Which are your favorite London Walks tours?
 

We will be in London for a couple of weeks in September and would like to take a few London Walks tours. Which ones are your favorites and are there any we should avoid?

In the summer of 2008, my daughter and I did the Harry Potter tour and it was just OK. There were sooo many people that it was hard to hear the guide and keep up. Many of the stopping points were in narrow alleys and it was impossible for everyone to fit, so several people didn't get to hear the narrative at all. My husband did a walking tour of pubs around the Sloane Square area and he wasn't very impressed either. They only visited a few pubs and the guide didn't have much to say about any of them. And, at the last pub, the guide just left the group to find their own way home/back to the tube station.

The best tours we took while in Europe were through the Context Travel tour company (http://www.contexttravel.com/home/). They are much more expensive, but we thought they were worth it. We did a context tour in Venice and in Rome, and wish we would have done Context tours in Paris and London as well.

I went it May, with the paln of doing lots of walking topurs, and I did. If you are going to do several, buy the Discount walkabout Card for 2£. This lowers to 7£ cost for a tour down to 5£ for every proceeding tour.

I did both the Hampstead and Hampstead Pub tour. I liked that area, an area of calm in the city.

The British Museum one I might not do again, I expected a bit more interior time, but it was OK for the history and neighbourhood.

I liked the St Paul's one. Good history. They don't take you up to the Whispering gallery, but you could do it on your own.

Highgate tour was OK. Not a lot to see, I should have gone to cemetary after tour. This was the one tour where I got lost. They do not finish at a Tube station and my memory was a bit weak backtracking :)

Old Palaces and Quarters was good. As a bonus the tour is timed such that you see the guards marching away form Buck palace..no crowds, and you are 2' away from them.

I will check my notes for more...

This is embarassing but I like the ones most people would consider cheesy. I liked Jack the Ripper and the haunted tours.

On the less cheesy side I enjoyed the Dickens tour. I also liked the tour of Westminster Abbey, mainly because you can jump past the lines.

I really liked the st pauls tour and westminster abbey tour. In Westminster Abbey they split out the group into two smaller groups so it wasnt too big at all.

I am also a big fan of their Explorer Days and highly recommend their Stonehenge/Salisbury tour, their Bath tour, their Canterbury tour and their Cotswolds tour.

Enjoy!

bookmarking

My son and I did three London Walks tours this past June. All had the potential to be great tours but all were over-booked. Well, as jamikins said, the Westminster Abbey one was split into two (which they have to do because the Abbey doesn't allow groups of more than 25) but the Abbey itself was jammed. I hope that you'll have a much better experience in September when the crowds shouldn't be as bad.

We did the Beatles Magical Mystery one. I wouldn't suggest doing it unless you're a true Beatles fan. But it was fun and interesting. I can't remember how many people were on the tour, but I know it was enough to make it somewhat unwieldy.

And we did the Westminster by Gaslight. We wound up getting the same woman who'd done our Westminster Abbey tour which made for some repetition. But the real problem was that there were <i>waaay</i> too many people on the tour, well over 50. However, another Fodor's poster, jent103, took the same tour two weeks earlier and had a much better experience with a much smaller group.

I think London Walks are great and will definitely do more if I'm lucky enough to get back to London at a different time of year. But I really think they need to try to find a way to keep their groups from becoming so large.

Thanks for your suggestions. Anyone else?

Wow 50 people that is a lot! I've never had that experience and we do a lot of them as we live here. We did the Jack the Ripper tour with some guests in Oct and they also split the group into manageable groups.

I have done the Legal & Illegal London walk that takes you through the Inns of Court and the Shakespeare & Dickens one that takes you to sights that existed at their times. Both were quite enjoyable and not too large. We usually go in late September or early October.

Several years back we did the Jack the Ripper walk and it was great.

The guide's name is Donald Rumbelow. He carried around a small crate and whenever he stopped he got on the crate so people could see/hear him.

He was excellent.

He must have had 100 people following while competing tours had about a dozen.

"<i>Several years back we did the Jack the Ripper walk and it was great.

The guide's name is Donald Rumbelow. He carried around a small crate and whenever he stopped he got on the crate so people could see/hear him.

He was excellent.

He must have had 100 people following while competing tours had about a dozen.</i>"

I'd guess that was more than "several" years ago.

'The Donald' has turned the LW Jack the Ripper tour into a sort of 1 man cottage industry. PLEASE avoid it. The tour gets waaaaaay too many people and there is not one original site still in existence. And trust me, the people who live and work in that neighborhood really REALLY hate the Donald and those who follow him around.

I'd also avoid the Beatles tours - not much to see.

I mostly enjoy the more obscure ones - The Old Jewish Quarter, Hampstead Village, those sorts.

I'd personally skip LW tours of places that have their own, excellent on-site guides -- Westminster Abbey, St Paul's, the British Museum, etc.

Does anyone have opinions regarding LW tours for Stonehenge/Salisbury and Oxford/Blenheim? We'll be in London for a week and those are the two day-trips that we're most interested in and, as a neophyte to London, wonder if hand-holding might help?

Thanks in advance,

Sam

My daughter and I liked the Along the Thames Pub Tour. The tour goes backward in time, from a modern riverside pub to the George Inn, one of the oldest pubs in London. And of course you get to sample the British ale along the way!

I took the London Walks tour to Eton & Windsor several years ago and thought it was well worth it. We met at a train station in London, trained together to Windsor, and walked the area between Eton & Windsor, as I recall. Very informative and an excellent day out of London.

I met a lady who was from my hometown and alone, so we stayed for evensong at the chapel near Windsor Castle and then had dinner in town taking the train back later. The train ticket for the tour allowed you to return at any time. Perfect.
During this same trip I took the Jack the Ripper tour but during the day. I can't say I was particularly impressed as the area is completely different now. Perhaps a night trip would have been better.

From either Steinbicker's Day Trips London or Rick Steves' London guide book, I walked a few routes. Since I'm a fan of the Poirot series on PBS, I had to head to the area where Poirot lived (in the movie) and see the apt bldg. Silly, I know, but it was fun. And, it was a very nice area.

Check out some guidebooks for London walks. You may enjoy a lot of them at no cost except for the tube ride.

Thanks, everyone, for your ideas.

My daughter really enjoyed the Beatles walk a few years ago. We had a good tour guide who knew lots of details and anecdotes, so that really helps. Then it ended up at Abbey Road, which she wanted to see badly (so much better than the Tower of London, she informed me at the time).

I`d say my favorite walks were the Oscar Wilde one, and the Spy Catchers one, both of which are done by (I believe) Alan.

Oh, another favorite is the Hampstead Heath walk, with the excellent guide David (I think he may be the founder of London Walks, but I`m not sure).

I recently took the Clerkenwell one as I was in the area. I think I know London well, but it showed me bits that I didn't know about. I'd have no hesitation in recommending it but it doesn't cover major sites.

"but it doesn't cover major sites"

To me, that's the beauty of London Walks, the chance to see and learn about things a tourist wouldn't normally see.