Our verdict
Best overall
London: Westminster Abbey, Big Ben & Buckingham Guided Tour
Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace in one 3–4 hour walk with a live guide, with an option to tour the Abbey inside. 4.8★ from 4,000+ reviews; the ~£33 “from” price is the city-tour option, so check which one you pick.
4.8★ · 4,016from £33 GetYourGuide →
Best value
London: Westminster to Greenwich River Thames Cruise
The Westminster to Greenwich cruise is a sightseeing tour and transport in one — Parliament, the Tower and Tower Bridge from the water, then Greenwich at the far end, for about £18.
4.5★ · 25,690from £18 GetYourGuide →
Best with kids
Magical London: Harry Potter Guided Walking Tour
The Harry Potter walk keeps children moving between film locations for about two and a half hours, for around £20. 22,000+ reviews say it works.
4.7★ · 22,599from £20 GetYourGuide →
Skip it if
You mostly want museums
The British Museum, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, V&A and Tate Modern are free. A tour adds little — book free timed tickets and spend the money on one good walk.
Which London tour should you book?
There are seven ways to tour London, and the right one depends less on the tour than on your trip: how many days you have, how far you like to walk and how many of you there are. Shared tours are priced per person; private tours per group. Prices below are the “from” prices in our partner feeds today.
| Format | Typical price | Length | Group | Guide | Best for | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walking tour | £15–£35 pp | 2–3 h | Shared | Live | History, first morning, Ripper and Harry Potter | Walking tours |
| Live-guided bus tour | ~£30 pp | 1.5 h | Bus load | Live | Orientation in one go, limited walking | Bus tours |
| Hop-on hop-off bus | from ~£32 pp | 24–48 h ticket | Bus load | Mostly recorded | Getting between sights over 1–2 days | Hop-on hop-off |
| Thames cruise | from ~£18 pp | 30 min–2 h | Boat load | Live or recorded | Tower, Parliament and Greenwich from the water | River cruises |
| Bike tour | from ~£39 pp | 3.5 h | Shared | Live | Parks, palaces and back streets in half a day | Bike tours |
| Private guide or black cab | from £229 per group | 3–4 h | Your group | Live | Families, limited mobility, a set agenda | Private tours |
| Day trip by coach | from ~£59 pp | 6–12 h | Coach | Live | Stonehenge, Windsor, Bath, the Cotswolds | Day trips |
Two things the table can’t show. First, almost no tour includes admission to the paid sights — see our attraction tickets guide for what those cost. Second, “live guide” matters: a recorded bus commentary is pleasant background, a good live guide is the reason you remember the day.
The most-booked London tours, checked today
London: Westminster to Greenwich River Thames Cruise
from £18
See on GetYourGuide
Magical London: Harry Potter Guided Walking Tour
from £20
See on GetYourGuide
London: The Original Jack the Ripper Walking Tour
from £22
See on GetYourGuide
London: Buckingham Palace & Changing of the Guard Experience
from £19
See on GetYourGuide
London: Live Guided Sightseeing Tour on Vintage Open-Top Bus
from £30
See on GetYourGuide
London: Westminster Abbey, Big Ben & Buckingham Guided Tour
from £33
See on GetYourGuidePrices and ratings checked 21 Oct 2026; they change daily.
Walking tours: the best value in London
Central London is compact. Westminster to the Tower is about an hour’s stroll along the river, and a guide on foot can take you down alleys, into courtyards and to the exact spot where something happened. The best-reviewed shared walks cost about the same as a cinema ticket:
- Westminster and royal London — the Abbey, Big Ben, Horse Guards and the Changing of the Guard. Our Westminster and Buckingham Palace page explains which days the guard changes and when the State Rooms open.
- Jack the Ripper — an evening walk through Whitechapel; the most-booked version has close to 9,000 reviews. Compared on our Ripper tours page.
- Harry Potter locations — Leadenhall Market, Millennium Bridge and the rest, see Harry Potter walks.
- Pubs, street art, the Beatles, food — themed walks in our walking tours section.
Buses: orientation or transport
A live-guided bus tour (about £30, 90 minutes) is a single loop with a guide on board, the quickest way to see the big sights in one go. A hop-on hop-off ticket is really a sightseeing transport pass: commentary is usually recorded, and the value comes from using it over 24–48 hours, often with a river cruise thrown in. If you’ll ride it once, the live tour is better and cheaper. Big Bus, Tootbus, Golden Tours and The Original Tour are scored on our hop-on hop-off page.
On the water and on two wheels
A Thames sightseeing cruise from Westminster takes you past the South Bank, St Paul’s and the Tower to Tower Bridge in under an hour, or on to Greenwich. Cruises with lunch, dinner or afternoon tea, and the Thames speedboats, are compared on our river cruises page.
Bike tours are London’s most underrated format: three and a half hours through the royal parks and back streets, covering more ground than any walk. The top shared tours on our bike tours page rate 4.8–4.9★.
Private tours: when they’re worth it
A licensed Blue Badge guide costs from £229 for a half day under the Guild’s 2026–27 rates, for your whole group. A private black cab tour with hotel pick-up lists from about £318 per cab for three to four hours, for up to five or six people. For two people that’s a lot more than a shared walk; for a family of five the cab works out at about £64 a head — less than a shared Abbey tour with entry (about £75) — and the day runs on your schedule. Our private tours guide has the calculator.
Day trips out of London
Coach day trips go to Stonehenge, Windsor, Bath, Oxford and the Cotswolds; the classic Windsor–Stonehenge–Bath combination lists from about £72 for 11–12 hours. Some are easy to do yourself by train, others aren’t — our day trips guide compares tour, train and private driver for each.
Booking: platform or operator?
We compare listings on GetYourGuide, Headout and Tiqets because they show verified reviews, confirm instantly and usually allow free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead. For the big attraction tickets we checked, the platform price matched the official one. How the three platforms differ on refunds and support is on our GetYourGuide vs Headout vs Tiqets page.
Questions people ask
How much does a tour of London cost?
What is the best tour of London for a first visit?
Do London tours include entry to the sights?
Is a hop-on hop-off bus better than a walking tour?
Are private tours of London worth it?
Which London tours run at night?
Sources
- Guild of Registered Tourist Guides — guide fees 2026–27 (checked 21 Oct 2026)
- Historic Royal Palaces — Tower of London opening times (Yeoman Warder tour included) (checked 21 Oct 2026)
- British Museum — visit (free entry) (checked 21 Oct 2026)
- GetYourGuide — London tours (partner feed)
- Headout — London tours (partner feed)
Written and checked by the Private Tours London desk