London 2017 Travel Guide

Happy Friday! I hope you all had the chance to check out my latest London Travel VLOG on my YouTube channel– if you haven’t, you can look at it down below! 🙂

If you follow my blog, you already know we were in London last week for a family vacation! We were able to explore London for about 4 days and tried to hit as many hotspots/touristy spots as possible! Most of the time it was about high of 60s and low of 50s there– so a tad chilly for me especially with the wind picking up here and there. I think the second day we were there, it rained THE ENTIRE DAY! Normally if it says 100% chance of rain in Dallas, it rains for maybe 15-30 minutes and that’s it. But oh no no, that’s not how it is in London!! It said 100% chance of rain and it meant 100% chance of rain all day all night. Needless to say, we still made the most of the rainy day and went out and explored! Since my vlog basically broke down what we did day by day, my post today will really just dive into the places you should see in London, great restaurants, the hotel we stayed at, and some tips and tricks when it comes to getting around in London and saving some money!

WHERE WE STAYED

We stayed at Hotel Xenia in Kensington for most of our time there and enjoyed it for sure! I can’t speak highly enough about the hospitality at this boutique hotel. I’ve honestly never experienced hospitality quite like I did during this stay and I really have to give Hotel Xenia a big shoutout for that! Everyone was exceptionally kind to each and every one of us and went above and beyond when it came to general hotel services. I picked a hotel in Kensington not knowing what to expect but I truly enjoyed the neighborhood and glad we stayed there! Getting to the London Eye or Big Ben was about a 15 minute cab ride, so nothing too terrible! Next time, I would like to stay somewhere closer to the city though maybe in Soho!

Oh, one thing to note about the room sizes though. I come from Texas so…naturally I’m used to everything being bigger so it was quite a shock to see the room sizes at Hotel Xenia! They were very, very small. We adjusted fine but just a little note if you’re looking for a place with bigger rooms, this hotel may not be for you! I’m not sure if all of London is like this though. I did notice restaurants were smaller than ones here too so maybe it’s like that all across the board. You may have to do a little research on bigger hotel rooms if that’s what you’re going for!

PLACES TO EAT

I’ll go ahead and list out a few places that I highly recommend checking out– some of these places I didn’t make it to but I know have amazing reviews!

• Pizza Express – this pizza is no joke!!! Unfortunately, ranch sauce is not a thing in the U.K. but the pizza was SO good I didn’t even need it! We ordered about 6 pizzas and finished them all!
• Dishoom – apparently this place books up 4-6 weeks in advance for dinner?! They accept walk-ins but it’s typically about a 2 hour wait. We ended up making reservations for lunch instead and they managed to squeeze us in! Definitely worth the hype though– delicious Indian food!
• Muriel’s Kitchen – we went here for brunch and it’s SO good! Don’t leave without getting their brownies!

THE TOURISTY SPOTS

• Kensington Palace — apparently Prince William and Kate Middleton live here!
• Hyde Park — so beautiful!
• London Eye
• Big Ben
• Tower of London
• Buckingham Palace
• River Thames — we did a cruise on the river for an hour and got to see the Tower of London, London Bridge and the Shard!
• London Bridge
• Westminster Abbey — “hands down, the best Abbey I’ve ever seen!” (Friends reference)
  • we weren’t allowed to take any photos inside but it was an amazing experience and worth going inside!
• Trafalgar Square
• The Shard — heavily recommend coming here when it’s NOT raining!
• Piccadilly Circus — basically the Times Square of London
• Borough Market
• Oxford Street — the heart of London shopping!
• Harrods — I didn’t get the chance to stop by but I hear this department store is pretty famous!

Just a quick little tip for getting around in London, I heavily recommend taking the Tube around to get places or the Big Bus where you can get on and get off after each site! Cabs can get a bit pricey, especially if you’re going from the heart of London to the outskirts of town!

P.S. The telephone picture was taken off Board Court in Covent Garden!