This request is vague.

Where are you arriving at your "layover"? Where are you going to next?

You can't see "all the typical tourist sites" because there are far too many and they're scattered throughout central London.

What do you mean by "experience the culture"? London is one of the most international cities in the world, the capital of European finance and its population is a polyglot of ethnicities and races. If you mean "British culture" that means seeing "typical tourist sites" because they are repositories of British culture and history.

As for "things to see," there are only a few thousand threads on this board and forums housed on various travel company websites on this topic (perhaps clicking the destination tab and looking up London would be helpful).

Ultimately, the most important factor is your layover situs and your next destination because that will help determine the best places that you can pop out and visit in far less than 12 hours (60-120 minutes to clear customs and immigration; 2-3 hours reappearance before your next flight, 1.5-2 hours total transit time to and from your layover site, etc.)

Okay I'm hitch hiking on this one. The flights I was able to get for my daughter and SIL give them from noon until 8 am the next day in London. Arriving at Heathrow.

I figure a hotel near the airport, then they have the rest of the day to go into London. They will be tired from an overnight flight. Any suggestions on where to stay, what to do? They are late 20's.

Another hitch hiker here. We too have an overnight at Heathrow after arriving mid-afternoon. I'm thinking we'll stay near airport and possibly look to take a bus into the city or someplace nearby for a very quick look and a fun dinner. Any ideas?

We really need more info - will you be coming/going from the same airport - which one? Are you flying internationally?

12 hours isnt really that much time if you are coming into Heathrow, and then leaving back out from Heathrow. If you are flying international out you need to be there 3 hours before and the tube takes about an hour from central london so you have already lost 5 hours to and from, plus going through all the arrival hassles you will likely have potentially less than 5 hours in London.

One option may be to go to Windsor instead of central London, assuming you are using Heathrow.

If you want to come into central London I would pick one thing you want to see (the Tower, Westminster Abbey, St Pauls, Walk around SoHo...) and do that and then see what your time looks like.

Enjoy!

If you arrive at noon you might be able to get to Windsor to see the Castle and then some of the town, have dinner and head back to hotel at LHR. If you arrive late afternoon it will be too late for that - and all you really can do is spend the evening in London.

Do be aware that public transit stops running very early - not even into the early mornng hours, never mind 24/7 - so you have to head back to LHR early if you don't want to pay for a cab or car service.

Thanks nyt my couple are coming from Vancouver to London, final destination Bari. On Aeroplan points. I thought a layover in London would be fun for them, but maybe I will try to route them through Rome instead.

Trouble is, Aeroplan really limits the options.

One thing is, they will already have their boarding passes for Bari, so they don't have to be at the airport so early as an international flight.

By the way, I'm not the OP. Sorry, ahc, I think we can both use some of the same info though.

No problem sundried. We will be arriving from Boston in Heathrow around 6am and departing close to 7pm for Cape Town. I know there's a significant amount of time wasted getting out and back in the airport, but wed rather deal with that then sitting in an airport for 12 hours. We are just looking to see/do something that a local might do on the weekend as we both have already visited the typical tourist spots in the past.

We are just looking to see/do something that a local might do on the weekend

That would be shopping, going to a DIY store, going to a garden centre, drinking, reading the newspaper whilst slowly slipping into sleep on the sofa or watching a sporting fixture.

If it's s nice day we head tk one if the city parks with a bottle of wine, a picnic, friends and the newspapers and lie in the sun!