What this site is
Private Tours London is an independent guide to tours in and around London: private black cab tours, Blue Badge guides, walking tours, hop-on hop-off buses, Thames cruises and day trips. We started it in 2026 because booking a tour in London usually means comparing the same product on three different platforms, each with its own “from” price, cancellation window and review count — and very few pages tell you whether that “from” price is per person or for the whole group.
We do the comparing for you. Each guide lines up the tours worth considering, shows who actually runs them, which platform sells them and for how much, and ends with a verdict that includes a plain “skip it if” line.
What we are not
- We are not a tour operator. We don’t employ guides, drive cabs or run boats. When you book, your contract is with the platform and the operator, not with us.
- We don’t take bookings or payments. Every booking button sends you to GetYourGuide, Headout or Tiqets, where you pay and receive your confirmation.
- We are not affiliated with official bodies. We have no connection with Transport for London, Historic Royal Palaces, the Royal Collection, VisitBritain or any attraction we write about.
How the site makes money
We earn a commission from GetYourGuide, Headout and Tiqets when someone books through some of our links. The price you pay is the same as going to the platform directly. Commission never decides a verdict: tours are ranked on price per head, track record and what you actually get for the money, and our guides regularly recommend free or cheaper do-it-yourself options when they beat a paid tour. No operator or platform can pay to be listed, ranked higher or reviewed. The full rules are in how we compare tours.
Who writes the guides
The guides are written and checked by a small editorial desk. We don’t claim to have taken every tour, and we don’t invent first-hand stories. What we do instead:
- pull live prices, ratings and review counts from the platforms’ partner feeds;
- check routes, durations, inclusions and official ticket prices on operators’ and attractions’ own websites, and list those sources on each page with the date we checked them;
- read across reviews for recurring themes — late starts, rushed stops, great guides — and summarise them in our own words.
Languages
The guides are written in English first and then translated into 14 other languages by editors who keep every price, caveat and source intact. Our reviews of individual platforms and operators stay in English only; links to them from other languages open the English version rather than a rushed translation.
Get in touch
Spotted a wrong price, a tour that’s closed or a meeting point that’s moved? Email contact@private-tours.london. We read everything and fix errors as quickly as we can. For anything about an existing booking — changes, cancellations, refunds — contact the platform you booked with; we can’t see or change bookings. More on the contact page.