Four days in
winter London
Most people go to London in summer. We went in February — a long weekend in the gray, cold, slightly damp version of the city — and we'd do it again tomorrow. London in winter is half the price, a third of the crowds, and arguably more itself: there's something about pub windows lit gold against a 4pm dusk, museums you can wander without sharing them, and theatre seats you can actually get.
This is the journal from four days in town, plus what we'd tell anyone considering a winter London trip.
The trip at a glance
- When
- Late February — cold (low 40s°F / single-digit °C) but not freezing, occasional rain
- Length
- 4 days, 3 nights
- Best for
- Museum lovers, theatre fans, food obsessives, anyone who enjoys a good pub more than a beach
- Spend
- From around $1,400/person all-in (flights, hotel, meals); much less if you're flexible on dates
The case for winter —
Three reasons we'll go back in winter rather than summer. Cost. Mid-week February is one of the cheapest times to visit London — flights, hotels, restaurants are all dramatically less than in peak summer. Crowds. The British Museum without the queues. The Tower of London where you can actually see the Crown Jewels. Westminster on a quiet morning. Atmosphere. London does cold weather better than almost any city — the pubs get warmer, the pies taste better, and the city's whole personality leans into it.
We sat in a pub in Bloomsbury for three hours. We had two pints. We were not asked once to give up our table. — Greg, on day two
What we did —
Day 1 (arrival): Walked from our hotel to Covent Garden, ate at the first pub that looked good, slept twelve hours.
Day 2: British Museum in the morning (the Egyptian galleries earn the headlines but the Enlightenment Gallery is the underrated one). Lunch at a tiny Italian place we couldn't find again on a map. National Gallery in Trafalgar Square in the afternoon. Theatre in the evening — booked same-day at a half-price ticket booth.
Day 3: Tower of London opens at 9am and you should be there at 8:50. The Crown Jewels are obviously the headline; the lesser-known section about the ravens is somehow our favorite memory of the trip. Walked across Tower Bridge for a photo, then spent the rest of the day in the Borough Market eating our way through small things on toothpicks.
Day 4: Westminster Abbey early. Hyde Park walk. A long lunch at a pub near Notting Hill. Heathrow.
See all 67 photos from this trip →
What we'd do differently —
1. Add a day. Four days felt right but five would feel better. Saving a day for a side-trip — a day in Bath, a day in Oxford — would round it out beautifully.
2. Pre-book one fancy dinner. Most of our meals were spontaneous and that's the right call. But London has some genuinely incredible restaurants and we should have planned one of them in advance.
3. Buy the Oyster card on day one. The Tube is your best friend in winter. Stop trying to walk everywhere when it's 38 degrees and starting to drizzle.
Want to plan your own? —
We can build a London trip around what you actually love — culture-heavy, food-heavy, theatre-heavy, family-friendly, or some combination. February is the bargain version; September and May are also wonderful and not crowded the way summer is.
Read the summer version: Four days in summer London (2025)