LONDON ON A BUDGET

In this guide, I will be telling you my exact expenses in London, and show you how I traveled London for only £228.50! Welcome to: London on a Budget!

If you know me, you know that I love keeping track of my expenses, especially while traveling. Because it isn’t hard!

Wanna know more about how to travel on a budget? Here is my guide with budget travel tips!

When I traveled to London for a short trip in March 2019, I wrote down every single thing I spent money on.

In this post, I will tell you how I traveled London for only £228.50 and show you EXACTLY what I spent money on and how much.

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Related: Spring Break Budget Tips

Maybe you should also know that I didn’t cut down on everything. I still wanted to enjoy the food and try some high-end English Tea.

And that is the point.

You may not be into museums or going inside every building, but instead, you spend that money on good food or trying something local. It is all about preferences and how much money you have available for the trip. (Although museums in London are almost all free;)

If you haven’t read my “How to London in 1-day” post, I encourage you to read that prior to this post so you know what I’ve seen and done before hearing the finances about it. You can read it here.

1. find cheap flights or trains to London

So the reason why my friends and I picked London, was simply because we checked Skyscanner, and found flights to London being very cheap in March. So we booked flights for $50, out-AND inbound flight, from Switzerland to London, for each person. Pretty cheap, right?

This is the site I used to book $50 tickets to London.

If you’d rather take the train (good choice!) I can recommend the Eurail/Interrail pass, or if you don’t need it for more than getting there and coming back, you can get one-way or return tickets on RailEurope.

2. Cheap Hotel in London

After booking the flight, we found a cheap hotel on Booking.com, which was $44 for each of us, for 2 nights (so x3 is the full price)

We didn’t really care about having a luxurious hotel, since we had so little time there already, and would only be at the hotel to sleep at night. So all we needed was a hotel room for 3 with a bathroom.

I personally always use Booking.com to find and book my hotels. It’s just easy, convenient, and they have the option of no prepayment needed, so you can easily split up the price and pay at the hotel directly.

That is so much easier than having one person in a group of friends book the hotel and everyone paying back. Cause that’s annoying, right?

With this link, you can even get 10% cashback for Booking.com!

It’s easy: Just book your hotel, flight, or car through the link, and get 10% back after! (another savings tip haha)

Another website where you can book inexpensive hotels, flights, and rental cars (as Europeans AND Americans), is Momondo. I always check their site in addition to Booking.com, when I’m planning my trips and I want to book a flight or hotel.

You’re tired of hotels? How about a different good and cheap accommodation like Airbnb?

I’m sure you know what that’s about, but I can explain real quick for those who don’t. Airbnb is a website where you can rent apartments (and houses or rooms) from other people, to experience the city like a local. Airbnb’s are often cheaper than hotels, so it’s worth checking it out.

NOW, LET’S GET TO MY LONDON SPENDING LIST!

Day 1

The only thing I spent money on that day was the bus from the airport to the city, and dinner since we got there in the evening. If you wanna use the day I would recommend taking an earlier flight. We realized that a little too late.

• Bus £10
• Dinner £14

Day 2

This was our actual day in London.

I spent money on Nerds (to take home cause my little brother loves them), a shake, water, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and souvenirs.

Let’s write that as a list:

• Breakfast £0. Included in the hotel price.
• 1 Day Tube Card £13.10
• Nerds £5
• Shake £2 (was a shared one)
• Water £2
• Lunch £7.50
• Tea £6
• Dinner £14.50
• Souvenirs £8

As you can see, I did spend some money on extras that you don’t necessarily need. But personally, I always get a souvenir for my family and myself.

Day 3

This was the day we left again. After our quick visit to Hyde Park and an English Breakfast, we had to leave for the airport already.

I probably could’ve saved about 30 dollars at the airport, but I just FELL IN LOVE with a book about London. I couldn’t resist. Ahhh.

Oh, and THEY HAD KRISPY KREME AT THE AIRPORT TOO!!!

As a European who fell in love with them in the US, I was in heaven and just had to get some!

Here my expense list from that day:

• Breakfast £10
• Bus £13 (Don’t ask me why it was more than the first bus trip..)
• Water £1
• Book £25
• Doughnuts £3.50

Everything together gets us £228.60, in Dollars approx. $290 (exchange rates might have changed by now)

Not bad, considering the flight price would’ve been the same if we stayed for a week or any other time, and for that, 300 is a pretty good price, also considering my spending on things I didn’t necessarily need.

The Flight, Hotel, Transportation, and Food adds up to ONLY £179.10 for 2 nights in London.

Now you know how I traveled to London on a budget.

Check out Paris on a Budget and my Europe in 2 Weeks Guide (I reveal how much I spent for that trip too).

What is something YOU can’t resist when traveling? Let me know in the comments, I’m sure we all have some things we just have to get abroad. Can’t wait to hear!

Until soon,