My daughter, Rose, and I are on a trip to a few different countries and it isn’t a frugal trip. However, there are frugal things that we are doing, so I figured I’d share the frugal days that I am doing with her, so you can get ideas of what frugal things you can also do if you are in the area as well or considering a frugal trip to the area. (I already owe you write ups about our family trip to Italy and a trip to Romania with Anneliese but those will have to wait…)
The first stop on my trip with Rose is London. It was supposed to be longer but was cut short for reasons outside my control, so I’ve had to pack as many things as possible into our short visit. And so, today, our first day in London, was very packed (and after only 4.5 hours of sleep after a very delayed flight)…
We started off our day with a “free tour” (aka a tip based tour aka a pay as you wish tour) given by “Big Ben” by London with a Local.
It was a tour about the history of London, and focused more on the historic parts of London, so it didn’t cover things like the Millenium bridge or Trafalgar square, but covered a lot of other things that I didn’t get on my previous trip to London, so that was great.
Of course we did see the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge… and the Shard…
Saw a lot of places whose names I don’t remember, lol…
We saw this place that looked like the Pantheon in Rome from the front but really was the stock exchange in the past, if I remember correctly…
We saw a lot over the course of 2.5 hours and learned so much, heard so much history, heard many stories and were entertained and amused…
At the end of the tour, I tipped him 10 pounds. He said 10 pounds was average, some do more, some do less. Since it was a large group and I was on a budget, I figured it was fine to do 5 pounds per person.
Next stop- Natural History Museum! It’s a gorgeous building from the outside…
Oh, and did I mention totally free?
And in the inside, dinosaurs!
We don’t have any dinosaurs where we live, so this was an extra special treat for Rose…
We got to see wooly mammoths too…
A bunch of different taxidermied animals…
There were also lots of animal skeletons, including this narwhal head with its giant horn.
We could easily have spent many, many more hours there, but we rushed through and skipped the rest, because I wanted to be able to go to the science museum as well, since we had such limited time in London and I wanted to ensure we were able to see that as well.
We kinda rushed through the beginning of the science museum, going to the space section, to see the space modules on display…
The science museum is free, but there’s an exhibit my son Lee saw when he was in London a year and a half ago and he really enjoyed himself and said it was really worth it, so I decided to splurge and spend on it. So that was 14 pounds a person.
It was an exhibition on 50 years of gaming, with video games from the past 50 years, all the way from the first ones until very modern ones, that you could play.
I played old Sonic and Mario and Pacman and attempted a few other games before I got sensory overloaded (I was running on very few hours of sleep which didn’t help) but my daughter was able to stay there for hours and only left when I dragged her to see the rest of the museum.
If you are on a budget, you can totally skip this; the rest of the museum is still great, and as I mentioned, free.
We only had time to see the hall of flight, with lots of awesome historic planes…
And we could definitely have stayed much longer, but the museum was closing…
All in all, a really great way to spend a day.
We were really exhausted by the end, but very happy.
And now my daughter wants the computer so she can watch Harry Potter. Because what else do you do in a hotel room at night when in London than watch Harry Potter?
Have you been to London before? What do you recommend doing on a budget? Have you done any of what I mentioned? What would you recommend we do if we have just another day and a half here?
One Response
My favourite city. Go to Covent Garden, usually lots of outdoor free performers, opera singers at the bottom by the restaurant.its gorgous to walk around.there is Harry Potter world ( its amazing) near watford( train ride away) its incredible , your daughter would love it.although it costs money, its well worth doing the open top bus around london. You get to see everything! Enjoy!!