I used to be scared of London. Too big, too loud, too many bloody people.
That's changed though. I visit it a few times a year now and I can wield my Oyster card and tut at annoying dawdlers with the best of them.
I know half of Blogland lives in London and will probably have no interest in this post but I never fail to be suprised by the amount of people in the real world who treat my London trips as some sort of exotic journey. Maybe they're all scared to step foot outside the North West? Maybe they assume it's horrendously expensive? I'm not an expert on everything our capital city has to offer but I think I'm quite good at planning cheap weekend breaks, so here are my recommendations.
Priorities
What would you rather spend your money on? I know it sounds a bit grownup and boring but have a proper think about what the important parts of your trip are before you go and it'll stop you getting carried away and spending a shedload of money.
As a basic rule, I will happily spend money on an experience that I think is worth it but I won't waste it on things like hotels. The only thing that was absolutely vital about this weekend was going to see
Macbeth. I was not prepared to be stingy over the ticket price for that so we paid £65 each, sat in Row C and it was
wonderful. All the other stuff wasn't as important, and in total (for return train tickets, my share of the hotel and a ticket for another play) it cost £65 as well. Not bad, eh? If you'd rather stay in luxury then you can sit in the crappy seats at the theatre and pay for a nice hotel room instead. The choice is yours. If you can afford to do the whole trip in style then I shall graciously pretend I'm not envious.
Trains
I am such a fraud writing this section. I hate train websites with a passion I only usually reserve for hating Fearne Cotton. They boggle my brain, so I outsource this element of my trip planning and get my good pal
Lee to do it for me while I organise other things instead. He is most excellent. Ask him for tips if you want cheap train tickets because I can't supply you with anything helpful.
There is technically a £12.50 standard fare from Liverpool to London but you'd be hard pushed to find many of them, especially at a reasonable time and at weekends. Still, £19 isn't too bad at all and I didn't have to get up too revoltingly early.
Travel
Walk, especially if you're in central London. It's the best way to get your bearings on the space around you. I think a large part of the reason I used to dislike London so much was that I never knew where I was. But guess what? It's really not that hard to navigate, especially in the central areas where you can't move without falling over a signpost. I am still rather vague about the further flung parts of the city but I'm not likely to need to go there so it's not a problem. I can walk from Euston to the Globe without getting lost and I know a few nice pubs and that's good enough for me for now.
Or y'know, take the Tube. But get yourself an Oyster card. It's cheaper than day travelcards and you'll feel like less of a tourist.
Hotels
My advice is always this:
stay in a Travelodge. They're fine. They're clean, they have a bed and a bathroom and a tv and a kettle and you can borrow an iron and a hairdryer if you need them. You will probably be in the hotel for about 10/11 hours, 8 hours of which will be spent sleeping. Why pay a fortune when all you need is somewhere decent? The hotel we stayed in at the weekend cost £35 for a Saturday night and we've had different Travelodges for £18 a night before now. Stalk their website a bit and grab their cheap sale rates, or have a look and see if anything is available when you want to go. This visit was only meant to be a day trip until we discovered that there were some cheap rooms available. The same logic applies to Premier Inns which are basically the same but a bit nicer. They have pictures on the wall and everything.
ps - only stay in an EasyHotel for the hilarity factor or if you actually
like sleeping in an alcove and/or having a floor space that is literally smaller than a bath towel. They're not that cheap and they're not pleasant. You can't even hang anything up! It wouldn't kill them to put some hooks up, would it?
Theatre
This is mostly what I go to London for. By theatre I mean plays, not musicals. I'm sure there are loads of places out there that can tell you how and where to buy cut price tickets for the latter but we mostly book our theatre tickets a long way in advance so don't come to me for advice on last minute deals. What I can recommend is signing up to all the newsletters from the ticketing companies and theatres. Whilst this may occasionally drive you mad
(eg when we really wanted to see Our Boys but the timings did not work out at all and about a million emails came through going "Come and see Our Boys" "You know you want to" "What are you waiting for, you Northern morons? WATCH IT!"), it often pays off and you end up seeing some really interesting stuff for less than the cost of a cinema ticket. Case in point: on Saturday night we saw
Old Times with Rufus Sewell and Kristin Scott Thomas for just a tenner. Bargain. They have 100 seats for each performance at that price and it's very much worth it.
Tip - if you're seeing anything at the Harold Pinter Theatre, you still get a decent view on the back row of the stalls. Unless you're desperate to be in the front few rows, it's a good option.
Booze
Well I don't know about you lot but I won't pay £6 for a glass of wine in a theatre bar. I prefer the rather naughtier (and massively cheaper option) of buying a mini bottle in the shop round the corner for £1.99 and stowing it in my handbag. Theatres always have plastic glasses on the bar so help yourself to one of them and voila! Just pour it out in a discreet fashion when the ushers aren't looking.
Food
You know the usual options for cheap food, don't you? Of course you do. Anyone that said McDonalds can go and stand in the corner. I mean the usual things that work out well for evening meals - vouchers, offers from o2 Priority Moments, Groupon etc. You don't need me to elaborate. We didn't actually bother with any of those this time as we had limited time between shows, so we just zoomed to the Wagamama near Leicester Square instead. It's no more expensive than the ones anywhere else in the country and their food is lovely.
When it comes to daytime eating, never have a hotel breakfast
(unless you've ignored my above advice and are staying somewhere swanky). I mean, I
love a good cooked breakfast but a) the ones that hotels provide you with aren't good and b) HOW MUCH? £7.95 for some lukewarm bacon and mushy tomatoes? I think not. My solution: £1 for a pot of fruit salad from the shop round the corner to tide you over until later in the morning. Then, instead of the aforementioned overpriced breakfast, spend a few extra quid on enjoying a really lovely brunch in the company of really lovely people instead. Much more fun all round.
Lee and I met up with
Chloe on Sunday and we went to
Salvation Jane which was conveniently close to our hotel and really, really good.
Salted beef hashcakes with fresh spinach, poached eggs and smoked tomato relish. AMAZING.
And that, dear readers, is the nicest soy chai latte I've ever had.
(I'm not a pretentious nobber btw - I just can't have normal milk)
It wasn't particularly cheap but I'm not into money saving for the sheer hell of it. I like to save money on some things so I can spend it on others.
Free Stuff
Speaking of saving money, go and do FREE STUFF. Free stuff is great and there is really quite a lot of it in London -
Time Out has a handy list. I like to explore and could quite merrily walk around looking at roads and buildings and suchlike
all day
(it's all due to growing up around my mum who likes to go "Alex, LOOK, a chimney!"), but blimey, did you see the weather at the weekend? BRRRRR. We went for a good yomp around the
V&A instead.
International man of mystery and his shortarse sidekick.
I love museums. I can play my favourite game of Thing I'd Most Like To Take Home for
hours. This time I narrowed it down to:
A green Chippendale chair.
A green bonnet.
A most beautiful (and not green) piece of papercut art.
Next time we're going to the Natural History Museum to look at dinosaurs. Raaaar!
So, that was my cheap(ish) weekend in London and those are my suggestions for what to do if you don't want to spend a fortune. It can be done cheaper but I think you've got to strike a balance and I wouldn't have missed out on those Macbeth seats or that delicious brunch for anything.
Do you have any good cheapskate tips for visiting London, or any other cities?
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