If you’re visiting London soon and doing so on a budget, you’re in luck because there are many different ways to get much out of your trip to the Big Smoke without breaking the bank.

Yes, it’s true; you’ll have to fork out a fair bit on food, drink and accommodation (even if you choose to book at discount hotels London), but activities-wise? This is where you can make savings. For instance, did you know just how many free things to see and do there are here…? 

Make for a free museum

A vast array of museums in the UK are free to enter, including many of the greatest and most famous in London. If you’re someone who tends to love learning new things and/ or a history buff, this is absolutely great news because you’ll be able to walk into the like of the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) – all of them within very-easy-to-distance-to-et-to from accommodation Bayswater London – the British Museum, the Museum of London  and the Horniman Museum, completely gratis. That said, any of them would certainly appreciate any sort of a financial contribution you can afford to make. 

Browse in a market

In London, you’ll find a market open every day of the week (practically every day of the year, in fact); that said, here, the big market day tends to be Sundays. So, whether clothes, interiors, furniture, food, haberdashery or flowers and plants are your thing, there’ll be a most likely, decades- or even centuries-old, iconic market to visit. We’re talking the likes of Portobello Road Market, Brick Lane Market, Old Spitalfields Market, the Camden Markets and many, many more. 

Catch the Changing of the Guard

A ceremony full of pomp and circumstance, this event takes place most days around 11am on the marching ground outside Buckingham Palace. It features the changing over of The King’s Guards (dressed in their scarlet tunics and big, fuzzy, black hats), complete with lots of marching and brass band tunes. Quite the spectacle – and an ideal way to work up an appetite for lunch at a restaurant near Bayswater. 

Skate at House of Vans

If you’ve got your board with you, hot-tail it over to the subterranean skate park at Waterloo. Entirely free, so long as not too many skaters are already there practising tricks, it’s a chilled, cool place to kill an hour or two, what with its halfpipe and other ramps. The House of Vans venue here is open on Fridays and Saturdays, too, and often hosts events and concerts. 

Take a stroll around Central London

If it’s a warm, sunny day or a balmy evening without too much of a nip in the air (or even if it’s a crisp, fine winter’s day), Central London is the perfect place to go for a an atmospheric, stimulating stroll. Whether your local neighbourhood while you’re visiting the capital is Bayswater (perhaps because you’re booked into the likes of Bayswater Inn hotel Hyde Park), Kensington, the West End or The City, you really can’t beat a walk around these parts. Simply let the collision of grand history and happening modernity wash over you. 

Picnic in a park

With its incredible array of parkland, London is actually one of the greenest major cities on the planet (no words of a lie). Moreover, all this gorgeous greenery makes for the perfect setting for a sit-down picnic – either with friends/ family or on your lonesome. But which park to pick? Ah, now that’s the question! Hyde Park, Green Park, St James’s Park, Regent’s Park, Greenwich Park, Jubilee Gardens, Potters Field Gardens, Hampstead Heath and so on? The options are just never-ending…