15 biggest mistakes London tourists ALWAYS make 🤦🏽‍♀️

welcome to london i'm going to tell you about the biggest mistakes i always see tourists make when they come to the city so that you know about them and you don't make them yourself by the way i'm jess i run love in london and we help tourists who visit london like they live here and if it's your first time coming to the city i have a special freebie for you so make sure you watch to the end of the video to get it [Music] by far the biggest mistake i hear from london tourists is that

they didn't realize how big that london is london is actually the biggest city in western europe and for comparison we have nine million people here and the second biggest city is berlin with just 3.4 million and even paris only has two so you can fit a bunch of paris's into london that just goes to show how massive that this city is so when you're here be prepared to hop on public transport whether it's the riverboat the tube the bus anything so you can make sure you're exploring as much of london as possible which leads us

to the next mistake not going beyond the very touristy areas i see a lot of tourists coming for a few days and not going beyond ewoks where the major tourist attractions are and listen to the tourist attractions that's fine but if you only do that you are missing out on a whole entire london that us londoners love and that i definitely think you should experience so if you want to get out of central london i've got a bunch of amazing video guides that will tell you some great things to do a little bit more on

the outskirts of the city and i will link those videos in the description box of this video [Music] not grouping your activities together by area i see a lot of tourists that don't realize as mentioned before how big london is so they don't plan in advance to do the same things in the same area in one day which means you could spend tons of time traipsing around the city on public transport and getting taxis for example you don't want to do notting hill in west london on the same day that you're going to do shortage

which is over here in east london which is going to take a ton of time to get there on the tube so instead if you do notting hill also pair that with a visit around kensington and when you go to shoreditch pair that with a visit to the barbican if you're struggling with figuring out what things to do in each area of london i have travel guides that do exactly that for you it's called the casual tourist guides i'll leave a link to them in the description box thinking you can only go and party on

the weekends there is something going on at night every single day of the week here in london especially when you're in bustling areas like shoreditch or soho where we are now so don't think you can't go out if it's a weekday in fact the weekdays are super fun to go out because it's a little less crowded it tends to be more people that actually live in london versus people who come from the outskirts in get me out of here this is my worst nightmare not pre-booking your activities and your restaurants ahead of time especially if

you're coming to london in peak times like the summer like it is right now or around christmas time you for sure need to pre-book your activities and your restaurant reservations in advance you don't want to be wasting precious time waiting in lines for places that you could have actually booked a time slot ahead of time and then you wouldn't have to do all this waiting for example the london eye you can do that same goes for restaurant reservations if it's important for you to eat well which it should be then you want to make sure

you get your reservations in early so you don't miss out on the best dining experiences especially around central london and on the weekends only trying british food when you come to london listen try the full english breakfast have some fish and chips get up high in mash but you are truly missing out if you stick to only british food that's because london is one of the best cities in the world for international cuisines and we have amazing restaurants that serve dishes from italy japan sri lanka the caribbean and loads of other places that are all

worth trying so don't stick to only british food you will definitely be missing out and i think there are a lot of other cuisines that are actually much better than british food anyway if you need lots of good local food recommendations make sure you go to the love and london shop i have so many amazing places to eat in my london guides i am so sorry that's okay amazing yeah of course yeah inspired our whole vacation oh my gosh amazing one of the biggest safety mistakes tourists make here in london it's not looking both ways

when you cross the road they drive on the left side of the road here so if you're not used to that you want to make sure you look both ways before you cross or look down at the pavement because it might be telling you which way you should look before you cross but just to be safe look both ways and then you want to get run over buying a paper ticket for traveling on the tube the daily travel card is such a rip-off do not buy it instead use a contactless payment method like google pay

apple pay or just a contact list debit or credit card to pay or if you've got an oyster already an oyster card works too those methods of payment have a daily cap which is automatically applied which is a lot cheaper than if you were to buy a paper daily travel card so there's really no reason to buy it not observing tube etiquette if you want to see a londoner get very frustrated but also try to have patience at the same time stand on the left side of the escalator in a tube station and you'll very

quickly hear a excuse me from behind that's because the left lane is the express lane you keep moving if you want to stand on the escalator make sure you're standing on the right side and when you're waiting for a tube when one arrives make sure you're not stood in front of the doors step to the side and let everybody step off the train first and then you can get on thinking all of london is going to be quintessentially english a lot of tourists come here and think they're going to see londoners running around with top

hats on saying cheerio to everyone and sweeping chimneys like bert from mary poppins but actually london is a lot different from the rest of the uk it's an incredibly multicultural city with people from all over the world and we have global influences on the food the architecture the people everything it's one of the best parts of the city so make sure you embrace it and enjoy it thinking you can predict the london weather now listen here in england we have all four seasons but it can vary significantly from day to day for example you might

have a day like today where it's hot and sunny and you don't need a jacket and then literally tomorrow it could be so cold that you feel like you need a proper winter jacket on it does vary that much so check the forecast a couple of days before you come to london pack according to that but also pack in case there are any major changes and if you need any help with your packing and planning what to wear i have that all in the london packing guide which i will link in the description box leaving

the city four day trip too early in your trip there is so much to do and see in london that you could be here for weeks exploring and still have not even scratched the surface so i see a lot of tourists leaving to go on a day trip outside of the city like two days into their trip before they've even really like properly seen anything my rule of thumb is to not do any day trips unless you're in london for at least seven days and if you find yourself getting bored of london after a couple

days you're just not doing it right sorry thinking there is a best time to visit london you might have a favorite season to come to london mine is summer but every time of the year has its pros and cons for example summer is going to be the best chance for getting good weather but it also means there's going to be the most crowds and the highest prices but you can come in january where it'll be the lowest prices and the least crowds but you're also going to be dealing with dark and cold weather so it

completely depends in this video i talk about the pros and cons of coming each month of the year so have a watch of that after this video to figure out what's going to be the best time of year for you another big mistake london tourists make when they come to the city is to spend any time in leicester square like literally don't spend any time here london tourists apparently think that this is a great place to come and they're wrong unless you want to experience international cuisine at pizza hut or experience world-class arts and culture

or to get overpriced american candy the candy shop that's currently being investigated for money laundering or go to one of the three movie theaters slash casinos in this immediate area if you want to do those things you can come to leicester square otherwise completely avoid it m m's what is the point thinking you can pay in any currency besides british pounds it's a little bit of a weird one i don't know why you'd go to a foreign country and try to pay in your own currency but i've heard it be done we use great british

pounds here and even though we are in europe we are not on the euros you can't use euros here can't use american dollars only use british pounds if you find some place that says they will take your home currency run it is going to be a huge rip off something is going on there that is really weird and sometimes if you're paying by card the machine will ask you if you want to pay in your home currency or great british pounds always pick pounds because when it converts to your home currency it's actually going to

severely rip you off now if you want to avoid even more mistakes when you come to london make sure you grab my free london 101 guide it has everything you need to know before you get here you can get that by clicking the link in the description box of the video and also make sure you watch one of my many many other videos about london before you come which you can do by clicking one of the boxes around me these daily paper tickets that you can buy are such a rip-off wow it's very new york

such a rip-off i love crowds