Traveling, discovering and exploring new places is one of our favorite things to do. City trips are perhaps our most favorite type of travel. We love to travel to a city for two or three days and fully explore every inch of that city.
Almost every city now offers one or more city passes to explore the city. We recently travelled to London and used the London Pass to explore the city during our stay.
Travelling to London soon and want to know if the London Pass is worth it? Check out our experiences and honest review.
This blog was written by travel writer and Traveltomtom team member Ashley. She received the The London Pass to use during her stay in London and to write this review. Check out her Instagram @travelashie.
What is The London Pass?
The London Pass is a pass that gives you access to a lot of attractions in London. Included in this pass are famous museums, historic sights and buildings, bucket list-worthy activities, boat tours and more. In fact, The London Pass gives you access to 85+ London attractions. You can check out the complete list here.
Available packages
The London Pass is a digital sightseeing credits package that gives you access to these attractions. You get a set number of credits to use for the number of days you choose.
No matter how long you plan to spend in London, there is always a London pass that suits your trip. The London Pass is available from 1 day to a travel duration of up to 10 days and everything in between. We visited London for an extended weekend and had a 2 day London Pass. These 48 hours start as soon as you scan your Pass at the first attraction.
Advantages and disadvantages
Like any other city pass, The London Pass also comes with a lot of advantages, but certainly also disadvantages. We list them for you!
Advantages
Time saver: With the London Pass you will definitely save time. No hassle with having to buy individual tickets. Just walk up to the attraction, have your pass scanned, enter and enjoy!
Money saver: The London Pass is most certainly a money saver. Visiting attractions with the London Pass is often cheaper than individual entrance tickets. It leaves you more money for food, shopping or souvenirs.
Flexibility: It's up to you to choose which attractions you visit and in what order. You have no tickets with a set date or time to visit a certain attraction. Also, the London Pass is valid for two years from purchase date. So should your travel plans change last minute, no worries, you can always use them later on.
Free cancelation: Should your plans change after all, they offer free cancelation with 90 days from purchase date.
App: They have a very useful app with a lot of information about participating attractions. You can easily add your London Pass to the app and have it scanned from there. It shows opening times of the attractions but also the requirements for getting in. The app has a very helpful trip planning section that very easily lets you plan your itinerary.
We actually really enjoyed our trip to London using this London Pass. It made us visit attractions we had never visited before, the Tower of London with the Crown Jewels for example or a Chelsea Stadium Tour of Stamford Bridge. Simply because they were included with the pass we decided to visit them after quite a few visits to London.
With the London Pass we also did special attractions that we would certainly not have done otherwise, The Dare Skywalk at the Tottenham Stadium for example.
So for us there were no disadvantages, but I can imagine that some of the disadvantages listed below could be a deal breaker for you.
Disadvantages
Big crowds: The popular attractions can become very busy, especially during the busier seasons. Be prepared to cue if you want to visit a specific popular attraction.
Not all attractions: Even though most of the highlights and attractions of London are included in the Pass, not all of them are. So you might find the Pass less useful because you want to visit attractions which are not included.
Cost: Always weigh the cost of the pass carefully against the individual entrance fees to attractions. The pass can be expensive, especially if you're only there for a short trip and haven't got a lot of time to do a lot of attractions.
Is The London Pass suitable for everyone?
We are fast travelers, we always want to see as much as possible in the often short time we are somewhere. We love being able to completely traverse a city like London in 2-3 days. We get up early and stay out until very late, to fully take advantage of the hours of the day.
For us the London Pass turned out to be the most perfect travel companion during our trip to London. Who is the London Pass most suitable for?
Tourists with little time: If you want to see a lot in the a short amount of time, the London Pass truly is ideal for you! You can easily walk up to attractions, scan your pass and explore. If you take full advantage of the hours in a day you could end up visiting a lot of attractions.
Museum lovers: A lot of museums are included with the London Pass. So you can go wild on the London museums without having to think about the costs.
Flexible travelers: We like to travel without a (tight) schedule. If you're just like us and plan to see a lot and don't want to be tied to a schedule, get the London Pass!
Of course the London Pass isn't suitable for everyone. When is the London Pass too much or not necessary?
Free attractions or highlights: London is full of impressive highlights and buildings. A lot of people travel to London to simply only want to see those famous landmarks. So, if you're mainly want to visit free attractions or admire the famous London landmarks, I would advise not to take the London Pass. You won't get your money's worth.
Limited budget: If you're travelling on a limited budget, carefully weigh the costs of the London Pass against individual tickets. Especially if you're interested in visiting just a small amount of attractions, individual tickets can be cheaper.
Limited time: If you're time in London is limited it's probably best to focus on just a few top attractions.
When taking fully advantage of it the London Pass is definitely worth it.
When traveling to London don't let high roaming costs ruin your trip. Get yourself a prepaid sim card for the UK. Check out where to buy a sim card a London Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton or Stansted. You are all into eSIMs? No problem Traveltomtom wrote a complete UK eSIM guide.
Tips when using The London Pass
After using the London Pass ourselves recently we do have a few travel tips we'd like to share to make the London Pass even more useful for your next trip. Here are Traveltomtom's three main tips.
Compare prices: Always compare ticket prices and look at individual ticket prices. Look carefully at the different options, compare prices and do the math's if the London Pass is really worth it for your London visit.
Plan: Plan your route and attractions in advance to get the absolute most out of your London Pass. You can easily loose a lot of time if you only think about your next attraction when you walk out of the previous one. Time is money, it would simply be a waste of money and time. So try to plan ahead a bit.
Be flexible: We mentioned it before, it can get busy at popular attractions, especially during the busy seasons. Be prepared for these crowds and in the worst case adjust your plans on the spot.
Traveltomtom's final thoughts on The London Pass
Recently we visited London for the 7th time. We love London. For us it's just a 50 minute flight and such an easy city to visit. We never get bored traveling to London.
Even though it wasn't our first visit to London, this visit was full of 'first's'. It might sound strange, but we had never visited the Tower of London before. Obviously we had seen it from the outside, but never took the time to properly visit this icon of London.
Having the Tower of London included in the London Pass it was a no-brainer for us. The Tower of London was our very first stop. Now in retrospect we wonder why we didn't visit this before. The Crown Jewels are very impressive and an absolute must see for everyone!
From the Tower of London it's very easy to add the Tower Bridge as well. We had done the Tower Bridge before but that was on our first ever visit to London back in 2012.
So we thought it was about time to do it again. It surely was not disappointing on such a beautiful sunny day in London the views from the Tower Bridge were fantastic.
And with the London Pass it is just super easy. Just walk up to the entrance, have your ticket scanned and enjoy!
One we had on our bucket list for a while, and certainly wasn't there on our previous visits to London is the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Lucky us that the stadium tour of the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is included in the London Pass.
Better yet, the amazing Dare Skywalk at the stadium is included with the London Pass as well. A thrilling new experience in London. I had never walked the roof of a football stadium before, until now.
If you decide to get the London Pass for your next visit, I highly recommend adding the Dare Skywalk to your plans. You absolutely won't regret.
Of course there is so much more to do with the London Pass. If you want to do it all you need a month in London. Just to name a few of the amazing attractions included, London Eye, Westminster Abbey, the Shard, St. Paul's Cathedral, the London football stadiums, Up at the O2 and over a 100 more attractions and experiences.
The London Pass can be a great addition to your trip to London, but it's not for everyone. Consider your travel plans carefully before making a decision.
Enjoy your trip to London!