Free entry
PlaceActivities
National Gallery
A free collection on Trafalgar Square. Choose a handful of paintings and give them the time a whole museum sometimes steals.
The London edit
Places worth your time
The museums, market and park behind our London edit.
Explore our growing London selection, with checked practical details and official sources.
Free entry
PlaceActivities
V&A South Kensington
Design, objects and small details worth a second look. The permanent collection is free; ticketed exhibitions have their own admission.
PlaceActivities
Hayward Gallery
Contemporary art in a building that asks to be looked at too. Make a current exhibition the centre of a South Bank afternoon.
Free entry
PlaceActivities
Borough Market
A place to browse, buy ingredients or build lunch one decision at a time. Entry is free; the food is a separate budget.
Free entry
PlaceActivities
Regent’s Park
An unhurried patch of London: gardens, open space and a walk that does not need a destination. Ordinary park entry is free.
Free entry
PlaceActivities
Tate Modern
Modern and contemporary art on Bankside. The collection is free; choose a paid exhibition only if it is the reason you want to go.
Free entry
PlaceCulture
Sir John Soane’s Museum
An architect’s house crowded with objects, pictures and unexpected views. Free entry, intimate rooms and plenty to notice in a small space.
Free entry
PlaceCulture
The Wallace Collection
Paintings, furniture, porcelain and armour in a Marylebone mansion. A free permanent collection for an afternoon of close looking.
Free entry
PlaceCulture
Wellcome Collection
Free exhibitions at the meeting point of health, art and lived experience, with a Reading Room that invites a less formal kind of visit.
PlaceConcerts
Ormside Projects
A South Bermondsey project space where leftfield club nights, live electronics and artist-led experiments share a small-room setting.
PlaceConcerts
Venue MOT
An industrial-estate club in southeast London, with independent nights spanning bass music, jungle, techno and stranger corners of the dance floor.
PlaceFood & drink
Fitz’s
Velvet, a disco ball and a richly decorated room off Russell Square: a cocktail stop with a little theatrical flair.
PlaceFood & drink
Scarfes Bar
A fireside room at Rosewood London, where caricatures, books and live music give a Holborn evening a more intimate setting.
PlaceFood & drink
Lyaness
An ingredient-led cocktail bar beside the Thames, with inventive alcohol-free options and the river for company.
Free entry
PlaceCulture
British Library, St Pancras
A free stop for the Treasures Gallery and a different kind of pause beside the bustle of Euston Road.
PlaceConcerts
fabric
A Smithfield finish for a London night built around selectors, sound and the dance floor.
PlaceCulture
British Museum
A vast collection of human history in Bloomsbury. Pick a few galleries before you arrive, then leave room for an unexpected detour.
PlaceCulture
National Portrait Gallery
Faces, personalities and changing ideas of Britain, beside Trafalgar Square. A useful counterpoint to an afternoon spent with landscapes and history painting.
PlaceCulture
Natural History Museum
The natural world takes centre stage in South Kensington, inside a building whose architecture is part of the experience.
PlaceCulture
Tate Britain
British art beside the Thames at Millbank, with paintings and sculpture that reward a slower circuit of the galleries.
PlaceCulture
Science Museum
Inventions and discoveries become objects you can stand in front of, from transport history to the technologies behind everyday life.
PlaceCulture
Imperial War Museum London
Personal testimony and material history explore the impact of conflict, in a museum set beside Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park.
PlaceCulture
Design Museum
Objects, systems and the way we live meet in Kensington. Come for a particular exhibition, then look more closely at the world outside.
PlaceCulture
Churchill War Rooms
A preserved underground wartime headquarters in Westminster, where narrow rooms make the history feel unusually immediate.