The trick to a cheap day in London is not cutting corners. It's choosing the corners that were already free.
10am — Start at the river
The Thames Path runs continuously from Tower Bridge to Battersea. Start at Tower Hill. Walk west. You'll pass the Tower of London (skip), HMS Belfast (skip), Tate Modern (save for later), and the Millennium Bridge (photograph; everyone does; they're right to).
Cost: 0.
11.30am — Coffee where the office crowd doesn't go
Skip the Pret. Watch House in Bermondsey, Prufrock in Farringdon, or any of the Turkish-run cafés in Green Lanes serve a better flat white than central London for £3 instead of £4.50. The saving is real; the coffee is better; two independent facts.
12.30pm — Lunch on Whitechapel Road or Brick Lane
Tayyabs (Whitechapel) does a £10 mixed grill at lunch that defeats most £30 dinners. If the queue is out the door, Needoo next door is 90% as good and 50% less busy. Further east, Rinkoff's Bakery on Vallance Road makes a salt beef bagel for £7 that is worth crossing a city for.
Cost: £7–10.
2pm — A museum you haven't been to
You've been to the British Museum. Go to the Wellcome Collection instead — a free medical-history museum with exhibitions that consistently punch above their budget. Near Euston, small enough to do in 90 minutes.
Cost: 0.
4pm — A walk through a cemetery
Highgate Cemetery (East side, £4.50) or Kensal Green (free). Victorian London took its dead seriously; the result is ornamental landscape gardening done by grief, which is strange and lovely to walk through.
Cost: 0–£4.50.
6.30pm — The Sky Garden
Sky Garden, 20 Fenchurch Street. The 360° view from the 35th floor. Free, ticketed — book three weeks ahead at skygarden.london. It's the view the Shard charges £32 for.
Cost: 0.
8pm — Dinner, somewhere the rent is lower
- Hoppers (small plates, ~£15pp)
- Padella (pasta, £8–14, no booking, go at 5.30 or 9)
- Supawan (Thai, King's Cross, ~£15pp)
Cost: £15.
The total
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Thames walk | 0 |
| Coffee | £3 |
| Lunch | £8 |
| Wellcome Collection | 0 |
| Cemetery | £0–4.50 |
| Sky Garden | 0 |
| Dinner | £15 |
| Total | £26–30 |
Slightly over £20. Close enough; you walked eleven kilometres and saw the river twice. The version under £20 skips the cemetery entry fee and replaces dinner with Tayyabs lunch as dinner, which is a legitimate thing to do.