing. Sleeping and transport are the big costs, but a hostel bed and a contactless or Oyster card with daily fare capping keep a day workable, and shoulder seasons in spring and autumn cut bed prices well below the summer peak. London sits at the heart of the United Kingdom and works as a budget base for cheap day trips out to Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, or Brighton by train.
What to see
Things to do in London
18 of these cost nothing at all.
Brick Lane
Brick Lane is the heart of London's Bangladeshi community, a curry-house spine through Shoreditch and Spitalfields that doubles as the city's loudest open-air street-art gallery. Free to walk, and one of the best-value corners of East London for a budget traveler.
British Museum
The British Museum in Bloomsbury is one of the greatest museums in the world, and entry to the permanent collection is completely free. The Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles, the Egyptian mummies, and the Enlightenment Gallery are all here.
Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace is the official London residence of the British monarch and one of the city's signature free sights. Nobody pays to stand at the gates, photograph the famous balcony, or watch the Changing of the Guard, which makes it a reliable anchor for a no-cost day in central London.
Camden Market
Camden Market is a sprawling complex of connected markets, stalls, and food vendors around Camden Lock in Camden Town, north London. Free to enter, and one of the city's most visited attractions. For a budget traveler it is a full afternoon that costs nothing until the moment a street-food box is bought.
Columbia Road Flower Market
Columbia Road Flower Market is a Sunday-only street market in Shoreditch, East London, where vendors pack a narrow Victorian street with flowers, plants, bulbs, and garden supplies. Free to walk and browse, and one of the cheaper ways to spend a Sunday morning in the East End, especially when paired with Brick Lane a short walk south.
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a covered market and piazza in the West End of London, one of the city's best spots for free entertainment. The central market halls date from the 1830s, built to house what was then London's main fruit and vegetable market.
Greenwich
Greenwich is a riverside maritime quarter east of central London where most of the famous sights cost nothing. The National Maritime Museum is free, and so is the Queen's House gallery beside it.
Greenwich Park and Observatory
Greenwich Park is a royal park on a hilltop above the Thames in east London, with the Royal Observatory at the top, panoramic views of the Canary Wharf skyline and the river, and a fenced deer enclosure in the south-east corner. It is one of London's oldest enclosed royal parks. Free to enter.
Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath is a 320-hectare ancient heath in North London that feels like open countryside despite sitting 20 minutes from the centre by Tube. Entry is free.
Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery is the most famous Victorian cemetery in Britain, a steep, ivy-swallowed hillside in North London where Gothic tombs, broken columns, and weathered stone angels disappear into the trees. It opened in 1839 and splits into two halves on either side of Swain's Lane.
Hyde Park
Hyde Park is one of London's eight Royal Parks, roughly 350 acres of open green right in the centre of the city, free to enter and open daily.
Imperial War Museum
The Imperial War Museum in Lambeth covers conflicts involving Britain from World War I to the present, and general admission is free. The atrium alone is worth the walk: a Spitfire, a V-2 rocket, and a Harrier jet hang above the entrance hall, the kind of display most cities would charge for.
Kensington Gardens and Palace
Kensington Gardens are 265 acres of former royal hunting ground at the western edge of Hyde Park, open daily and free to walk. Inside sit the Serpentine Galleries, which show contemporary art with free admission, the Albert Memorial, the Peter Pan statue, the formal Italian Gardens at the north end, and the Diana Memorial Playground.
London Eye
The London Eye is a 135-meter observation wheel on the South Bank of the Thames, the most visited paid attraction in the UK. It opened in 2000 as the Millennium Wheel and quickly became a fixed part of the London skyline.
National Gallery
The National Gallery on the north side of Trafalgar Square holds one of the greatest collections of Western European painting in the world, and general admission is free. Van Eyck, Leonardo, Raphael, Turner, Vermeer, Van Gogh, and Monet all hang here, covering roughly seven centuries from the 1200s to 1900.
National Portrait Gallery
The National Portrait Gallery sits just off Trafalgar Square, next to the National Gallery, and holds portraits of the people who shaped British history, from Tudor monarchs to contemporary musicians and athletes. Entry to the permanent collection is free.
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum in South Kensington is a free museum in one of the most spectacular buildings in London, a Romanesque cathedral of terracotta and carved stone dedicated to the natural world. General admission to the permanent galleries is free.
Notting Hill and Portobello Road Market
Portobello Road Market is London's most famous street market, running for over a mile through the Notting Hill neighbourhood in west London. It is best known for antiques, but the same street also carries vintage clothing, secondhand goods, fruit and veg, and rows of street food. Free to browse, and one of the city's signature free days out.
Primrose Hill
Primrose Hill is a public park just north of Regent's Park, and its grassy summit holds the best free panoramic view of central London's skyline.
Regent's Park
Regent's Park is one of London's Royal Parks, a large green space on the north edge of the central city that is free to enter. Inside its ring are formal gardens, a boating lake, an open-air theatre, and sports pitches, and the parkland runs north up to Primrose Hill, one of the best free skyline viewpoints in the city.
Science Museum
The Science Museum in South Kensington is one of London's great free museums, covering science, technology, medicine, and industry from Puffing Billy, the oldest surviving steam locomotive, to the Apollo 10 command module. Permanent entry is free.
Sky Garden
Sky Garden is London's highest free public garden, set across the top three floors of 20 Fenchurch Street, the City tower nicknamed the Walkie Talkie. Three storeys of landscaped planting, an indoor observation deck, and an open-air terrace look out over the Thames, Tower Bridge, The Shard, and the rest of the skyline.
South Bank
The South Bank is the riverside walk along the south side of the Thames from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge. It is free, and it is the single best free thing to do in central London.
Southbank Centre
The Southbank Centre is a sprawling brutalist arts complex on the south bank of the Thames, anchored by the Royal Festival Hall and joined by the Hayward Gallery, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room, and the neighbouring BFI Southbank cinema.
St James's Park
St James's Park is the oldest of London's eight Royal Parks, a long strip of green running between Buckingham Palace and Horse Guards Parade in the heart of the city, free to enter and open daily.
St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral is Christopher Wren's masterpiece and one of London's defining sights, crowned by the great dome that rose from the ashes of the Great Fire of 1666. It is the church where Charles and Diana married in 1981 and where state funerals and national services are held.
Tate Britain
Tate Britain on Millbank holds the national collection of British art from 1500 to the present, and general admission is free. It is the original Tate, opened in 1897, and its great draw is the Turner collection in the Clore Gallery: the largest holding of J.M.W. Turner's work anywhere in the world, left to the nation by the artist himself.
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is London's modern and contemporary art museum, housed in the former Bankside Power Station on the South Bank of the Thames. The permanent collection is free. For a budget traveler in London, it is one of the best free hours in the city: a world-class collection inside a landmark building, with a free viewing level thrown in.
The Shard
The Shard is Western Europe's tallest building at around 310 meters, a tapering glass spire on the south bank of the Thames designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano and opened in 2012. Its paid observation deck, branded The View from The Shard, sits on floors 68 to 72 and is one of the priciest viewpoints in London.
Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge is the Victorian bascule bridge over the Thames next to the Tower of London, one of the most photographed structures in London and often mistaken by visitors for London Bridge upstream. Two Gothic-style towers carry a pair of high-level walkways, and the lower roadway still splits and lifts to let tall ships through.
Tower of London
The Tower of London is a roughly 1,000-year-old fortress on the north bank of the Thames that has served as a royal palace, an armoury, a prison, an execution site, and the home of the Crown Jewels.
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is the open public square at the center of London, built to mark the 1805 naval victory at Trafalgar. Nelson's Column rises from the middle, guarded by four bronze lions, with two fountains and the National Gallery filling the north side.
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, covering 5,000 years of human creativity from ceramics and glass to fashion, jewellery, photography, and sculpture.
Wallace Collection
The Wallace Collection is a free museum in Hertford House, a Marylebone townhouse on Manchester Square, holding one of the finest collections of French 18th-century art, porcelain, and furniture in the world alongside old master paintings and a major arms and armoury display.
Westminster and Big Ben
The Palace of Westminster, the clock tower known as Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey form the political and religious heart of London. The Palace is the seat of the UK Parliament, and together with the Abbey and Saint Margaret's Church it forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1987.
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey is the coronation church of the British monarchy and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the place where English and British sovereigns have been crowned since 1066.
On foot
Walks and free tours in London
Tip-based tours and self-guided routes, which is usually the cheapest orientation there is.
London Free Walking Tour
The Wonders of London Free Walking Tour focuses on storytelling, covering famous landmarks alongside lesser-known London history. Tours run daily in English and Italian, showing budget travelers that London's free layer is far deeper than they expected.
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