Here are some fun but non-obvious things that I enjoy in London. A lot of them are the kinds of activities that I’d suggest to a friend for meeting up, in that they provide a good backdrop for chitchat. Others work well as things to do in their own right. More ideas will be added when I remember or discover them!
Tourist-y suggestions
- My favourite - walking along the Southbank westwards from London Bridge towards Charing Cross
- You can take a detour via the City of London en route if you cross over the river in front of the Tate Modern
- Southbank Centre is excellent in its own right.
- End up at Soho/Chinatown and the West End.
- If Picadilly Circus does not have enough brash LED advertisements for you, continue along to the very strange Tottenham Court Road structure (which occasionally has nice art installations in it but seems to mostly be ads).
- Once you do this enough times to learn your way around everywhere it’s very satisfying! But also possibly time to choose a new route…
- Wandering around the City
- London Mithraeum
- Barbican and the high walk (here’s a nice piece about the history of all the elevated paths)
- Streets with amusing names e.g. “Poultry”, etc
- You can visit the Old Bailey! But you can’t bring in bags or even phones, so it’s something of a hassle. Was a cool experience though (I was surprised by the shabbiness of the courtrooms - felt more like run-down local government offices than the exterior would have you expect).
- Sky Garden
- You have to book (free) tickets in advance and I think they can be tricky to get, plus when I went there they had slightly irritating and slow security checks. But, the plants are very cool and the view out across London is excellent (though I haven’t been up the Shard or London Eye so can’t compare to those unfortunately).
- The prices for food and drinks there are extortionate.
- Crossrail Place
- Not as impressive plants (or view) as the Sky Garden but you can go in without any booking.
- Went on a walk from here to Greenwich Park once along the Thames path which was alright, though on the north side of the river a lot of it was through residential/light industrial estates.
- Wandering around Greenwich Park & Blackheath can be combined with the foot tunnel and cable car to go over the Thames and back again
- The view from by the observatory in Greenwich park is great.
- You have to pay for the cable car, £6 for adults at time of writing apparently.
- Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park often has an interesting exhibition on, the summer pavillion there gives you a good excuse to visit
- If you’re a “young person” (variously defined) there are some discount schemes to make use of:
- Free opera tickets at the ENO (though I’m not sure what’s going on with them moving out of London; go visit before it’s too late I guess?)
- Cheap tickets for films at the BFI on the Southbank (including at their film festival, which is cool)
- Similar thing at the Barbican including stuff that’s on in their cinema
- West End Live is very good fun, happens in late June each year
Places to do work
- Wellcome Collection
- Arrive by 11am and then you’ll usually be able to get a day pass, otherwise you might have to work in the beanbags & no desks area
- British Library
- Gets very busy with schoolchildren in public areas during the summer term, so it’s best to register and use one of the Reading Rooms
- Barbican
- Extremely fast WiFi, some plug sockets available, quite dark inside
- Southbank Centre
- Can be noisy
- EA / AIS spaces
Cool groups & communities
- [craft] a Socratica node (coworking club for side projects)
- Newspeak House mostly (post-)rationalists – weekly dinners and other events
- Future House with more progress-y & somewhat e/acc people
- Hard Problems seems interesting (“a non-profit that helps tech people to make the shift to working full-time on the world’s hard problems”), haven’t interacted with them though
Other activities
- Climbing
- Substation in Brixton is my favourite, costs £16 with shoe hire for a student off-peak
- Arch Climbing Wall at Surrey Quays and Bermondsey (the latter is bigger)
- have been recommended The Castle
- Somerset House ice skating (over Christmas)
- Puttshack crazy golf on Poultry (you can watch all the City employees for after-work entertainment if you’re there on a weekday)
- Board games
- Draughts Waterloo is good, food expensive though.
- Otter Chaos in Brixton is another tucked under railway arches (lots smaller than Draughts), really friendly & helpful staff to teach you how to play
Recommendations on my to-try list
- Vortex jazz club