London highlights in 3 days

[Ohdostopwafflinggeremy]

Family of 4, me,dh and 17&18 year olds going to London for 3 days soon.
We are staying around Hyde park in Paddington area.
Thinking of the usual touristy things. Hop on hop off bus, Madam Tussauds, Natural History Museum, Camden market.
Anything worthy of a visit or really not.
Also nice places to eat at night.
Any tips or advice welcome.😁

Madam Tussauds is definitely not worth it.

Natural History Museum- building is fab, exhibits I felt like I was on a school GCSE science trip. V & A is better.

Your teens will like Camden Market more than you do.

My main tip is check where everything is and make sure you are doing everything in the same area on one day.

Thanks @AnnaMagnani, what's V&A though?

Victoria and Albert. Are your teens boys or girls? V&A is amazing for fashion.

Madame Tussaud’s is awful, and very expensive.
What sort of things do you all enjoy? Art/theatre/history/shopping?

I love Coal Drops Yard for dinner/drinks, like shopping in Marylebone/Kensington High St. Theatre tickets booked at the booth in Leicester Square can be a really good price. Tate Modern good for modern art, National Portrait Gallery is fun too. A boat trip along the Thames to Greenwich good on a nice day.

One of each, girl more geek than glam though, so maybe not😅

Covent Garden in nice to walk around in the evening. During the day it can be very busy, but later it’s less so, with lots of people out for drinks/dinner. Always feels very buzzy though.

Agree avoid Madame Tussaud's! Boat to Greenwich for park, meridian line, cutty sark etc. Tower of London, London eye, Tate modern all good.

If you like history, the Imperial War Museum is incredible (if irritating to get to from Paddington)

We spent a morning this week at London Science Museum and the afternoon at Harry Potter Studio Tour in Leavesden.

Madame Tussauds is rubbish. Seriously don't bother.
The most interesting thing I have done in London is The Tower of London. If you do one of the tours with a Beefeater it's absolutely fascinating.
At your teens age they might not be that excited by the science museum and natural history museum - they tend to be packed full of noisy small children.
V+A is more interesting if they like art/ fashion (and if they like the film Red, White and Royal Blue they get to see where the dance scene was shot).
I personally don't think Camden market is anything special. Lots of bulk bought from China stock that's nothing amazing.
Greenwich is interesting for it's history and the market there is good (although it varies what it is on different days - sometimes it's just food, sometimes antiques etc).

And booked a table for German Gymnasium. Nice German cuisine. Half the family liked it, other half not so impressed. I thought it was tasty food although slightly over priced.

Skygarden is good for views and so it London eye. Boat along the Thames to Greenwich. Tower bridge and Tower of London for major history.

If you want quirky and different, sign up to the secret London treasure hunts. You get a bunch of clues to follow and explore via your phone.

My eldest wasn't impressed with King's Cross as that's where our hotel was booked through our travel agent. He just felt it was a dive full of too many people 🙄

There are any number of lovely parks in London, if the weather's good enough for walking and you'd enjoy it. Kensington Gardens is good and not far from where you'll be staying. St James's Park has flamingos! Kew Gardens is great but quite a long way out.
I love Hampstead, both the Heath and the Village.
Greenwich for the beautiful park and views, and if you're interested you could go to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich Observatory, Cutty Sark. There's a market there and any number of places to eat, pubs etc. You can travel one way by boat and get the Docklands Light Railway back the other way, which takes you through Canary Wharf, pretty spectactular architecture. Good shopping there if you wanted to get off and have a look around.
South Bank: just nice to walk along. You could start at Tower Bridge and end up opposite the Houses of Parliament. Plenty of places to stop to eat/get coffee and so on. You could go into Tate Modern, which is free and worth a look just for the building even if you're not interested in art.
The City is very interesting to wander about in. Ancient street pattern, ultra-modern skyscrapers towering above. St Paul's Cathedral is well worth a visit.
For art: National Gallery, Wallace Collection, Courtauld, Tate Britain, Tate Modern
Art/history: National Portrait Gallery
All sorts of history and artefacts: British Museum

London takes a lifetime to see, to be honest.
But do NOT waste your time on Madam Tussauds!

The obvious places are Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, I would say.

Plus your choice of museums and galleries from the National Gallery, British Museum, V&A, Science Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Tate, Natural History Museum.

Probably not worth trailing up to Camden. Try Covent Garden/Seven Dials for shops, maybe prior to a show. Avoid Oxford Street - it's awful.

But what are your/their interests? If drama, try Shakespeare's Globe. If sports, tour a football stadium, Wimbledon tennis or visit the Olympic Park. I mean, you just don't have time to do more than scratch the surface.

Plan what you do and when - the museums of South Ken are a long way from Greenwich, for instance. Book in advance, if possible, especially for popular exhibitions. Allow time to travel, and to eat, relax etc.

Then, when you get home, start planning the next trip to tick a few more things off the list.

Go to seven dials for a street food lunch and see a show at the west end. I quite like the Lego store in Leicester Square as a free thing to do. St Paul's cathedral is cool and a walk along the south bank is lovely - there are often pop ups there.

Forbidden Planet shop on Shaftesbury Avenue is fantastic if your teens are into "geek" stuff.

We were thinking of using a hop on/off bus tour to get around. We have used them in other cities and they are really useful. Definitely the Natural history museum,Tower of London, London eye, Tate are all on our list. Dd really wants to do Madame Tussauds 🙄 looks like i need to talk her out of it.

@tweetypi how do you manage to do the Lego Store without buying anything.......😁

What are they into? And have you/they ever done sightseeing in London before?

At that age they'll presumably have specific things they particularly want to do - I'd suggest you pick one thing each that you really want to do and fit generic sightseeing (Houses of Parliament, 10 Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, London Eye, Clipper trip along the Thames, Piccadilly Circus, Tower Bridge, The Globe (from the outside) Tower of London (from the outside), Buckingham Palace, Millennium Bridge, St Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Tate Modern, The Gherkin and the Lloyd's building, The Monument etc etc etc) in around them according to what's logistically convenient.

Don't do Madame Tussaud's. Admire the Nat Hist from the outside unless one of your teens is still a huge dinosaur fan. Alternatively see if your visit coincides with one of their late opening evening sessions. If teens are very nerdy they may like the Science museum next door, it has some great stuff. The V&A over the road notoriously has a great cafe. Harrods is five minutes walk further on: interesting to see, also a good place to spot supercars in the wild if your teens are that way inclined.

@Ohdostopwafflinggeremy fib and tell her there's no tickets available for Tussauds 😬

The Sky Garden has great views over the city. You can pre book a meal (we had a lovely brunch, which was fairly reasonably priced) then a wander around the terraces. Or you can pre book free tickets just for the terraces (there's a cafe up there too).

As someone said, London takes a lifetime so focus what you are interested in, rather than what you feel are the correct things to do / boxes to tick.

Does your family like art, music & culture / sports & outdoors / science / shopping* / history, heritage & royalty / views & insta moments or a little bit of everything. Start there and pick the highlights from each.

For me the number 1 priority for everyone though is the river - from the Westminster to the Tate Modern either by boat or walking (ideally both). It's great to get all the iconic views and every aspect of London life from Big Ben to the skateboarders.

Please don't queue for hours at the Natural History Museum or Tower just because you think it's the London thing to do.

I think your list will easily take 3 days and you will find both Camden Market and Madam Tussauds get squeezed out as no time and too out of the way.

So much fabulous advice ladies, thank you. We haven't been to London before, don't live in UK.
Probably am trying to do all the box ticking sights, instead of what interests us. Need to really narrow down things as 3 days is not a long time I know.