24 Hours in London England
Timing is Everything
I’m a self-admitted over scheduler, but sometimes you’ve gotta do what you’ve got to do. Last May my husband and I jumped at the opportunity to take my mother-in-law to the United Kingdom, as she had expressed a desire to see to Scotland, and we relished the chance to show it to her.
At the top of my mind, was the very real possibility that this might be the first and last time that she will ever visit the U.K., so I wanted to make sure that the trip would provide her with experience, exposure, and memories that we could all treasure together. Which leads me to my most problematic part of planning this trip.
Flight deals proved tricky to come by in late May, as it is the very beginning of peak season, and we planned this trip just eight weeks in advance. If you’ve ever traveled to the U.K., I’m sure you’re aware of how expensive it can be. That said, our intended destination was Scotland, but we found a good flight deal into London, and given my experience traveling by train between England and Scotland ten years prior, I knew that the cost, time, and experience would be worth utilizing the alternative arrival airport, but I digress.
As I mentioned before, London is expensive, so we decided to only stay a single night and therefore limit our time there to just a little over 24 hours. London is MASSIVE, so planning a once in a life-time London experience for my mother-in-law was a challenge that called upon all of my neurotic scheduling tendencies.
The Schedule
Arrival at London Heathrow - 8:00 AM
Catch the Tube and navigate to the general area of our Airbnb (approx. 1 hr journey)
Deposit luggage at reserved baggage nanny locker - 10:00 AM
We wouldn’t be able to check into our Airbnb until 2:00 PM and needed to unencumber ourselves for sightseeing.
Get back on the Tube and travel further east to see the Tower of London and London Tower Bridge, eat lunch and then get back on the Tube to go collect luggage from baggage nanny.
Arrive exactly on time to Airbnb at 2 PM, get checked in, take showers and change, leave by 3:30 PM to arrive at Hotel for High Tea at 4 PM for FIRM reservation.
Finish tea and proceed to Piccadilly Circus to meet Photographer reserved through AirBnB experiences, for a family photoshoot at iconic London spots - 6 PM.
Photoshoot ends at 7:30 PM - The rest of the evening is free.
The next morning, go watch the changing of the Queen’s Guard at Buckingham Palace - 10 AM
Checkout of Airbnb at noon
Deposit luggage at Kings Cross station 12:45 PM
Visit surrounding shops and get a new photo at Harry Potter 9 3/4 spot at the station
Board the train for Edinburgh Scotland - 2 PM
Relax on the four-hour scenic trip.
Plans Change
Rare is the case with a packed schedule, that something doesn’t go wrong, and the issues cascade from one to the next. Such was the case step #4 and getting checked into our Airbnb.
Located in the West End, the location was ideally located by a major metro hub and lots of cute shops and restaurants. However, unbeknownst to us, the building it was located in was a mirror image building of one located directly in front of it. Making matters worse, is that we were unaware that the entrance to the correct building at the same address, was accessible ONLY by foot, from the alleyway behind the building at the address we arrived at. As you can imagine, we arrived exactly on time, and without a moment to spare, only to find that we were unable to enter the building located at the corresponding street address. Two frantic phone calls to the host later, we came to discover that we had to walk behind the building to a separate entrance to a mirror image building…
Finally, in the correct spot, it’s 2:30 PM and unfortunately, the previous guests had not yet checked out. Our host was there to meet us and was very apologetic, but despite being aware of our very compressed schedule and need to get changed and back out the door, insisted on giving all three of us a tarot card reading before he would complete our check-in and remove the luggage of the previous guests.
3:10 PM, finally checked in and able to get ready for our reservation, but with just 20 minutes to spare, there was no time to shower, iron clothes, or style hair. Wash travel dirt off of face, brush teeth, pull back to hide hair-tie lines from wonky high bun, wear least wrinkled outfit, basic makeup and done!
Fortunately, despite being somewhat frazzled, we arrived EXACTLY on time for tea, and it was a perfect experience. Unfortunately, the peace was to be short-lived, as we would have to dash once again just an hour and a half later to meet our photographer.
Lesson Learned
While still an ambitious use of 24 hours, there are only two things I would have done differently.
Lesson One - Book a Hotel
We booked an Airbnb due to the cost of staying in central London. Not only is the average cost per night VERY high, but there’s also a strict limit of two adults per room, which in our case of three adults, doubles the cost. However, in hindsight, the day would have run MUCH better if we had been able to check into a hotel upon our arrival and would have been worth the additional $300 which we saved by staying the Airbnb. Sometimes convenience in the face of tight scheduling is worth more than money.
Lesson Two - Limit yourself to no more than two structured “to-do’s” per day while traveling.
Our mere 24 hours (in reality it was more like 30 hours) was bogged down with twelve to-do items which included necessary things like arrival, departure, accommodation check-in, etc. All of those necessary tasks take a mental tole while traveling, so when faced with such a narrow turn around time, limit yourself as to the number of structured activities and THEN if you feel up to it, allow other experiences to naturally be added to your list, that way you don’t always feel pressed for time to make it to the next pre-planned activity.
Lesson Three - Getting photos taken while on vacation is a MUST!
This was a game-changing experience for us in terms of trip photos. It was amazing to get images of my husband and me in amazing locations without it having to be a close-range selfie, or badly composed because you begged a passing stranger to take your picture. We’ll be doing this on all trips from now on.