Hello, I am a college student and over this summer I am doing a study abroad program in Valencia, Spain. After, my girlfriend and I would like to take a side trip to London before we head back home. However, we are curious about the cost of London for two people like us. We are planning to stay in hostels and we aren't expecting to go to nice restaurants. What do you think would be an appropriate cost per day for us? Including food, hostels, and activities

Thanks,
Adam

what kinds of activities?? there are so many FREE things to see and do in London - museums, parks, window shopping etc - it depends what interest you. Food - Marks and Spencer and the like are cheap eats or some outdoor markets too.

What type of budget are you thinking??? there are several threads for lodging on here -

www.yha.org.uk has youth hostel beds from around £16 a night, rooms from £50 a night.

Meals in fast food chains and sandwich bars around £8-£10 a head.

Where you would find money really trickling away is in night life and bars, where the sky's the limit.

Check out www.timeout.com/london and the suggestions in
http://www.timeout.com/london/things...de-2011-2012-1

Have a look at the prices of the sights you want to see. Yes, the museums are free - but the Tower, London Eye etc are not - and are not cheap. Also look at the cost of local transit. Sights in London are very spread out and walking might not make sense - so you need to allow for the tube, which is not cheap.

(We recently had an increase in subway fare in NY - to $2.50. For this you can enter, ride all of the various lines, transferring as you want, to the end and back - and stay on for the rest of your life if you want - since it runs 24/7. There was a huge brouhaha that the price is so high. But in London the cheapest single ride (shortest distance) is about $6 and on a discount pass it's about $3. So - easy to end up spending a lot in one day.)

You save a lot of money on transport fir you but a tube pass They max out at around 44 gmp and you can ride after that as ment times aas you like also good on buses. There are some good inexpensive places that are more than sandwich sho[ss Carluccio"s for example there are several have a 2 course menu or 3 courses for less than 10 gbp.Pubs are high I found and the quality is iffy/

I visited Westminster Abbey this week, for the first time in about 45 years! I was actually quite shocked to find the admission price is £18, but this does include the audio guide.

I did enjoy my visit, and appreciate that the cost of the upkeep of this fabulous place does mean a high entry fee.

So do as nytraveler suggests and decide what exactly you want to see so you can budget accordingly.

If you are prepared to buy food at supermarkets for several meals, and seek out some cheap places to eat you can do London relatively cheaply. For example, if you like Indian food then you really can't do a lot better than the Indian YMCA on Fitzroy Square. But despite being a hostel they are not a particularly cheap place to stay - prices on their website http://www.indianymca.org/

>>easy to end up spending a lot in one day<<

The total you spend in any one day is capped - either you have a travelcard, or if you use pay-as-you-go on the Oystercard that too is capped at the level of a one-day travelcard. Not cheap, but you wouldn't pay more than £8.80 a day at most - it would be about half that for a 7-day travelcard over the whole 7 days.