It is not easy to find the perfect destination for a travel with teenagers. London is perfect.
If you can choose the right destination, they will fall in love with it.
This year I wanted to celebrate my birthday in a special way, giving myself and giving my family a trip to London thanks to the good rates offered by Ryanair,
And here are some tips that will be useful for your next trip.
ITINERARY
For our 3 days in London, I tried to set particular attention to the itinerary because I was traveling with my sons and spending a holiday with two annoyed teenagers protesting and grumbling about everything is not the best. If you also travel with kids, try to plan the activities to meet their needs even if they don’t always the same of yours, your holiday will benefit!
This is our itinerary that has fully satisfied my kids:
DAY 3 – Little Venice, Camden Town, Tower Bridge, Sky Garden
ACCOMODATION
The most critical phase in organizating a trip to London is the search for the accommodation. All accommodations are expensives, the ones with low prices usually have something wrong, or are far from the center, or are dirty, …….
I suggest you to choose an accommodation in central London (at the most in zone 2) to avoid added travel time, and I suggest you to choose it near the metro stop.
We stayed at Melrose Apartment booked with booking.com and we have not regretted it. The location is excellent, it is located in a quiet residential neighborhood. It is near to the underground, about 10 minutes on foot from Willesden Green station (gray line – zone two) from which you can easily reach all of London’s attractions. There are also food stores nearby. It is a small apartment but it has everything you need: a living area with a double sofa bed and kitchenette, a double bedroom and a small but functional bathroom. There are hairdryer, iron, toaster; washing machine and dryer are located in a common room. A fast wifi connection is available. The only flaw is the temperature, inside it is very hot, we have always kept a window a little open and tried to turn off the radiators. Check-in is in self-service mode, they will give you a code to enter in the apartment. Usually check-in is from 15:00, but if you are lucky you can enter in the apartment from the morning. It happened to us! If the apartment is not available, instead of walking with the trolley behind you, you can leave your luggage at the metro station, for the sum of 12 pounds they will keep it for the whole day. We have never met the owner, always communicated via whatsapp.
In London is possible to find accomodation for all budgets.
TRANSPORT
From Stansted to Londra
If you travel with a low cost airline like Ryanair, you will probably land in Stansted like us. From here is very simple to reach the centre of London, you can take the Stansted Express train, the journey leave from the station located inside the airport every days, it takes about 47 minutes and the cost for 4 tickets was £ 47.85. You can buy the ticket at the airport or you can buy it online from their web site. It stop at two station Liverpool Street and Tottenham Street.
I suggest you to buy your ticket online to avoind the queues at Stansted.
From London to Luton
Our return flight left from Luton, to reach the airport we take the National Express bus. The ticket can be buy at the bus stop when the bus arrives but if there are few free seats (it is not possible to trevle on your feet) they will give priority to person who booked online. I suggest you to book online from their web site. The cost for 4 tickets (3 adults and 1 boy) was £ 43. Pay particualr attention to the timing, sometime the road to the airport can be very busy, try to calculate the times to avoid missing the plane, about 3 hours.
How to get around London
You don’t need a car to get around London, you can easily get around on foot and by public transport. The underground goes everywhere and where it doesn’t go, you can get buses. Whe you arrive in London you will take a card for the underground, there are different types, we bought the Oyster. It costs 5 pounds that will be returned to you if you return the card at the end of your holiday. It is possible to charge it int he many ATMs that you find in each metro station both using your credit card bothe in cash. The remaining credit will be returned to you when you return the card. There is a maximum daily spending limit beyond which the rides will be free. If you travle with children under 15 years of age, contact an employee at the subway station and ask him for the discount, first buy the card and after contact the employee. The children will spend half price.
WHERE TO EAT
There are restaurant of all kinds, expect to spend twice as much as in Italy and eat worse, We ate something quick for lunch while for dinner we preferred to sit in a restaurant,
The first day for lunch we ate at Brought Market, there are many kiosk that prepare everything (fish and chips, burger, chinese, indian, …..), we chosed “Hobbs”, he prepares delicious burger. The second and third day we ate at “Pret a manger”, there are a lot of this restaurant in London, here you can eat ready-made sandwiches of various types.
For the first dinner we went to a restuarant near our accomodation: Beer + Burger. The best super stuffed burgers in London and a lot types of beers. The place is very spartan, the waiters are kind.
The second evening we stopped in a restaurant in Piccadilly: Angus Steakhouse. All very good and a very nice view over Piccadilly.
The third evening we wanted to try the typical fish and chips but we didn’t find anything so we went to “PizzaHut”, good but expensive pizza, on the other hand they offer you salad and refill for free.
CURRENCY
Pound is the currency of London, is not possible to pay with euro, so you have to pay with credit card (everywhere is accepted) or you have to change your money. At the airport there are a lot of ATMs where you can withdraw cash, I suggest you to withdraw a few money, you won’t need it, you can pay everything with your credit card.
WHAT TO BUY
Years ago bringing home something purchased during a trip had a particular effect, today with globalization it is difficult to find something special. In London everything costs a lot compared to Italy, therefore you will not be very enticed to shop. If you do not have economic problems, you will find many shops of any kind, from clothing stores to toy stores, and obviously tea shops.
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