United Kingdom
How much does it cost to visit London?
Plan €1589 for 7 nights in London, return flight from London included, or €490 travelling cheap. On the ground that works out at €227 per person per day.
- From
- €70/day
- vs. London
- 100%
- Best month
- Jul
Your trip to London
Set the length, the number of travellers and the comfort level: the figures recompute here.
€1,589
per person, flight included
- on the ground
- €1,589
- flight from London
- €0
- per person per day, on the ground
- €227
InstantTripCost estimate
Full 7-night budget breakdown
Per-person estimate including flights from London, split across the six expense categories.
per person · Comfort
| Category | Budget | Comfort | Luxury |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flights | €0 | €0 | €0 |
| Hotel | €154 | €672 | €1379 |
| Food | €231 | €546 | €1218 |
| Transport | €56 | €126 | €315 |
| Activities | €28 | €126 | €385 |
| Misc | €21 | €119 | €399 |
| 7-night total | €490 | €1589 | €3696 |
Flight from London (annual median).
Unit prices
comfort
Enough to check the total yourself, line by line, at the comfort level you picked.
- €12
- Breakfast
- €22
- Lunch
- €44
- Dinner
- €6
- City ride
- €18
- Site admission
- €227
- A full day
Orders of magnitude derived from our measured ranges, not surveyed venue by venue. Prices vary by neighbourhood and season.
The three tiers
What a budget traveller, a comfort traveller and a premium traveller typically spend.
Budget
€63
per day, approx
- Hotel / night
- €22
- Meal
- €11
- Transit / day
- €8
Comfort
€192
per day, approx
- Hotel / night
- €96
- Meal
- €26
- Transit / day
- €18
Luxury
€416
per day, approx
- Hotel / night
- €197
- Meal
- €58
- Transit / day
- €45
Why visit London
London has one feature that changes the whole budget equation: its major national museums are free. The British Museum, the National Gallery, Tate Modern, the Victoria and Albert and the Natural History Museum charge no admission, and these are exactly the visits you would pay €15 to €25 for elsewhere. You can fill three days with world-class culture without spending a penny on entry. Where Madrid opens timed free windows, London goes further: entry is free all the time.
The contrast with the rest of the budget is stark. Lodging is among the most expensive in Europe: a decent three-star runs around €96 a night, a four-star quickly passes €197. But the gap with the low end is unusually wide: a well-rated hostel sits around €20 a night, which makes London surprisingly reachable for anyone willing to take a dorm or shared room.
Second thing to keep in mind: the currency. The United Kingdom pays in pounds sterling, not euros. The prices shown here are converted, but on the ground every payment goes through an exchange rate, and a card with no foreign transaction fee saves you 2 to 3% each time.
For two people at mid-range comfort, plan roughly €130 to €190 a day, including transport and one restaurant meal. London is the reference city of our English cost index, set at 100, but that average hides the real mechanism: very expensive to sleep, nearly free to explore.
Weather & best time to visit
Average temperatures and conditions by month in London.
Best month to visitJuly
Where to sleep in London
Choosing a district
In London, price tracks the concentric transport zones far more than the neighborhood itself. Sleeping in zone 2 or 3, ten minutes by tube from the center, often costs 30 to 40% less than zone 1 for identical comfort, and the network is dense enough that the distance barely registers.
King's Cross - Islington
Well connected, walkable to two Eurostar terminals and the British Library. Plenty of hostels and business hotels that discount on weekends.
Southwark - Bankside
South bank, along the Thames, next to Tate Modern and Borough Market. Central on foot without Westminster prices.
Shoreditch - Hackney
East side, nightlife, cafés and street art. Zone 1-2, a notch cheaper than the west for a similar buzz.
Earl's Court - Kensington
Residential west, quiet, steps from South Kensington's three free museums. A solid family compromise.
The hotels we measured
Accommodation picks by price range.
Kensal Green Backpackers 2
Hostel, standard (6.5/10) from 1,746 reviews.
PubLove @ The Crown, Battersea
Hostel, standard (6.7/10) from 1,434 reviews.
Generator London
Hostel, standard (6.8/10) from 10,179 reviews.
Hotel DC, Stratford
Hotel, well rated (8.3/10) from 4,184 reviews.
Queens Hotel
Hotel, decent (7.1/10) from 1,903 reviews.
The Windmill Hotel
guesthouse, well rated (8/10) from 1,413 reviews.
YOTEL London City
Hotel, well rated (8.2/10) from 5,854 reviews.
Hyde Park International
Hotel, well rated (8.1/10) from 5,250 reviews.
Mercure London Earls Court
Hotel, very well rated (8.6/10) from 2,828 reviews.
All observed hotels in London
24 of 24 surveyed properties shown, the cheapest in each tier. Nightly rate for a 2-night stay arriving 15 October 2026.
| Hotel | Category | Rating | From / night |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kensal Green Backpackers 2 | Budget | ★ 6.5 | €17 |
| PubLove @ The Crown, Battersea | Budget | ★ 6.7 | €17 |
| Generator London | Budget | ★ 6.8 | €18 |
| PubLove @ The Exmouth Arms, Euston | Budget | ★ 6.9 | €18 |
| Green Rooms | Budget | ★ 7.2 | €18 |
| Safestay London Kensington Holland Park | Budget | ★ 6.7 | €18 |
| Bell House Hostel | Budget | ★ 6.1 | €19 |
| London Backpackers Youth Hostel 18 - 35 Years Old Only | Budget | ★ 8.1 | €19 |
| Hotel DC, Stratford | Mid-range | ★ 8.3 | €57 |
| Queens Hotel | Mid-range | ★ 7.1 | €63 |
| The Windmill Hotel | Mid-range | ★ 8 | €70 |
| Shakespeare Hotel | Mid-range | ★ 7.1 | €74 |
| Zedwell Hotel Greenwich | Mid-range | ★ 7.4 | €75 |
| Troy Hotel | Mid-range | ★ 8.1 | €79 |
| Chelsea Guest House | Mid-range | ★ 8.1 | €87 |
| Romany House Hotel | Mid-range | ★ 7.7 | €88 |
| YOTEL London City | Luxury | ★ 8.2 | €124 |
| Hyde Park International | Luxury | ★ 8.1 | €129 |
| Mercure London Earls Court | Luxury | ★ 8.6 | €153 |
| citizenM Tower of London | Luxury | ★ 8.6 | €155 |
| citizenM London Victoria Station | Luxury | ★ 8.7 | €159 |
| Hilton London Metropole | Luxury | ★ 8.5 | €169 |
| Strand Palace | Luxury | ★ 8.5 | €175 |
| Tower Suites by Blue Orchid | Luxury | ★ 8.6 | €180 |
Eating in London
Concrete benchmarks to set your meal budget, from the morning coffee to dinner.
Eating in London swings between extremes. A chain lunch or a takeaway from a covered market stays under €10, and the city excels at cheap world food: a curry around Brick Lane, a Sri Lankan or Nigerian plate runs about €12 to €15. A sit-down pub dinner lands between €18 and €30 with a pint, and a central restaurant climbs well past that. The useful rule: covered markets (Borough, Maltby Street) deliver quality at street prices, as long as you go on a weekday to dodge the crowds and the inflated weekend pricing.
Moving around London
Transit, distances and the smart moves so you don't pay the tourist tax.
The tube and buses run on contactless payment with an automatic daily cap: once you hit the cost of a day pass (around €9 in zones 1-2), the rest of the day's rides are free. No need to buy a pass in advance, your bank card handles it and works out the best fare on its own. Buses are markedly cheaper than the tube and cap lower still. From the airports, express trains are fast but pricey: the tube or standard lines from Heathrow cost a fraction of that for about twenty minutes more.
Things to do in London
Recommended activities and tours.
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world.
Art museum
Tower of London
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic citadel and castle on the north bank of the River Thames in London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separated from the eastern edge of the square mile of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill.
Archaeological site
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900.
Art museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in the United Kingdom is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. The Victoria and Albert Museum collection is housed across six sites in the United Kingdom.
Art museum
London Eye
The London Eye, originally the Millennium Wheel, is a cantilevered observation wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames in London. It is the world's tallest cantilevered observation wheel, and the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom with more than three million visitors annually.
Tourist attraction
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square ( trə-FAL-gər) is a public square in the City of Westminster in Central London. It was established in the early 19th century around the area known as Charing Cross.
Square
Hyde Park
Hyde Park is a 350-acre (140-hectare), historic Grade I-listed urban park in Westminster, Greater London. A Royal Park, it is the largest of the parks and green spaces that form a chain from Kensington Palace through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, via Hyde Park Corner and Green Park, past Buckingham Palace to St James's Park.
Park
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives.
Art museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum in London, England, is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
National museum
National Portrait Gallery
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world that was dedicated to portraits.
Art museum
Places referenced on Wikidata. Admission prices vary by season - check each venue's official site.
Paying less in London
What moves the needle
What each decision takes off the €1638 total, strongest lever first.
- − €1099
Travel cheap rather than mid-range
Hostel or entry-level hotel, local canteens, public transport. Accommodation is where the gap opens up.
- − €454
Stay five nights instead of seven
Two fewer nights also removes two days of meals, transport and sightseeing.
- − €336
Travel as a pair
The room is shared, nothing else is. Travellers themselves name this as the strongest lever.
Differences computed from our own measurements, for a 7-night mid-range stay, excluding flights.
6 tips on the ground
- The five major national museums (British Museum, National Gallery, Tate Modern, V&A, Natural History) are free: the biggest lever of the trip, roughly €20 in admission saved per person per visit.
- Sleeping in zone 2 or 3 cuts the bill by 30 to 40% for ten extra minutes on the tube.
- Paying contactless caps transport automatically at the day-pass rate, with nothing to buy ahead.
- A card with no foreign transaction fee avoids 2 to 3% lost on exchange with every pound payment.
- Covered markets on weekdays deliver a quality meal under €12, far from tourist-restaurant prices.
- A well-rated hostel in London runs around €20 a night, a rare ratio for a capital of this rank.
FAQ
FAQ - London
- How much does a week in London cost?
- For seven nights, plan roughly €490 per person on a budget (hostel, free museums, markets, capped transport), and around €1,589 at mid-range comfort with a three-star hotel, excluding flights.
- Is London an expensive destination?
- Expensive to sleep, not to explore. Lodging is among the highest in Europe, but the free major museums and the automatic transport cap keep a trip well below what the headline hotel rates suggest.
- What's the best month to visit London?
- May to September for the mildness: summer months peak around 18°C, pleasant for walking. Rain falls fairly steadily all year (around 55mm a month), so no season is truly dry, but spring and early autumn pair lower prices with smaller crowds.
- Cash or card in London?
- Contactless card works everywhere, including transport where it calculates and caps the fare automatically. Bring a card with no foreign transaction fee: paying in pounds with a standard card often costs 2 to 3% more on exchange.
At a glance
Wikidata, Wikipedia and Open-Meteo data
- Population
- 8.8M
- Area
- 1,572 km²
- Elevation
- 4 m
- Language
- English
- Currency
- £
- Time zone
- UTC±00:00
- Founded
- 47
- Avg. July temp.
- 18°
- Avg. Jan. temp.
- 5°
- Rainy days / year
- 126
inhabitants
Pound
14° - 22°
2° - 7°
About
London in brief
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of 9.1 million people in 2024. Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 15.4 million. London stands on the River Thames in southeast England, at the head of a 50-mile (80 km) tidal estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for nearly 2,000 years. Its ancient core and financial centre, the City of London, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and has retained its medieval boundaries.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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