- Welcome to London.
Over the next (censored) minutes
I'm gonna give you 30 essential tips
that you need to know before you come here.
And if it's your first time visiting London
I have a special freebie for you
so make sure you watch to the end of the video to get it.
Okay, let's go.
(upbeat music)
(relaxing music)
Okay, let's start with the basics.
Despite being in Europe, we do not accept Euros here.
We use Great British Pounds.
So do not try to pay with Euros or American Dollars.
Only Pounds are accepted.
We have pretty unique sockets here
which take plugs that look like this.
So if you're coming from almost any foreign country
you're going to need an adapter to be able to
use your own device chargers in our sockets.
Cars drive on the left side of the road here
so be careful when you're crossing,
and in fact, you can look to the pavement
and it'll tell you which side of the road
you should look to before you cross.
The drinking age is 18 here in the UK,
but if you go out with your parents,
you can be 16 and have a drink.
Most places will not ask for ID to get in
but it's a good idea to have one just in case.
And especially if you think you might end up at a club.
(easygoing music)
Let's talk about money.
If somebody says a quid, that is slang for one pound.
And if somebody says a fiver, that means five pounds.
And if they say a tenner, that's 10 pounds.
Obviously.
Almost everywhere in London accepts credit and debit now,
and in fact loads of places are actually cashless.
So you could definitely get away
with exploring London with having little to no cash on you.
But if you do want cash,
exchange while you're back at home
or use one of the many cash machines
we have around the city.
A lot of them are free to use,
but your bank might charge you.
(easygoing music)
Let's talk about tipping.
If you go to a restaurant
and a server takes your order at the table,
you might notice on your bill
that an optional service charge of 12.5% is added onto it.
This is your tip.
If no service charge is added onto your bill
then you can give the staff 10 to 12%
if you're happy with the service
by asking your server to charge the additional amount
to your credit card or by leaving cash, of course.
If you go to a pub or a bar
and you order drinks or food even,
at the bar, you do not have to tip.
Of course you can if you want to.
No one's gonna say no to some free money
but it is definitely not expected.
(censored) Taxi, that would have been good.
Sir, can you just sit here (censored).
When taking a taxi, it's polite to add a tip
by rounding up to the nearest pound.
You can do this easily by paying directly
to the black cab driver
or in an app like Uber.
For basically anything else, tips are not expected.
Of course, if you wanna give some extra money
no one's gonna say no and it will be appreciated
but you're not expected to give anything
unless you do one of those free walking tours.
They live off of those tips, so for sure
you gotta tip on that one.
(easygoing music)
Let's talk about transportation.
The best app to figure out how to get
from point A to point B is Citymapper.
Google Maps also works well too,
but if you wanna know the cost
of each option for your journey
then Citymapper is the way to go.
It covers bus, train, bike, taxi, all options.
You don't have to use an oyster card
to pay for public transportation in London.
If you have a debit credit card that has
the contactless payment feature
or you have Apple Pay or Google Pay,
you can use any of those methods to pay for transport
in London.
If you wanna grab one of the iconic black cabs
like this one,
all you have to do is find one with the light on on the top
put out your hand and it should stop for you.
Otherwise, you can use an app called Gett
which works just like Uber, but only four black cabs.
The cost of a tube ride in London
depends on how many zones that you travel through
but there's a daily cap depending
on how many zones you travel through for the entire day.
If you stick to zones one and two
which covers Central London
the daily cap is 7.70 pounds.
Which means once you've taken 7.70 pounds
worth of rides on the tube,
then all the rest of your tube rides
and your bus rides actually are completely free.
So make the most of it.
If you wanna cycle around London
we have a couple of different options.
The most popular are our Santander bikes
which are our standard city bikes,
but there's also lots of electric bikes
that you can get around the city
which you can book through apps like Uber.
(easygoing music)
This, too much pressure.
This is a zebra crossing or a zebra crossing,
and if you see one of these,
it means you're crossing the street
that you can just walk because pedestrians have priority
and cars and traffic must stop for you.
That being said, definitely still check both ways
just in case they decide not to.
If you ever see a blue plaque
on the side of a building,
that means that something important
happened in that property.
For example, the one behind me says
that this was the home of John Logie Baird
who first demonstrated the first ever television
in this property in 1926.
These blue plaques are all over the city,
so if you see one
make sure you run over to read it
and see what happened in that place.
When you see street signs in London
you might notice there are numbers
and letters that are in red.
This is the post code of the area.
The letters stand for north, south, east, and west
or C stands for central,
and the number stands for how far away
from the centre of London
that area or that street is.
So behind us, this sign is WC2
which means West Central
and two is obviously very close to the centre of London.
Most intersections around the city
will have a pedestrian light telling you
if it's okay to go or not
but if it's safe while it's red, you're totally okay to go.
Just please be very careful.
Perfect. Cross, yes, risk takers.
If you see a station with this famous sign
that means it's a tube station.
But if you see one with this sign
it means that it's an overground train station
and one with this sign means it's a bus station.
(easygoing music)
Okay, let's talk about accommodation.
The area you choose to stay in will have an impact
on your trip,
and I have guides that tell you
about all of the areas of London.
But to give you a very top line overview,
Central London is most touristy.
West London is the fanciest.
East London is the most eclectic.
North London has the best outdoor stuff
and South London is the most underrated.
So make sure you know a bit
about the area that you're planning to stay in
before you book.
So glamorous.
In Piccadilly Circus.
Hostels are the cheapest, most sociable,
and probably least comfortable accommodation option
when it comes to London
but we have them all over the city and they're great
for anybody who wants to stay here on a budget
especially for solo travellers
because you can book just a bed in a dormitory style room.
Hotel prices can fluctuate here,
so if you see something that you like,
it's at a good price and there's flexible cancellation,
book it.
You can always cancel it
if you find something better,
but generally speaking,
prices go up and availability goes down
the longer that you wait to book a hotel here
so jump on it.
Of course, there are last minute deals we have
but why risk it?
When it comes to Airbnb in London,
I don't recommend it for many reasons,
which I outline in an article on my website,
which I've linked in the description box,
but the biggest ones are that it's negatively affecting
our housing market.
And also a lot of stuff can go wrong
if you book an Airbnb here.
And so we have tonnes of great apart hotel options,
which are great alternatives
and I have a very good list of them
which again is linked in the description box of the video.
Don't leave London if you're here for less than seven days.
It's gonna take you at least two to three days
if you wanna do loads of the touristy stuff
but you've only just scratched the surface
and there's so much more to explore in this city.
So don't be tempted to leave.
Stay here and explore more of it.
Now, if you want even more tips
for your first visit to London
then grab my free London 101 guide.
It has everything that you need to know before you come.
Just click the link in the description box
or in the corner, to get that completely for free.
But also, I have tonnes of other YouTube videos
about coming to London.
So watch one of those
by clicking the boxes popping up around me.
Good morning from London.
Nope, that was really weird.
(silly voice) Good morning from London.