Your Guide to Planning a Long Weekend in London

Have you booked a stay with us and need help planning your long weekend in London?

There’s so much to do in the city that it’s essential to think about where you want to go and what you want to see in advance.

Check out our foolproof guide below for planning the perfect break:

List Absolutely Everything | Long Weekend in London

It’s time to sit down with a pen and paper, or the notes app on your phone, to make a list of what you’d ideally want to do and see during your long weekend in London.

At this point, nothing is off-limits! Whether it’s historic landmarks like St Paul’s Cathedral or iconic neighbourhoods like Soho, jot them all down.

Don’t forget about including culinary experiences, either. Which restaurants are you keen to visit? Which popular food spots would you like to try?

By the end of this exercise, you’ll have a master list covering absolutely everything you want to enjoy during your long weekend in London.

Highlight Your Must-See Attractions | Long Weekend in London

Now that you’ve got your master list, you’ll need to go through and highlight the must-see items, the ones that you’d be gutted to miss. These are the places and eateries you simply can’t leave the big city without experiencing.

Once you have these, it’s time to prioritise them from most to least important. If time allows, hopefully, you’ll be able to fit all of them in, but if not, focussing on your top priorities will ensure you don’t leave your long weekend in London with any regrets.

Use Google Maps | Long Weekend in London

The next step after identifying your must-see attractions is to group them by location. Planning your itinerary in this way will help you to make the most of your time in each part of the city.

Open up Google Maps on your phone or computer and start dropping pins on the highlighted locations from your master list. Once this process is complete, you’ll have a visual representation of where the things you want to see and do are in relation to each other, as well as how far away they are from your base here at DUKES London.

Points at which the pins are clustered closely together mean you can visit those attractions one after another, taking up a morning, afternoon or even a full day in your itinerary. Take advantage of these clusters to minimise the time and money that you spend on travelling between different locations.

Plan Your Itinerary | Long Weekend in London

Now you have your prioritised list of must-sees plotted on Google Maps, you can start to assign the clusters of attractions to each day of your itinerary.

DUKES London is ideally located for exploring the big city, within easy reach of public transport services. For example, the Piccadilly, Victoria and Jubilee underground lines all depart from nearby Green Park station, just 0.5km from our front door.

Alternatively, many iconic London landmarks are within walking distance of the hotel, such as Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park.

Check the Weather | Long Weekend in London

Nearer the time of your stay with us, we also highly recommend checking the weather forecast.

As Brits, we’re never really sure what the elements will have in store during any given season. In springtime, there might still be days of heavy rain, and in autumn, we’ve been surprised by mini heatwaves in the past.

Make sure the weather forecast for your stay matches with what you have planned - if it doesn’t, it’s time to revisit that master list of absolutely everything to find a more suitable alternative!

If you have any questions about your upcoming stay with us, please don’t hesitate to reach out to a member of our team.

For ideas of places to visit in London, why not have a browse of our previous blog on what to do during your weekend break in the city?