London Travel Tips helps you discover London and plan your visit there - easily, quickly, enjoyably.
Welcome to London Travel Tips, a really easy to use website created to help you discover everything about London. Our mission at London Travel Tips is to provide tourists, visitors and all independent travelers with the most useful tips for exploring London. Within this website are detailed information on every tourist attraction worth visiting, accompanied by lots of photographs and maps. There are useful tips covering all aspects of your visit, from the time you touch down at one of London's many airports, to the time you are ready to leave for home. For your additional convenience, you can book hotels, hostels, guest houses, tours, and even look for books related to London, all at London Travel Tips.
London Travel Tips is created to be easy to use. Much care is taken to ensure that you find the information you are looking for quickly and intuitively. No information on this website is no more than 2 clicks from the homepage, so you never have to dig deep and you never get lost. To update yourself on what's up at London Travel Tips, go to the Newsletter Subscription Center, and subscribe to your own free London Travel Tips Newsletter, delivered regularly direct to your Inbox.
London, Guide for First-Timers
If you are visiting London for the first time, you should start by visiting the places within the City of London and the City of Westminster. London comprises the City of London with 32 districts called "boroughs" surrounded it, of which the City of Westminster is one of them. The City of London and the City of Westminster are at the very heart of London, and they are where most of the tourist attractions of London are found. Which means, if you're in London for the first time, you should start by visiting the places within the City of London and the City of Westminster. When you are done with them, then you can consider places within the neighboring boroughs such as Kensington & Chelsea, Southwark and Camden. Then you can add places further away such as Canary Wharf, Greenwich, Thames Barrier and Kew Gardens.
Introducing London
London, the capital of the United Kingdom, is a metropolis on the southeast of England. It is located on the banks of the river Thames, at a Latitude of 51°30'26.66"N and Longitude of 0°° 7'39.35"W (key this location on Google Earth to find it). When people talk about London, they usually mean Greater London, a metropolitan area that covers 609 square miles (1579 square kilometers). Right at the heart of Greater London is the City of London, the original city that traces its history back to Roman times. Today, the City of London, also called the Square Mile, is the financial centre for London. Along with 32 boroughs, it forms part of Greater London.
London is the most affluent region in the United Kingdom, enjoying the highest GDP per capita. It is the center for business, financial, politics, entertainment, fashion, education and cultural activities, among others, not only for the United Kingdom, but also has great influence globally. With a population of 7.5 million, Greater London is the most populous municipality in the European Union.
It is unclear how the name "London" came about. There are several possibilities. One source, Geoffrey of Monmouth, as documented in Historia Regum Britanniae, the name of the city was attributed to King Lud from the pre-Roman times, who named the place Kaerlud. Over time, the name Kaerlud became Kaerludein, and eventually became London. According to Richard Coates, a lingustics professor, the name London came from the pre-Celtic word "plowonida", which means "a river too wide to ford". The name Plowonida became Lundonjon, then Lundein. It was Latinised into Londinium, and from there, the Anglo-Saxons called in Lundene.
Originally located on the north bank of the river Thames, London has grown to encompass both banks of the river. The Thames enters London from the southwest and flows out from the east. It is surrounded by a few hills including Parliament Hill, Addington Hills and Primrose Hill.
London was one of the fastest growing city in the world during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was only overtaken by New York in 1925, though its population continued to grow, peaking at 8.6 million people in 1939. Today, there are about 7.5 million people living in Greater London, although the whole metropolitan area has as much as 14 to 15 million inhabitants in total. Not only is London the biggest city in the United Kingdom, it is 8 times bigger than the second largest British city, Birmingham, and 10 times larger than Glasgow, in No.3 spot.
Although London comprises 32 boroughs, to most visitors, the major sightseeing places are in Central London. The name Central London refers to a number of places in London including, in alphabetical order, Bloomsbury, (The) City of London, Clerkenwell, Holborn, Marylebone, Mayfair, South Bank, St. James's and West End (which comprises Soho, Covent Garden, Oxford Street, Leicester Square, Chinatown and Trafalgar Square). Together, the aforementioned places are within the boroughs of Westminster, Camden, Islington, Lambert, Southwark and the whole of the City of London.
With a history that stretches well before Roman time, London has many historical sites. Four are inscribed as Unesco World Heritage Sites, namely The Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey and St Margaret's Church; the Tower of London; the historic settlement of Greenwich; and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. For lovers of history, London has some of the best museums in the world, some of which are admission free. It has plenty of parks and theatres as well as state-of-the-art attractions such as the London Eye.
To cater to the number of visitors entering and leaving London, the city is served by at least five major airports of which Heathrow and Gatwick are the largest and second largest in the United Kingdom. One can also get to London by train, taking the Eurostar from Paris and Brussels. The journey takes about two hours and passes through the 22-mile (35-km) Channel Tunnel. A network of international and domestic long-distance bus services connects London with the rest of the United Kingdom and many cities in Europe. Most of these services serve the Victoria Coach Station or the Green Line Coach Station across the street.
For updates about London, subscribe to London Travel Tips Newsletter.
About London Travel Tips
London Travel Tips is one of the websites within the Tim's Travel Tips series, which presently include Penang Travel Tips. It is authored by travel consultant Timothy Tye, who also author AsiaExplorers, EarthDocumentary, World in Pictures, World Greatest Sites, Budget Accommodation Guide, Travel Photography Workshop, The Flowering Garden and Happy Jobless Guy.
|
Click picture to explore London's Tourist Attractions
photo by Diliff (GFDL)
Real-Time London Tube Update
The table below provides up-to-date information on Tube services within the London Underground. For more details about taking the tube, click on Taking the Tube
London City Hall building, by Billy Hicks (GFDL)
The clock face of Big Ben, by Roy Levien (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0)
Burlington Arcade, Piccadilly, © Andrew Dunn (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0)
London Eye and County Hall, by Kim Hansen (GFDL)
Trafalgar Square, by ed g2s (GFDL)
Tate Modern, by Hans Peter Schaefer (GFDL)
|
