Experiencing London Like a Local
00:00:00.000 | We have for Love in London, we sell a three-day itinerary, that's our most popular thing.
00:00:05.200 | And we also have a six-day one, which has actually been really popular as well because
00:00:09.220 | most of my audience are people who are coming from the US, so they are coming for usually
00:00:13.240 | more than three days.
00:00:15.360 | But a week is a great amount of time.
00:00:17.000 | And I usually say, if you want to do day trips, I usually recommend not doing them if you
00:00:22.240 | have less than a week because there's just so much you can do in London.
00:00:26.840 | And again, if you're still feeling a bit jet lagged and you've come to London, you've been
00:00:32.440 | running, running, running for the first few days, and then you have to hop on a train
00:00:35.320 | one day and head out to Bath or Oxford or wherever you want to go, that's great.
00:00:40.800 | But also you might want to just slow it down a little bit, in my opinion.
00:00:44.280 | I'm always trying to get people to just be like, "Okay, there's a lot to do and you can't
00:00:48.200 | do it all.
00:00:49.200 | So let's try to slow down and leave some room for if you see a shop that you want to go
00:00:53.240 | into and spend an hour in, or you run past a cafe and you're like, "Let's just sit for
00:00:57.520 | an hour and have a nice coffee and just relax," then you can do that.
00:01:01.560 | Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life,
00:01:05.280 | money and travel.
00:01:06.280 | If you're new here, I'm your host, Chris Hutchins, and one of the areas I love optimizing the
00:01:10.200 | most is travel.
00:01:11.200 | I've been to 60 plus countries and on every trip, I love meeting locals, trying to understand
00:01:15.840 | their culture, having authentic experiences.
00:01:18.480 | And most of all, I love finding a way to eat all the best foods a place has to offer.
00:01:22.280 | So I thought it'd be fun to introduce a new type of episode where I bring in a local expert
00:01:26.920 | in another country to share all the hacks for visiting their city.
00:01:30.760 | I was originally going to start with Japan because it just opened, I have the perfect
00:01:34.080 | person in mind, and it's probably my favorite travel destination in the world.
00:01:37.780 | But that episode will be next because after my episode with Bill Perkins, which is amazing
00:01:42.720 | if you haven't checked it out, I started talking with Amy about how we could start optimizing
00:01:46.560 | for more net fulfillment in our lives.
00:01:48.800 | And so we actually decided to book a last minute trip to London on less than two weeks
00:01:52.560 | notice and ended up getting a ridiculous deal with points, which I will talk about at the
00:01:56.520 | end of this episode.
00:01:57.840 | So with a trip to London on the horizon, I reached out to Jessica Dante, who not only
00:02:02.240 | has been living there for almost a decade, but runs the Love in London YouTube channel,
00:02:06.480 | which has over 20 million views, and she knows so much about London.
00:02:10.480 | We're going to get into why you should visit, what you should do, what mistakes to avoid,
00:02:14.160 | and get all of Jess' secret spots to visit to have an incredible trip.
00:02:18.820 | So let's get into it right after this.
00:02:24.240 | Jess, thank you for joining the first travel destination episode of All The Hacks.
00:02:30.800 | Amazing.
00:02:31.800 | Thanks for having me.
00:02:33.000 | Really happy that London is the first.
00:02:34.720 | I'm not going to lie.
00:02:35.720 | I think I'm a little biased, but I think it's maybe the best in my opinion, but you know.
00:02:40.520 | Well, it's not just you.
00:02:42.080 | So someone shared me this list from afar, the website and magazine afar, there was the
00:02:46.400 | 10 best cities and London was number one.
00:02:49.840 | And there was another study that residents did on the best cities and in London was number
00:02:55.560 | one.
00:02:56.560 | It just came out also for 2023.
00:02:57.560 | And then I looked at travel and leisure's best destinations for 2023 and London's on
00:03:01.600 | that list.
00:03:02.600 | So I was like, "Wow.
00:03:03.600 | So London's the number one city."
00:03:05.560 | It wasn't even just to live or to travel.
00:03:08.320 | It was just the number one city on two lists.
00:03:10.920 | So I think I want to ask you, why do you love London?
00:03:14.700 | What is it about London that makes it such an amazing city?
00:03:17.120 | Oh my gosh.
00:03:18.120 | Well, there's so many things, but I think a couple of the top things are, I love how
00:03:23.600 | diverse that the city is.
00:03:25.660 | So that goes from the people that live here to the architecture, to the types of cuisines
00:03:31.980 | that you can try here.
00:03:34.040 | You just meet so many different people with so many different backgrounds.
00:03:38.080 | You can eat so much amazing food and you can experience so many different things, no matter
00:03:43.940 | what your interest is or what your budget is.
00:03:48.080 | There's just basically something for everyone, whether you live here or you just come to
00:03:53.720 | visit.
00:03:54.720 | So I love that.
00:03:55.720 | And as someone who works telling people what to do in London, I don't want to ever get
00:04:01.480 | bored and I never will because there's so much to experience and it's always changing
00:04:07.200 | too.
00:04:08.200 | So I'm going to be here for like 30 years and there's still going to be more for me
00:04:10.400 | to check out.
00:04:11.400 | And I'll be like, "I haven't been there yet.
00:04:12.400 | I got to go check that out and see if it's good or not."
00:04:14.880 | Is there something that sets it apart from other major metros that of course have diversity,
00:04:20.360 | have lots of restaurants, have lots of things to do?
00:04:23.120 | Yeah.
00:04:24.120 | So I think London is a really interesting in-between, in my opinion, of New York and
00:04:30.640 | the rest of Europe.
00:04:33.760 | So I'm originally from New York.
00:04:35.520 | I'm from Long Island, but I've spent time in New York, obviously, I have friends who
00:04:38.880 | live there.
00:04:39.880 | And New York City is go, go, go, right?
00:04:41.600 | Which I love.
00:04:42.600 | I love that energy and it's really intense.
00:04:47.520 | And then very generally speaking, a lot of parts of mainland Europe are a lot more relaxed,
00:04:53.040 | right?
00:04:54.040 | When it comes to working culture, basically all of the culture, it's seen as like a lot
00:04:59.520 | more relaxed and liberal, whereas London's kind of like in the middle.
00:05:03.280 | So it's a really good balance for me.
00:05:05.240 | And I think a couple of good examples of that is our work-life balance is better here.
00:05:10.240 | So people are a bit better than say New York about actually leaving work at six o'clock,
00:05:17.240 | mainly because people want to get to the pub, which I'm totally down for.
00:05:20.880 | I think that's a great motivation, if that's your motivation.
00:05:24.760 | And yeah.
00:05:25.760 | And I think something that's also really unique about London that as someone who lives here,
00:05:30.160 | I really feel is like super important is that we have so much green space here.
00:05:35.360 | So compared to my time in New York and other major cities, London's really spread out and
00:05:41.200 | you're really actually never that far from a beautiful public, free green space that
00:05:46.080 | you can enjoy.
00:05:47.120 | And I think that works actually for tourists as well.
00:05:49.520 | And it's one of the beautiful things you can experience when you come to visit London,
00:05:52.760 | too.
00:05:53.760 | So we have green spaces.
00:05:54.760 | We have gone to a pub.
00:05:55.760 | Are there other few other like top London experiences for you?
00:05:58.960 | Not for anyone else, just for you.
00:06:00.120 | I love Sunday roast.
00:06:01.400 | Do you know what Sunday roast is?
00:06:03.320 | OK, so it's a British tradition of obviously it happens on Sundays where you go to the
00:06:09.240 | pub and they on the menu only on Sundays.
00:06:13.080 | They have this special roast menu and you choose from different types of meat.
00:06:17.960 | So it's usually chicken, pork, beef and sometimes a couple other ones or loads of places do
00:06:23.840 | vegetarian, which is where I usually go for and also vegan.
00:06:27.560 | And then basically from the Americans, I always kind of equate it to they bring this plate
00:06:32.740 | out and it's not dissimilar to Thanksgiving food.
00:06:35.920 | So it's kind of like you can have Thanksgiving like every Sunday.
00:06:39.840 | It's a plate that has roast vegetables on it.
00:06:43.520 | There's really good potatoes.
00:06:45.040 | They do gravy.
00:06:46.680 | There's this kind of like a pastry that's called Yorkshire pudding, which is like so
00:06:52.180 | yummy and you use that to soak up the gravy and sometimes there's cauliflower cheese.
00:06:58.000 | And it's just like a really nice tradition where you gather up your family or you gather
00:07:01.960 | up your friends and you're like, let's go for a Sunday roast.
00:07:04.120 | You just go to the local pub and sit and you eat Sunday roast.
00:07:08.720 | And if you want to have a pint of beer, you can do that, too.
00:07:11.480 | So I like that's one of my favorite things I always tell people to make sure you get
00:07:15.040 | to a pub on a Sunday and experience that.
00:07:17.640 | What sounds like one thing that is uniquely London is that the pub is something that you
00:07:21.560 | could do with your family.
00:07:22.560 | I'm like I'm thinking as someone flying over overseas with a two year old and a six month
00:07:27.520 | old, I'm like, oh, you know, we're not really going to have the same trip we used to.
00:07:30.600 | It sounds like in London I could just go to the pub with my kids and we could have a beer.
00:07:34.120 | You can.
00:07:35.120 | Yeah.
00:07:36.120 | So pubs are really they're very family friendly, especially on the weekends and especially
00:07:40.600 | in the areas not they're not as friendly in very central London.
00:07:44.600 | So around like the really main touristy areas.
00:07:47.340 | But for example, one of my favorite areas that I tell people to go to for pub experience
00:07:51.580 | is Notting Hill.
00:07:53.140 | And you'll always on a weekend go to the pubs in Notting Hill and see families there and
00:07:58.100 | they've got little kids, they've got teenagers and it's like a family thing.
00:08:02.500 | Sometimes it's big groups of families that will go and it's very normal.
00:08:06.840 | They cater to kids.
00:08:08.300 | So it's like nothing out of the ordinary.
00:08:11.120 | And it's a really nice daytime weekend experience for families.
00:08:15.060 | Awesome.
00:08:16.100 | So while I'm actually planning a trip to London, though, we've already booked flights and where
00:08:20.180 | we're staying.
00:08:21.180 | I'm going to assume most people aren't.
00:08:22.180 | So I want to start this and just talk about all the awesome things there are to do, get
00:08:26.160 | people excited.
00:08:27.420 | And then at the end, we can wrap up and talk about things like hotels, flights, transportation,
00:08:31.740 | that kind of stuff.
00:08:32.740 | What's the vibe of people in London?
00:08:34.580 | Is it easy to meet people?
00:08:35.620 | Are they friendly?
00:08:36.740 | What should we know about Londoners?
00:08:38.500 | So Londoners are very nice, but we're a little bit more closed off when it comes to meeting
00:08:46.820 | "outsiders" only because I think it comes from that everyone's just really busy and
00:08:55.520 | we just – the British are just a tiny bit more closed off than compared to the Americans,
00:09:00.060 | which everyone's a little bit more closed off that I think compared to us Americans.
00:09:03.660 | Right?
00:09:04.660 | So that's not a hard feat.
00:09:06.700 | That being said, if you do end up talking to somebody who lives in London, generally
00:09:13.240 | they will be very nice and if you, for example, need help on the street and you can't figure
00:09:18.060 | out where the tube station is, you can stop somebody and they'll be like, "Yeah, yeah.
00:09:21.380 | No worries.
00:09:22.380 | It's just down that way," or they might even walk you.
00:09:25.660 | But it is a little bit harder to meet people.
00:09:29.340 | That does change, though, when alcohol is involved.
00:09:31.780 | It's much easier to make friends when everyone's had a couple of pints.
00:09:37.900 | Is there a type of person you think a trip to London is best for?
00:09:41.120 | Is it young, old, single kids?
00:09:45.420 | I don't – I mean, I don't think so because there is so much that you can do here.
00:09:51.740 | I think that everyone's basically covered.
00:09:56.420 | I think people that come with kids, maybe it's a little bit harder because if you're
00:10:01.600 | trying to use public transportation, it is trickier if you've got like a lot of stuff
00:10:06.940 | that you're carrying or if you've got strollers.
00:10:09.780 | That is tricky because a lot of the tube stations don't have steps or they do have steps and
00:10:14.940 | they don't have escalators or elevators.
00:10:19.140 | So that's tricky.
00:10:20.420 | That being said, though, if you're staying pretty central and you've got kids, a lot
00:10:23.540 | of people end up just walking everywhere.
00:10:25.500 | So maybe they'll do like an hour walk to get to the first area that they want to go explore.
00:10:30.540 | So it is doable.
00:10:31.540 | I mean, you save money doing that too.
00:10:33.980 | But there is kind of something for everyone and then you just kind of have to adjust based
00:10:39.060 | on your needs and your budget.
00:10:40.700 | Yeah.
00:10:41.700 | For that one, we just bought a super compact light stroller that's like one click pop on
00:10:46.820 | your shoulder, carry a kid down the stairs.
00:10:49.220 | So we are prepared for running around the city.
00:10:52.780 | We don't have one of these giant American bus strollers with us for this trip.
00:10:57.260 | Is there a best time?
00:10:59.020 | And by all means, if I pick anything, if I tell you I'm staying somewhere and you're
00:11:02.820 | like, that's the worst place to stay or that's the worst time of year to go.
00:11:05.660 | Don't feel bad about offending me like this is for everyone else.
00:11:09.100 | But yeah, when would you say someone should plan their trip?
00:11:12.540 | A lot of it will depend on what your budget is.
00:11:15.140 | So and again, it's not not to be like that every time of year is great to go.
00:11:20.180 | But actually, the beauty of London is that there's always going to be a pro of a time
00:11:24.380 | that you're going to visit and there's going to be a con.
00:11:26.600 | So for example, you guys are coming in very soon.
00:11:30.600 | So that will be middle to end of December.
00:11:32.980 | The pro is it's so festive here.
00:11:35.500 | It is incredibly beautiful.
00:11:37.500 | There's so many fun Christmasy things to do if that's what you're into.
00:11:41.260 | There's also like lots of ice skating rinks and there's great shopping.
00:11:46.500 | The downside of that is that it is cold, of course, and also it is very crowded.
00:11:51.480 | So like what you guys probably are going to want to do is if you want to do some of the
00:11:55.140 | major things like the free museums, like the Natural History Museum, for sure, you'll want
00:12:00.560 | to avoid weekends because it is right now just like absolutely rammed with people who
00:12:05.340 | come from outside of London, take the train in and take the kids to go do everything.
00:12:10.260 | So every time of year has a pro and con.
00:12:12.580 | If you come in January, it's really, really cold, but it's also the quietest time and
00:12:16.220 | also the cheapest time.
00:12:17.800 | If you come in the summer, you're hopefully, fingers crossed, going to get the best weather.
00:12:22.660 | You're also going to get the most sunlight because it stays light till almost 10 o'clock,
00:12:25.980 | which is really cool.
00:12:27.740 | But also the prices are highest because it's peak travel season.
00:12:30.620 | And again, you're going to see those crowds.
00:12:32.420 | And if you get a heat wave, we don't deal with heat waves very well here.
00:12:36.240 | A lot of places do not have air cons.
00:12:38.340 | So if that's something that like you're considering that would be really tricky for you, then
00:12:42.420 | that's probably not going to be a good time for you to come.
00:12:45.100 | And then shoulder seasons are always great because they've got kind of the mix of the
00:12:49.580 | peak and the downtime.
00:12:50.860 | So, yeah.
00:12:51.860 | So if you want to deal, avoid the summer, I would say avoid Christmas, New Year's kind
00:12:57.620 | of holidays.
00:12:58.620 | But we're going like the two weeks before that.
00:13:00.940 | And we got amazing deals because I think no one wants to.
00:13:04.680 | Everyone's traveling in the States for Thanksgiving.
00:13:06.620 | Everyone's traveling around Christmas, New Year's.
00:13:08.800 | No one's really traveling the first few weeks of December.
00:13:10.980 | So I think it's a great deal time.
00:13:14.260 | We'll see how the weekends, how we fare on the weekends.
00:13:16.780 | Maybe those are our park days to just kind of let the kids run wild.
00:13:19.500 | But yeah, I have a friend who always was like, you know what, you can go to any city for
00:13:23.180 | any amount of time.
00:13:24.180 | Is it crazy if you live in New York and it's seven hours to go for the weekend?
00:13:28.340 | Like is it crazy to go for a week, two weeks?
00:13:31.100 | At what point in time do you say maybe if you're going that long, check out some other
00:13:35.260 | place for a few days?
00:13:36.700 | You can do a weekend.
00:13:37.700 | So when I first moved over here and I was working at a travel company, this travel company
00:13:42.140 | was selling to the British crowd these three day trips to New York.
00:13:48.500 | And I was like, that is absurd.
00:13:50.300 | Who would fly all the way to New York for three days?
00:13:52.380 | But I mean, it is doable.
00:13:53.860 | It's actually not that far if you really think about it.
00:13:56.560 | But it is quite a journey, right?
00:13:57.780 | So I usually say at least a week is a really good amount of time because you can really
00:14:05.140 | dig into some of the areas, not just like the main tourist attractions, but you can
00:14:11.380 | also give yourself time and you don't have to feel like you're rushing around because
00:14:15.900 | you have three days to see whether it's all the main tourist attractions, or if there's
00:14:20.700 | like you want to see Shoreditch and you want to do Notting Hill, but those are really far
00:14:24.740 | apart.
00:14:25.740 | So you're probably not going to do those in the same day.
00:14:27.700 | Just gives you some time to take your time and also be a little bit more spontaneous.
00:14:35.260 | We have for Love in London, we sell a three day itinerary.
00:14:39.020 | That's our most popular thing.
00:14:40.140 | And we also have a six day one, which has actually been really popular as well because
00:14:44.180 | most of my audience are people who are coming from the US.
00:14:46.900 | So they are coming for usually more than three days, but a week is a great amount of time.
00:14:51.960 | And I usually say if you want to do day trips, I usually recommend not doing them if you
00:14:57.100 | have less than a week because there's just so much you can do in London.
00:15:01.820 | And again, if you're still feeling a bit jet lagged and you've come to London, you've been
00:15:07.380 | running, running, running for the first few days, and then you have to hop on a train
00:15:10.300 | one day and head out to Bath or Oxford or wherever you want to go, that's great.
00:15:15.780 | But also you might want to just slow it down a little bit.
00:15:18.820 | In my opinion, I'm always trying to get people to just be like, OK, there's a lot to do.
00:15:22.500 | So and you can't do it all.
00:15:23.740 | So let's try to like slow down and leave some room for if you see a shop that you want to
00:15:28.140 | go into and spend an hour in or you run past a cafe and you're like, let's just sit for
00:15:32.500 | an hour and have a nice coffee and just relax and you can do that.
00:15:36.380 | So we're going for, I think, six days.
00:15:39.140 | We're not going anywhere else.
00:15:40.420 | Our style of travel, though, to be clear, we haven't actually done this with kids is
00:15:44.460 | much more like I want to get the experience of like being in London, living in London.
00:15:49.200 | So if we miss some of the tourist destinations, that's fine.
00:15:52.060 | Like London is so central to so many European trips that I'm sure we'll be back in the future.
00:15:57.700 | So I think we're trying to go on the kind of trip you describe.
00:16:01.020 | And I went through one of those itineraries you made and I was like, this is exactly what
00:16:04.740 | I want.
00:16:05.740 | I would say maybe I was like, we have two kids.
00:16:06.740 | It's probably a little over overkill for two kid trip.
00:16:10.060 | But some of those things we'll just we'll just skip.
00:16:13.340 | We talked about the people, but what's the style like?
00:16:16.180 | You know, what is a typical London style?
00:16:18.540 | What are people wearing?
00:16:19.540 | What are people?
00:16:20.540 | How do people?
00:16:21.540 | Yeah, you know.
00:16:22.540 | So I it's funny because people ask me that.
00:16:24.840 | And like a few years ago, I used to kind of have an as like a specific idea.
00:16:29.660 | And now because of how fashion is, it actually depends on what area that you're in in London
00:16:34.900 | and what kind of place that you're in, what type of restaurant people in London have,
00:16:41.020 | like a really big range of style.
00:16:43.860 | We do have a lot of people who work in fashion here.
00:16:48.060 | And so there's a lot of people who dress quite trendy.
00:16:50.420 | There's a lot of people who dress very classic.
00:16:52.660 | So, you know, the usual like trench coat, kind of what you would expect.
00:16:58.460 | So the nice thing is you can kind of wear what you are comfortable in.
00:17:03.740 | I would usually say, though, and again, if we're speaking to the American audience, that
00:17:08.220 | generally in London, people are a little bit more dressed up than people tend to be in
00:17:14.900 | the US.
00:17:15.900 | So if you tend to be like really casual when you go out to eat and you're going to a nice
00:17:19.520 | place when you come to London, you're probably going to want to like just judge it up just
00:17:23.140 | a little bit like and just to feel like you're going to kind of like fit in a little bit
00:17:28.460 | more.
00:17:29.460 | But like I said, it's a major city and you're never you're not going to be like reprimanded
00:17:33.800 | for what you're wearing.
00:17:35.340 | No one's going to like poke fun at you or anything like that.
00:17:38.540 | It's like everyone's too worried about themselves, to be honest.
00:17:41.820 | So you're totally fine.
00:17:43.820 | Yeah, it's it's a really interesting mix.
00:17:46.260 | And actually, like if you go to East London, the style is very, very different.
00:17:49.900 | East London is very trendy.
00:17:52.220 | A lot of artists live around and work around there.
00:17:54.740 | So and then if you go to West London, like to Notting Hill, that's where you'll find
00:17:59.460 | more of like the classic looks.
00:18:02.300 | But then there's also mixes of both in those.
00:18:04.180 | So it's really quite interesting.
00:18:06.220 | What about food?
00:18:07.220 | Is it is it is London, you know, you said there's lots of cuisines for all the world.
00:18:10.560 | But would you say London's like a foodie town for drinks?
00:18:13.620 | Is it like there's pubs?
00:18:14.860 | So is it more of a beer crowd?
00:18:16.380 | You know, California seems like it's more wine and now cocktails in the city.
00:18:20.460 | Yeah.
00:18:21.460 | So everything all of the above.
00:18:22.800 | So London's amazing of just you can just you can try any cuisine here from all over the
00:18:27.760 | world, which I think is something I do see that's a little bit of a mistake from tourists
00:18:32.140 | sometimes is that you come to London and you only just want to have British food, which
00:18:38.020 | I'm not saying don't have British food, like have try fish and chips, bangers and mash,
00:18:43.200 | the pie, like totally do that if that's what you want to do.
00:18:46.840 | But there's also so many different cuisines that especially if like if you don't think
00:18:52.480 | you're ever going to get to Malaysia, why don't you try like Malaysian food or Sri
00:18:56.120 | Lankan food?
00:18:57.400 | And you can really expand your palate and try cuisines that you might not ever get to
00:19:02.520 | try again if you're never going to go to like a major metropolitan city.
00:19:06.040 | So we have a huge foodie scene here.
00:19:09.840 | Same with drinks.
00:19:10.840 | So pubs are huge, but also cocktail bars.
00:19:13.600 | We've got great wine bars.
00:19:16.400 | There's drinking for the lower end of the budget and just like rowdy, like more fun
00:19:22.080 | younger crowds.
00:19:23.320 | Then there's also really fancy speakeasies and really like exclusive cocktail bars.
00:19:30.700 | Anything you can want.
00:19:31.760 | We've got it here.
00:19:32.760 | So again, like this is what's so cool about London is that anything that you want, you're
00:19:37.760 | going to be able to find it.
00:19:38.880 | You just kind of have to like do a little sifting.
00:19:42.000 | So we're going to get into a lot of these things and I want some real recommendations.
00:19:45.200 | What you said a mistake is eating just British food.
00:19:47.480 | I feel like British food has a pretty terrible reputation.
00:19:50.080 | So I'm like, man, if you're if that's what you're coming to London for, you're probably
00:19:53.440 | doing it wrong.
00:19:54.760 | What other mistakes are people making when they're coming to London?
00:19:57.160 | Well, I am going to caveat that what you just said, actually.
00:19:59.640 | So British food has gotten much better.
00:20:02.400 | So you can do really well.
00:20:05.000 | And if you do want to have British food, I always say the best place is at pubs because
00:20:08.240 | most pubs will have restaurant sections and they'll have like classic pub menus or they'll
00:20:14.800 | do they'll be more of like a gastropub and do a modern take on similar British dishes.
00:20:20.000 | So it is good.
00:20:21.200 | But yeah, I just wanted to throw that in there.
00:20:23.920 | But I think it is definitely the type of food that you'll get sick of after like eating
00:20:27.840 | it three times in a row.
00:20:28.920 | So for sure.
00:20:29.920 | Yeah.
00:20:30.920 | And I think I watched a few of your videos and one of them was like, if it says it's
00:20:35.280 | like truly authentic pub, just like run away.
00:20:39.080 | Yeah, exactly.
00:20:40.080 | It's one of those things like if you have to say it, you probably aren't.
00:20:44.000 | So I do forget what your original question was.
00:20:48.400 | Other mistakes.
00:20:49.400 | Oh, yeah.
00:20:51.160 | So something that I have been seeing with tourists recently is there's a lot of content
00:20:56.980 | around when you use public transportation here that you have to get an Oyster card,
00:21:02.160 | which I used to always talk about this.
00:21:04.080 | So a lot of people are seeing some of my old videos.
00:21:06.880 | An Oyster card is basically something that you can buy once you get here, where you add
00:21:11.520 | your money to it and you use it to tap in and out for the underground system or to use
00:21:16.440 | the buses.
00:21:17.440 | But then you have to keep topping it up.
00:21:19.520 | You also have to pay seven pounds for each of the cards and it's non-refundable.
00:21:24.560 | So instead, I'm just trying to tell people you can actually use Apple Pay or Google Pay
00:21:29.560 | and you don't have to worry about doing the top up.
00:21:31.480 | And also, if you have any credit or debit cards that are contactless, you can use those
00:21:35.240 | too.
00:21:36.240 | You don't have to use your credit card.
00:21:37.240 | You don't have to wait in the queue to top it up at the station every time you run out
00:21:40.400 | of credit.
00:21:41.400 | So that's something I see quite a lot.
00:21:44.680 | I also see a lot of people who think that you have to spend a ton of money on their
00:21:51.720 | hotel to make sure that they're in a safe area or they're just at a safe property.
00:21:58.200 | And they end up sticking to, let's say, some of the big U.S. corporate brands, which is
00:22:03.580 | fine.
00:22:04.580 | That's fine.
00:22:05.580 | That's fine and stuff.
00:22:06.580 | So a lot of people are trying to stick to the Marriotts and this and that, blah, blah,
00:22:09.480 | blah.
00:22:10.480 | That's completely fine.
00:22:11.720 | But we have so many amazing, safe boutique hotel properties that are so beautiful and
00:22:18.720 | interesting and they're small.
00:22:20.600 | And they're in great areas too, even if they're not in very central London.
00:22:23.960 | So I would say don't ever discount something that looks like it's a good deal if it just
00:22:29.640 | doesn't seem like it's something that's a name that's recognizable to you or it's in
00:22:34.040 | an area that you don't necessarily recognize as Covent Garden or Soho right in the center
00:22:38.920 | of London.
00:22:40.320 | So yeah, you could end up in a really amazing hotel and also in a cool area.
00:22:44.680 | Is there a good rating site in the UK that's like, "Oh, I'm looking at this hotel.
00:22:49.660 | Is it good?"
00:22:50.660 | I don't personally put a lot of faith in TripAdvisor.
00:22:55.520 | And so I'm curious, whether it's restaurants or hotels, is there a thing?
00:22:59.880 | So for hotels, I personally use Booking.com.
00:23:03.200 | I find that the ratings generally are on point.
00:23:06.480 | And then obviously, you can just book right through Booking.com.
00:23:08.400 | So it's really easy.
00:23:09.400 | I use that.
00:23:10.400 | I don't really use TripAdvisor for anything actually anymore.
00:23:13.880 | And then in terms of food, so we don't have like a Yelp here.
00:23:20.160 | And TripAdvisor is generally tourists.
00:23:24.040 | So I would say if you're looking for like what locals think about food or a bar or something
00:23:31.760 | like that, probably like Google Reviews, which you never really know.
00:23:35.960 | But I think that's where most Londoners would go if they're looking for reviews in a style
00:23:42.760 | that's a site like that with like actual reviews from people.
00:23:46.240 | Otherwise, we have websites like The Infatuation is really big here, Time Out, Love & London.
00:23:53.560 | I don't know if you heard of it, but we talk about food and drink and all the things, of
00:23:59.160 | course.
00:24:00.160 | Yeah.
00:24:01.160 | So you briefly said something about safety.
00:24:03.760 | Like, is there dangerous parts of London?
00:24:06.200 | Should people be concerned at all?
00:24:07.760 | I feel like I had this one realization where I was reading this Lonely Planet book for
00:24:12.920 | New York for fun.
00:24:13.920 | I think someone we knew was traveling around the States and it was like, New York, make
00:24:17.280 | sure you get a money belt and you put all of your money in your money belt and tuck
00:24:20.280 | it in your pants.
00:24:21.280 | And I was like, I've been to New York dozens of times.
00:24:24.600 | It's never crossed my mind.
00:24:25.600 | I've lived there.
00:24:26.600 | Never been a thing.
00:24:28.200 | Is everyone just always kind of scaring people?
00:24:30.160 | So what's the lowdown there?
00:24:31.840 | Are there places to avoid?
00:24:33.160 | Are there times a day to avoid?
00:24:35.780 | Is the tube rampant with pickpockets?
00:24:38.740 | There are areas in London that are, relatively speaking, not safe, but they're never where
00:24:44.200 | tourists are going to end up.
00:24:45.880 | So I always say, don't worry about the area.
00:24:48.880 | It's never a place that you would ever go.
00:24:50.920 | So it doesn't have anything that you would want to go to anyway.
00:24:55.600 | So areas are completely fine.
00:24:58.680 | In terms of pickpockets and things like that, just like you would in any other city, just
00:25:03.760 | keep your stuff close to you.
00:25:05.320 | Don't have your phone waving around.
00:25:06.800 | We do have a little bit of a problem at the moment of mopeds going by and grabbing phones
00:25:12.840 | out of hands.
00:25:13.880 | So that's really the main thing, but otherwise, just the same rules you would apply to any
00:25:18.400 | major city.
00:25:19.880 | Don't have your pockets open.
00:25:21.400 | Don't have anything in the back pocket where people can easily take it from you.
00:25:25.960 | Keep everything zipped up, everything close to you.
00:25:28.400 | Don't have any valuables out in plain sight.
00:25:31.720 | But millions of people run around the city every day and have absolutely no problem.
00:25:37.640 | So it's really nothing to be concerned about.
00:25:40.960 | And I think in terms of safety at night, generally, the only thing I would say is that women on
00:25:49.400 | their own...
00:25:50.880 | So I usually, past 11 o'clock, will get an Uber to get home.
00:25:56.680 | But if I was with somebody else, then we're fine to be on public transport and to walk
00:26:01.120 | on our own.
00:26:02.120 | So yeah, you can take that.
00:26:05.200 | People can interpret it as how they want to.
00:26:08.120 | I want to get a lay of the land.
00:26:09.680 | And we could spend so long talking about, "Here's this neighbor, that neighbor."
00:26:13.280 | But is there generally a way you break up the city and kind of group it into a few major
00:26:17.960 | areas?
00:26:18.960 | The most popular area that tourists a lot of times only stay in is what's called central
00:26:24.800 | London.
00:26:25.800 | Which is the really famous areas like Soho, Covent Garden, Marlebone, the South Bank,
00:26:33.480 | Westminster, which is where Buckingham Palace, Houses of Parliament, all those places are.
00:26:38.880 | And it includes a few other areas.
00:26:41.240 | That's where the majority of the tourist attractions are.
00:26:44.880 | And it is the dead center of London.
00:26:47.320 | So that's where even Londoners will go there if we're meeting a friend for dinner and we
00:26:53.520 | both live on other parts of the city.
00:26:56.200 | So that's where a lot of tourists end up doing a lot of stuff.
00:26:59.040 | There's lots of good restaurants around there and bars and things like that.
00:27:03.520 | You just have to know where you're going.
00:27:04.520 | So there's also some really not so good stuff there.
00:27:07.040 | It's like very tourist trappy and kind of gross.
00:27:09.200 | It's those like authentic pub kind of places that you'll find there.
00:27:14.340 | And then beyond that, there is basically the city's broken up into four major areas, simply
00:27:21.880 | North London, South London, East London and West London.
00:27:26.280 | And in each of those areas, there's a few main areas that I would say that tourists
00:27:32.800 | are more likely to go to because there's things to do and it's not only just kind of like
00:27:37.600 | neighborhood-y.
00:27:38.600 | There's good bars, good restaurants, parks, activities, things like that.
00:27:44.040 | So personally for me, I live in East London.
00:27:47.080 | That's my favorite part of the city.
00:27:50.280 | There's just lots of stuff to do around here and it's fun and beautiful.
00:27:56.520 | But then West London has Notting Hill and lots of great museums and really interesting
00:28:01.160 | things to do there.
00:28:02.720 | And North and South also have their great things too.
00:28:06.980 | And we also, as Londoners, we have this like really big divide of we self-identify if we're
00:28:14.520 | East or West London and we think the other side is terrible.
00:28:18.260 | We don't know why people live there.
00:28:19.680 | And then the same with North of the River, which is the River Thames or South of the
00:28:23.200 | River.
00:28:24.200 | And there's like this constant battle of like, "Why would you live on the other side?
00:28:28.080 | It's so boring there."
00:28:29.280 | And it's just always been like that.
00:28:32.960 | Let's highlight a couple neighborhoods where you're like, "These are just really cool spots."
00:28:36.880 | Whether you stay there, you spend an afternoon or a morning there, what would you put on
00:28:40.300 | your list of like, I don't know, three or four awesome neighborhoods in London?
00:28:46.600 | Not all in East London.
00:28:47.600 | I know you think it's the coolest place ever, but...
00:28:49.600 | Okay.
00:28:50.600 | Fine.
00:28:51.600 | Fine.
00:28:52.600 | Right.
00:28:53.600 | So I've said Notting Hill a lot.
00:28:54.600 | I think that's a really famous one.
00:28:55.600 | So I might not spend too much time on that.
00:28:57.120 | But Notting Hill is a really beautiful area and it's one of the few areas of London where
00:29:01.960 | even though it's quite popular with tourists, it still has a really interesting local vibe
00:29:07.760 | where neighbors actually say hello to each other.
00:29:10.880 | People pass by each other on the streets.
00:29:13.360 | The actual Londoners that live there are...
00:29:15.720 | It's a really lovely community area and that's why the pub scene around there is so great.
00:29:20.840 | And that's why I always recommend people to go do pub hopping around there for like a
00:29:24.720 | nice relaxed afternoon.
00:29:27.120 | It's not like a crazy like, "Let's get drunk pub," kind of area.
00:29:34.320 | And then if we...
00:29:35.320 | But if we skip on past Notting Hill, in North London, there's an area called Hampstead,
00:29:40.720 | which has the main thing there is this park called Hampstead Heath.
00:29:45.480 | And it's this beautiful big park that has viewpoints.
00:29:49.260 | There's swimming ponds that people go to in the summer.
00:29:53.840 | There's Kenwood House, which if...
00:29:56.440 | Have you ever seen the movie Notting Hill actually, Chris?
00:29:59.440 | I'm not sure if I have.
00:30:00.880 | Like when you say it, I'm like, "Of course, it's a movie.
00:30:04.800 | I remember it."
00:30:05.800 | But now I'm like, "Have I?
00:30:06.800 | I don't know."
00:30:07.800 | That's okay.
00:30:08.880 | Well, if you do watch it, and I'm sure there will be people listening that have seen it.
00:30:13.400 | Kenwood House is featured in the movie towards the end when she's filming this like Victorian
00:30:21.360 | film and Hugh Grant's like listening to her speak.
00:30:25.280 | And it's a whole thing.
00:30:26.280 | You'll have to watch it at some point.
00:30:28.720 | So the house that's featured in that is in Hampstead Heath.
00:30:31.960 | So people like go to Hampstead Heath to see this beautiful Victorian house, which actually
00:30:36.040 | is also a little museum that has art and other things that you can see in there.
00:30:43.400 | So that's a really good jumping off point.
00:30:45.720 | Really great to take kids there because they can run around and see the wildlife.
00:30:49.120 | They can see people swimming.
00:30:50.320 | They can go swimming if that's maybe not right now, but it'll take a while.
00:30:54.840 | Probably not on this trip.
00:30:55.840 | Yeah.
00:30:56.840 | Not this trip.
00:30:57.840 | Not this trip.
00:30:58.840 | And then you can go into Hampstead Village, which has really great cafes, bars, restaurants,
00:31:03.760 | and it's super family friendly.
00:31:05.360 | It's also this really just beautiful area with like multi-million pound houses.
00:31:10.600 | A lot of celebrities live around here and there's a lot of historical value.
00:31:16.160 | So that's Hampstead.
00:31:17.160 | Yeah.
00:31:18.160 | And then, I mean, it's hard to pick because there's so many and I love to kind of talk
00:31:23.840 | a little bit more about the areas that people don't go to as much.
00:31:27.320 | Like if we go to South London, there's an area that's called Brixton and Brixton is
00:31:33.200 | super diverse, has really great markets that have been around for ages and they have vendors
00:31:38.520 | selling like all different types of wares and as well as there's little wine bars, there's
00:31:44.760 | little shops there.
00:31:46.760 | So yeah, Brixton is just a really cool, interesting area with lots of up and coming bars and restaurants
00:31:53.480 | and just lots of interesting things to do down there.
00:31:57.760 | If you're going to stay central though, there's an area that I really like going to that's
00:32:03.040 | called Seven Dials.
00:32:04.480 | So it's really close to Covent Garden, which is one of the most famous areas in central
00:32:09.320 | to go.
00:32:10.320 | But Seven Dials is basically seven streets that converge onto each other and there's
00:32:14.680 | a sundial in the middle of it.
00:32:16.400 | That's obviously where the name comes from.
00:32:19.140 | And down these streets, there's some not independent places, but there's also lots of great independent
00:32:27.040 | cafes and restaurants.
00:32:29.060 | There's a couple of pubs in the area and there's a really great indoor food market called Seven
00:32:34.520 | Dials Food Market, which I highly recommend.
00:32:37.680 | And then there's also this hidden little courtyard that's called Neal's Yard, which you can go
00:32:43.480 | into.
00:32:44.480 | It's where it's the home of Neal's Yard Remedies, which is quite a famous skincare brand.
00:32:50.180 | And in there you'll find this fantastic wine bar called CVS and also one of my favorite
00:32:57.760 | restaurants in London called The Barbary.
00:33:00.360 | And now they have a new place next door called The Barbary next door.
00:33:03.360 | And they do food that's inspired by the Barbary Coast.
00:33:08.240 | And it's so good, really, really good.
00:33:10.860 | So it's one of those ways I'm like, I don't really love telling people about this, but
00:33:14.520 | I don't want to gatekeep.
00:33:15.680 | So yeah, really yummy food there, but it's a really cute, colorful little courtyard.
00:33:23.080 | And so it looks really nice in photos as well.
00:33:25.320 | And you can sit there, have a glass of wine, have some food, have a coffee.
00:33:29.560 | It's great.
00:33:30.560 | Awesome.
00:33:31.560 | And then I am going to circle over to East London.
00:33:33.920 | It is my favorite.
00:33:35.680 | There's an area called Shoreditch.
00:33:37.040 | This is probably the most popular area of East London.
00:33:40.720 | And it is very eclectic, is the area that's the most popular for street art.
00:33:46.420 | So if you are really interested in seeing street art, this is where you're going to
00:33:49.600 | do it.
00:33:50.600 | You can either walk around on your own and easily find it, or there's loads of like really
00:33:54.440 | affordable or free street art tours that you can do.
00:33:58.480 | This is also where a lot of creative agencies are based, a lot of artistic agencies.
00:34:05.920 | So a lot of the people that are in this area, even during the week, are very creative.
00:34:10.720 | So you always kind of feel that vibe while you're there.
00:34:14.900 | And of course, you're going to have good cafes, good coffee, fantastic restaurants.
00:34:19.560 | This is a really, I come to this area a lot to eat.
00:34:24.160 | Where?
00:34:25.160 | Just like one level, cafes, coffee shops.
00:34:27.440 | A little bit more.
00:34:28.440 | Yeah, yeah.
00:34:29.440 | Where do you go?
00:34:30.440 | So one of the restaurants that I love is called Bao, and they do Taiwanese bao buns.
00:34:37.520 | And in Shoreditch, they have a noodle shop, which is really good.
00:34:41.480 | So highly recommend going there.
00:34:44.000 | And for cafes, there's, God, there's a lot of places.
00:34:48.360 | Attendant Cafe is really good.
00:34:50.400 | They do really nice coffee.
00:34:52.720 | And probably the most popular cafe around this area at the moment is a place called
00:34:58.280 | Jolene.
00:34:59.860 | And there is basically always a line outside the door, especially on the weekends.
00:35:05.440 | But the coffee here is just fantastic.
00:35:07.480 | And they do great pastries as well.
00:35:09.280 | So if you want coffee, that's a good spot to go.
00:35:12.080 | Awesome.
00:35:13.080 | All right.
00:35:14.080 | So I feel like kind of got a little bit of lay of the land.
00:35:15.680 | Obviously, I'm gonna have to walk around.
00:35:18.060 | You talked earlier about how you have these awesome itinerary.
00:35:20.600 | So I've been going through the three day because I was like, I don't want to plan too much.
00:35:23.780 | So let's take the three day spread it out over six day.
00:35:28.120 | What do you think things people should be really trying to do on their trip?
00:35:32.400 | You know, I'm sure someone could find a list best attractions in London, like we don't
00:35:36.160 | need to go through everything.
00:35:38.040 | What are the highlights of an itinerary?
00:35:39.640 | I mean, of course, everybody wants to go see the House of Parliament and Big Ben and Westminster
00:35:45.000 | Bridge.
00:35:46.000 | But I think like do whatever the sites that you're really interested in, make sure you
00:35:50.500 | do them because I get it like you're in London, right?
00:35:53.500 | And you've seen these things on TV and in movies for years.
00:35:57.140 | So make sure you do that.
00:35:58.680 | For me, I think I'm always trying to think of like an interesting way to see something.
00:36:02.820 | So I think a good example is everyone knows the Tower of London, right?
00:36:07.420 | So the Tower of London, it's been around for like 1000 years, and it's still in this place.
00:36:13.180 | And you can go and have tours there.
00:36:16.500 | They're very family friendly.
00:36:18.260 | But you can also do something that's quite interesting, which is called the Ceremony
00:36:22.900 | of the Keys.
00:36:24.580 | And what this is, it's a tradition that's been happening for 700 years.
00:36:30.740 | And they've done it every single day for 700 years, except I think there's one day during
00:36:34.780 | one of the wars that they had to stop doing it.
00:36:38.140 | And you go, you got tickets for it.
00:36:41.180 | And you basically watch this tradition of where they exchange the keys when they're
00:36:45.440 | kind of like closing up the tower at night.
00:36:48.920 | And it's never been recorded.
00:36:50.940 | You're not allowed to take your phone or you're not allowed to film it.
00:36:53.620 | You're not allowed to take pictures.
00:36:55.380 | And I think it's a really interesting, different way to experience this like really popular
00:36:59.580 | tourist attractions.
00:37:00.580 | And it's very hard to get tickets.
00:37:03.460 | But it's definitely doable.
00:37:04.460 | And the tickets are only five pounds, whereas it's usually I think about 25 pounds for adults
00:37:09.900 | to get in at normal times of the day.
00:37:13.700 | So I think that's really cool.
00:37:16.380 | In terms of viewpoint, so a lot of people like to do the London Eye, which that's cool.
00:37:21.020 | The first time I ever came to London, I did the London Eye as well.
00:37:23.620 | I thought it was great.
00:37:25.260 | It is a bit of a steep price for the tickets.
00:37:29.340 | So if you still want to do some kind of viewpoint, but maybe you don't need to do the London
00:37:34.300 | Eye, you could go to this place called the Sky Garden, which is completely free to visit.
00:37:38.660 | And it's actually higher up than the London Eye.
00:37:43.240 | It's basically this garden in the sky.
00:37:45.340 | You take a lift all the way up to the top of the building that's called the walkie talkie
00:37:49.140 | building because it looks like a walkie talkie.
00:37:52.060 | And there's all this plant life that you walk around.
00:37:54.700 | But there's also these amazing views over the London skyline.
00:37:58.660 | It's pretty cool and a lot cheaper, obviously.
00:38:01.900 | I know you're like the spokesperson for London on YouTube, in my mind.
00:38:05.900 | But don't be afraid to be like, this is not worth it.
00:38:08.100 | Don't waste your time there.
00:38:09.700 | You know, I know you've said that about Leicester Square, but.
00:38:14.060 | Yeah.
00:38:15.060 | Leicester Square is for sure the number one thing that I'm like, avoid it at all costs.
00:38:20.180 | Like I even will walk around it if I'm just navigating to get somewhere else in the city.
00:38:25.180 | Obviously, Leicester Square is this part of central London where it's just lined with
00:38:32.100 | like McDonald's, Burger King.
00:38:36.200 | There's a couple of casinos.
00:38:37.940 | There's a couple of movie theaters.
00:38:39.460 | There's the M&M store, which I have so much disdain for the M&M store.
00:38:43.300 | I just don't understand.
00:38:44.300 | And there's always such a line to get into it.
00:38:47.060 | The Lego store.
00:38:48.340 | There's just no...
00:38:49.820 | For some reason, there's so much stuff out there saying to go see Leicester Square.
00:38:54.140 | I'm like, there's nothing here.
00:38:55.540 | This is...
00:38:56.540 | It's just...
00:38:57.540 | And it's...
00:38:58.540 | I don't know.
00:38:59.540 | It's not upkept very well.
00:39:00.540 | And so I always say to avoid that.
00:39:01.540 | Instead, you could actually go just one block over and you're in Chinatown, which is amazing.
00:39:05.780 | We have a small Chinatown in London, but really good food.
00:39:10.220 | There's some hidden bars there and just a really interesting place to walk around.
00:39:14.300 | So I'm always like, skip Leicester Square.
00:39:17.700 | Instead go to Chinatown.
00:39:18.700 | It's literally one block over.
00:39:19.700 | Do you have a favorite hidden bar?
00:39:23.460 | So in Chinatown, there's one that's called Opium and it's a green door that is unmarked
00:39:31.580 | and you go up the stairs and there's three different rooms and the cocktails are really
00:39:35.660 | good.
00:39:36.660 | They're super unique and different, but they're all oriental themed.
00:39:43.500 | So they are super interesting and they serve food there as well.
00:39:47.220 | But the cocktails...
00:39:48.220 | Go for the cocktails.
00:39:49.220 | But that's hard to pick a favorite hidden bar, but I actually went to a really good
00:39:54.100 | one last night called Nightjar.
00:39:56.380 | There's two different locations and it's Prohibition themed.
00:40:00.420 | So you go like down the stairs, the cocktails are...
00:40:05.540 | The menu is like themed with different parts of the Prohibition and the war and the servers
00:40:12.900 | are dressed up like they're old timey and the service is amazing and the cocktails are
00:40:17.460 | really cool.
00:40:18.980 | And are these the kind of places where you need to make a reservation?
00:40:22.820 | How does that typically work?
00:40:24.140 | Yes.
00:40:25.140 | Yeah.
00:40:26.140 | So especially recently, London is very...
00:40:28.940 | You have to make reservations to get into places, especially the ones that are quite
00:40:33.140 | popular even if they are kind of under the radar.
00:40:36.700 | People still find out about them because Londoners love under the radar stuff.
00:40:40.060 | So anytime you can make a reservation, I highly, highly recommend it because also a lot of
00:40:46.980 | places in London are just very small.
00:40:48.820 | So they have very little covers.
00:40:50.820 | So if 10 people show up, that might cover the whole restaurant.
00:40:54.260 | So anytime you can make a reservation for sure, or go very early or very late and you
00:41:00.100 | might be okay.
00:41:01.100 | It's funny.
00:41:02.100 | I'm like such an optimizer.
00:41:03.540 | And normally I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to research all this stuff."
00:41:05.420 | And then I was looking through your three-day itinerary, I was like, "This is pretty good.
00:41:08.780 | You just put it together."
00:41:09.780 | So for me, normally I would want to go through all this and I was like, "Why don't we just
00:41:12.980 | use this?
00:41:13.980 | Why don't we just...
00:41:14.980 | This is our new playbook and save us a lot of time."
00:41:16.420 | So I appreciate that.
00:41:18.140 | But high level, any other must-see things that people need to do when they're here for
00:41:24.220 | a short trip?
00:41:25.660 | Personally, my mindset for what I do is that there's not really any must-sees because it
00:41:33.060 | completely depends on what you're interested in.
00:41:35.340 | So some people might say, "Oh, you have to go to the National Portrait Gallery."
00:41:39.740 | But if you're not into portrait art, even though it's free to go into, don't waste
00:41:46.100 | your time there.
00:41:47.500 | Find art that you like or skip art altogether if you're not...
00:41:50.860 | The tape modern is not going to be interesting to you if you're not interested in modern
00:41:53.860 | art.
00:41:54.860 | So yeah, I definitely...
00:41:57.660 | I'm trying to give people the permission to don't feel like you have to do something because
00:42:02.220 | someone has said like, "You have to do London Eye."
00:42:05.060 | You don't have to.
00:42:06.060 | There's so many things you can do.
00:42:07.060 | Just do whatever is going to work for you and also your budget because some of the stuff
00:42:10.220 | is really pricey.
00:42:12.180 | So if you're going to take the four of you on the London Eye, that's going to cost you
00:42:15.820 | like £100, then is that really going to feel worth it if you weren't really that interested?
00:42:21.900 | Are there deals for some of these things that I should know about going in?
00:42:25.220 | Like, I don't know, book it in advance or buy it from this guy who works down this alley
00:42:28.660 | in the street?
00:42:29.660 | If you want to do the main attractions, I always tell people to look into the London
00:42:34.820 | Pass, which it's got like 150 of the biggest attractions on this pass.
00:42:40.660 | And you get a two-day pass, a three-day pass, a six-day pass, whatever you choose.
00:42:46.100 | And the tickets are included in the price that you pay.
00:42:49.540 | And if it works with what you want to see, you can save a lot of money with that.
00:42:55.060 | You just have to plan and do some math to make sure that it all adds up.
00:43:00.180 | Because if you're mostly wanting to see stuff that has low ticket prices, then it's probably
00:43:04.540 | not going to be worth it.
00:43:05.540 | But if you're going to the big things with big ticket prices, it does end up saving and
00:43:09.380 | especially if you've got four of you, five of you, because they have kids passes as well.
00:43:14.420 | It actually can end up saving you like hundreds of dollars.
00:43:17.860 | It's actually kind of crazy.
00:43:19.100 | So yeah, the London Pass.
00:43:21.900 | We do have something on our website where it helps people understand if it's going to
00:43:25.580 | work for them or not before they buy it.
00:43:27.500 | So if you just Google "London Pass" on our site, that's helpful.
00:43:31.020 | I'll link to that page on the show notes.
00:43:33.100 | Perfect.
00:43:34.100 | Okay, great.
00:43:35.100 | Speaking of the Sunday roast that we were talking about, another British tradition here
00:43:39.460 | is called afternoon tea.
00:43:41.700 | And I personally love afternoon tea.
00:43:44.540 | So basically what you do is you go to, it's mostly hotels that will put on afternoon tea.
00:43:49.460 | Some restaurants do it as well.
00:43:51.900 | Around like one o'clock, two o'clock, you'll go to this hotel that you've booked and they
00:43:55.980 | bring out your selection of tea.
00:43:58.500 | You get to choose if you want tea or coffee.
00:44:01.260 | If you go really high end, they'll have like extra specialty that's been flown in from
00:44:05.740 | Sri Lanka or India or wherever.
00:44:08.820 | It's like really a beautiful experience.
00:44:11.860 | And then you get a bunch of different types of treats.
00:44:15.860 | So we'll start with little finger sandwiches of various variety of different kinds.
00:44:22.540 | Then you'll also get scones, which I love scones.
00:44:27.140 | Scones are basically, they're like kind of resemble crumpets, but they're a little bit
00:44:32.460 | nicer than crumpets.
00:44:33.460 | They're a lot nicer than crumpets in my opinion.
00:44:36.340 | And you eat those with jam and cream.
00:44:42.500 | And then the final tier is the sweet treats.
00:44:47.660 | So the really nice places, this is where like they shine.
00:44:51.580 | They do these little pieces of artwork that you eat for your lunch slash breakfast, whatever
00:44:59.700 | time you ended up going.
00:45:01.500 | And it's a really lovely experience.
00:45:02.820 | A lot of people in London will do it as like a special occasion for someone's birthday
00:45:07.860 | or for bridal showers and things like that.
00:45:10.980 | But it's very British and it's lovely.
00:45:14.980 | It's really lovely.
00:45:16.340 | One of the places that I always recommend if you want like a very classic traditional afternoon
00:45:21.220 | tea experience is Fortnum & Mason, which is a department store.
00:45:25.820 | And they've got a beautiful tea room, which was, I think the queen actually opened it
00:45:30.940 | up if I remember correctly.
00:45:32.780 | Yeah.
00:45:33.860 | It's very classic.
00:45:34.860 | They've got like the classical music playing.
00:45:36.980 | Somebody's playing piano.
00:45:38.940 | You can get champagne if you want champagne.
00:45:42.220 | So I recommend either there or if you want something really special with amazing views,
00:45:47.900 | there is the Shard, which is the tallest building in Western Europe.
00:45:52.540 | And there's the Shangri-La Hotel, which is in the Shard and their restaurant Ting does
00:45:57.500 | a sky high afternoon tea, which they like pull out all the stops.
00:46:01.420 | It's really, it's an amazing experience.
00:46:03.900 | This is also something that as we did some research, it's like not everywhere, but many
00:46:07.780 | places are pretty kid friendly and even sometimes like kid themed.
00:46:11.380 | So it looked pretty cool as something we could do with the kids.
00:46:15.020 | Yes, definitely.
00:46:16.380 | Also, if you want another recommendation for a kid friendly tea at the One Aldwych Hotel,
00:46:21.420 | they do a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory themed tea, which is really great for the
00:46:26.020 | adults as well, but they have the kids love it too.
00:46:29.280 | So it's like really cute.
00:46:31.580 | So I have a random question, but specific, very specific to tea.
00:46:34.880 | So we looked at this one.
00:46:35.880 | It seems like make reservations for most of these places, but I was looking at the menu
00:46:40.380 | and I guess either it's an entire meal, right?
00:46:43.020 | Like it doesn't, it looks like it's enough food that like you're skipping lunch that
00:46:46.140 | day.
00:46:47.140 | Or I was like, Oh, our daughter usually naps like one.
00:46:50.260 | What if we went at three o'clock?
00:46:51.260 | I don't want to ruin dinner.
00:46:53.540 | Would it be poor form to go and just get like one or two for four people?
00:46:57.580 | Or do you need to order one for every person?
00:46:59.980 | So you, it's a bit different with kids.
00:47:03.100 | If you've got like really little ones, then you don't have to order ones for them, obviously
00:47:06.540 | if they're not going to eat it, but you usually do order one for each person.
00:47:09.740 | Okay.
00:47:10.740 | Yeah.
00:47:11.740 | I was looking for like a little deal.
00:47:12.740 | If you just want a little snack here and there.
00:47:14.740 | I know.
00:47:15.740 | Well, the kids ones are cheaper.
00:47:16.740 | So they're like significantly cheaper.
00:47:18.300 | So that's good.
00:47:19.300 | But actually a lot of people ask me that.
00:47:20.700 | So that's a good question.
00:47:22.060 | Yeah.
00:47:23.060 | Whenever my wife and I do like a tasting menu, we're like, can we just do wine for one of
00:47:25.980 | us?
00:47:26.980 | And then we just, because we don't need six glasses of wine.
00:47:28.900 | So we'll just do the tasty menu with wine.
00:47:31.100 | And one person doesn't do the wine, but then we just share.
00:47:33.660 | So little, little things like that after any other cool experiences, even if they're small,
00:47:39.160 | like I'll say in New York city, one of my favorite things to tell people to do is if
00:47:43.960 | you're downtown, take the six train at the end of the line and just ride it South till
00:47:49.540 | it turns around and comes back North.
00:47:51.340 | And you loop through city hall station, which is an closed station.
00:47:54.660 | It's like many, many years old.
00:47:56.540 | It's really cool.
00:47:57.540 | It was like the shining star of the subway system, but it's not open and you can like
00:48:01.380 | once or twice a year, get a tour there.
00:48:03.260 | But if you just ride the six train, it actually says, I think it's Brooklyn bridge.
00:48:07.140 | It's like you're on a downtown six train next stop, Brooklyn bridge, uptown.
00:48:11.500 | And you could like ride this cool loop.
00:48:12.800 | So there's like, there's always these like kind of cool, random, weird things that would
00:48:16.680 | never make an average tourist list.
00:48:20.180 | In San Francisco, there was this thing for anyone who did it.
00:48:22.980 | You'll know exactly what I mean.
00:48:23.980 | Unfortunately, it's closed called the JeJune Institute.
00:48:26.620 | And you like went to this office building and you just like went up to the 30th floor.
00:48:30.460 | You knocked on a door, the door opened, you went into a room and you like watched a weird
00:48:33.900 | video and they like there was an envelope and then you would go on like a scavenger
00:48:37.220 | hunt.
00:48:38.220 | And I'm like, I have no idea how this works, like you put a twenty dollars in a slot, but
00:48:41.500 | there were no people.
00:48:42.500 | It was the weirdest thing.
00:48:43.500 | It was like it wasn't an escape room because there was no escaping, but it kind of had
00:48:46.580 | that vibe and it was the coolest thing ever.
00:48:49.500 | But no, not on any tourist guide.
00:48:51.380 | So any of those kind of like cool experiences that you might do on the weekends with friends
00:48:56.300 | that would never really make a guide, maybe it would make one of your guides, but it's
00:48:59.940 | definitely not in the average guide.
00:49:01.900 | OK, so I'll give you two because I'll give you a little one, but then let me give you
00:49:07.060 | like a bit of a bigger one that you can spend an afternoon.
00:49:10.860 | So there is this area in London called Bermondsey and running through Bermondsey because it's
00:49:16.660 | very close to London Bridge Station, which is one of the biggest stations in London.
00:49:21.260 | There are elevated railway tracks.
00:49:24.220 | So and then underneath the railway tracks are businesses that are in the arches.
00:49:29.980 | So because they're small spaces are all very small businesses that are very independent.
00:49:35.620 | And in one specific area of Bermondsey under these arches, it all happens to be breweries
00:49:42.440 | and gin distilleries.
00:49:44.700 | And so this thing has come about where it's like the unofficial name for it is called
00:49:48.880 | the Bermondsey Beer Mile.
00:49:51.060 | And on Saturdays, these breweries open up and they let people come in and have do tastings
00:49:58.340 | or just get a pint or try the gin.
00:50:01.500 | And what people do is they hop around to they make a Saturday of it and they hop around
00:50:06.280 | to all the different distilleries and breweries and try all the different drinks.
00:50:11.500 | And it can get a little bit messy, obviously, depending on how quickly you do it.
00:50:16.020 | You can also pair that with a visit to Maltby Street Market, which is literally right there.
00:50:23.380 | And you can get food and they have really good independent food stall vendors that are
00:50:29.300 | selling like they have probably the most diverse food vendors in of all the markets in London.
00:50:36.700 | So that's like I love doing that Bermondsey Beer Mile.
00:50:40.180 | It's really fun.
00:50:41.180 | And it's I feel like it gets skipped over so much because there's no like there's there's
00:50:45.780 | no official like website for it.
00:50:47.860 | There's someone who's made an unofficial one, but it's pretty easy to find.
00:50:50.660 | You just navigate to Maltby Street Market and then you'll see all of the breweries and
00:50:55.960 | distilleries.
00:50:57.360 | And so that's one of my favorite.
00:50:58.360 | I love recommending that, but I don't think that many people take me up on it, sadly.
00:51:02.460 | But it's almost good, though.
00:51:03.460 | So it's fine.
00:51:04.460 | I don't know if we'll do the full drinking mile, but we will 100% go to food.
00:51:08.860 | So I'm like a sucker for street food, food market, anything like that.
00:51:12.500 | Favorite stall?
00:51:15.860 | I mean, I had an amazing banh mi sandwich that's so Vietnamese.
00:51:21.060 | I don't remember the name of the stall.
00:51:22.660 | They do kind of change them out sometimes, too, which is nice because then everyone can
00:51:26.180 | like try different things.
00:51:27.340 | But I think probably that banh mi is a favorite I've had so far.
00:51:30.900 | And then just for a little fun, a smaller one, too.
00:51:33.620 | So there's we were talking about Shoreditch before, and I mentioned that it's like the
00:51:37.380 | most famous area in London for street art.
00:51:39.780 | So if you want to go street art spotting, you can do that.
00:51:42.620 | A fun little thing you can do while you're doing that is there's a bunch of tiny 3D broccolis
00:51:51.060 | scattered around the Brick Lane area.
00:51:54.020 | So you can go and spot all of the little broccolis.
00:51:57.940 | And the broccolis were put there, I think was about 15 years ago by this artist, Adrian
00:52:04.500 | Boswell.
00:52:05.500 | And he actually has a gallery there and like broccolis are his thing.
00:52:08.060 | So you can end up spotting all the broccolis and then go to his gallery and see what the
00:52:12.700 | deal is in there, too.
00:52:13.700 | So that's kind of a fun thing.
00:52:15.020 | But it's one of those things where I didn't I'd never noticed that.
00:52:19.460 | And then a couple of years ago, somebody pointed it out to me and I was like, oh, my God, that's
00:52:23.240 | so cool.
00:52:24.240 | I've never in all of my research, I've never heard anyone talk about that before.
00:52:27.900 | I feel like my daughter would love a walk around looking for broccoli.
00:52:31.340 | So that was that's a great one.
00:52:33.020 | Perfect.
00:52:34.020 | And they're like colorful.
00:52:35.020 | And so, yeah, they're great.
00:52:36.020 | Great for kids, too.
00:52:37.220 | We're talking about food a lot.
00:52:38.780 | And it just happens to be noon in San Francisco, so I'm already getting hungry.
00:52:41.900 | But I think the reason that we travel is often for food.
00:52:46.420 | And so one of the challenges is it's so easy if you're going to Malaysia, it's like this
00:52:50.260 | is like I know the kind of food I want to go get.
00:52:53.740 | But when I think of London, it's like I've been told the best Indian food in the world
00:52:57.160 | outside of India is in London.
00:52:58.420 | We're like, OK, we got a little list there.
00:53:00.360 | Are there I don't even know how to ask this question, like, where should we be eating?
00:53:04.860 | Like, there's just so many options.
00:53:06.620 | I'm like, are there a couple of things that you're like cuisines or a couple of restaurants?
00:53:11.140 | I'm sure you could have a list of a thousand.
00:53:13.020 | I'm sure the itinerary I was looking at probably has the list of a thousand.
00:53:16.780 | But what are just a few like restaurants that are just must must go to?
00:53:21.180 | They don't have to be the most popular.
00:53:22.380 | They don't have to be the most expensive.
00:53:23.820 | Ideally, they're not the ones that you have to plan two months in advance to get a table.
00:53:27.920 | This is a hard one because it's there's just so many good places.
00:53:31.980 | Also, I think what's interesting about London, in my personal opinion, is that you don't
00:53:36.340 | have to spend a lot of money to have a really, really good food experience.
00:53:42.620 | I actually find that the mid range restaurants are my favorites.
00:53:48.220 | I have many all of my favorites are at the mid range level, not like super luxury.
00:53:54.720 | We did talk about a couple of them that I love already.
00:53:56.740 | So we did the Barbary.
00:53:57.780 | We talked about Bao.
00:54:00.700 | There's an Italian that's called Campania and Jones, and it's in a tiny little place
00:54:06.600 | off of Columbia Road, which this is east London and Columbia Road is quite famous for being
00:54:11.980 | this like very beautiful, picturesque street that has all independent shops on it.
00:54:17.020 | And on Sundays, it has a world famous flower market, which people love to go visit.
00:54:21.700 | You can pick up flowers or you can just walk around and see the chaos that kind of ensues
00:54:26.780 | with it.
00:54:27.780 | It's very fun.
00:54:29.220 | So just off of that is Campania and Jones, and they do regional Italian dishes from Campania,
00:54:35.980 | obviously.
00:54:36.980 | And the food here is amazing.
00:54:37.980 | It is.
00:54:38.980 | It can be tricky to get reservations, but if you can do a weekday and do it like five
00:54:44.300 | o'clock when they open, then or do like a later one, like nine thirty, then it is doable.
00:54:52.060 | And if you if anyone does end up going there, there's a starter that's called nudie and
00:54:57.620 | it comes with sage butter.
00:54:58.900 | And that was it was like one of the best things I've ever had.
00:55:01.740 | It's so nice.
00:55:02.740 | It's really good.
00:55:04.380 | I was with friends and we were eating it and we all just stopped talking, which is a lot
00:55:07.580 | for me and my friends.
00:55:08.940 | So because we're all just like, oh, my God, this is amazing.
00:55:11.700 | It's basically it's kind of like Italian dumplings.
00:55:14.260 | So good.
00:55:16.700 | So I love Indian.
00:55:18.300 | I also love Sri Lankan.
00:55:19.820 | I have been to Sri Lanka before and like my interest just has been peaked and people have
00:55:24.620 | been we have some really good Sri Lankan restaurants here and one that is one of my favorites is
00:55:30.500 | called Paradise and it's right in Soho.
00:55:32.600 | So it's very central London.
00:55:34.420 | It's a modern take on Sri Lankan food.
00:55:37.740 | So they do like really great small dishes.
00:55:40.860 | So you share you just order a bunch of them and everybody shares theirs.
00:55:45.460 | They do this chickpea curry, which is like so good.
00:55:49.700 | And they do amazing cocktails as well.
00:55:52.180 | And this is another one.
00:55:53.180 | I would say for sure you do want to you're going to all the good places you do have to
00:55:57.180 | reserve.
00:55:58.180 | Like that's just kind of how it is.
00:55:59.180 | But I did the other day go there and managed to only a couple days ahead, get a 530 booking
00:56:05.380 | so that for four people.
00:56:06.500 | So it is doable.
00:56:07.960 | Just like do it on on a Monday or Tuesday if you can and go early and that works well.
00:56:15.660 | And then finally, I'm going to give one more Italian and you're going to give one more
00:56:18.520 | Indian because I just want one more Indian.
00:56:20.740 | Let's do it.
00:56:21.860 | So yeah, so Dishoom is like the most popular Indian place in London.
00:56:27.460 | They do.
00:56:28.620 | It's a little bit more of a modern take on Indian.
00:56:31.540 | They've got like four or five locations now.
00:56:34.300 | And obviously, I can't speak to how incredibly authentic it is because I'm not from India,
00:56:39.740 | but it's really popular because they do really, really good food at affordable prices.
00:56:45.660 | The staff are amazing.
00:56:47.260 | And the decor is it's supposed to be kind of like one of a small restaurant that you
00:56:57.140 | might see in Bombay.
00:56:58.580 | So the decor is really interesting and kid friendly works for everyone.
00:57:03.820 | They also actually do.
00:57:05.220 | It's one of my favorite places to go for breakfast.
00:57:07.940 | Oh, yeah.
00:57:09.500 | They do really good.
00:57:10.500 | I've been to India, so I've had Indian breakfast, but I don't know if I've had like a westernized
00:57:15.440 | version of an Indian breakfast.
00:57:17.400 | It's definitely it's a it's a British version.
00:57:19.620 | They kind of like combine Indian food with what would be considered like a British breakfast.
00:57:27.140 | But it's really good.
00:57:28.180 | And that's also if you struggle to get in because they don't really take reservations
00:57:34.220 | at most of the locations, especially for dinner.
00:57:37.100 | So either try to reserve for lunch or go for breakfast if you can't get for lunch either
00:57:41.660 | there, but some of the locations, they have really long lines and people wait like an
00:57:47.740 | hour and a half.
00:57:48.740 | I don't really think you should do that for anything, in my opinion, but there's ways
00:57:53.660 | we can get around that.
00:57:54.660 | So try to reserve at lunchtime, go during the week at lunchtime or go for breakfast.
00:57:59.520 | And what about like our walk ins a thing like in a lot of Japan, it's like, no, we fully
00:58:04.580 | book our tables.
00:58:05.580 | You can't necessarily walk in.
00:58:07.260 | What about for us who have two young kids and like eating dinner at five o'clock is
00:58:10.780 | the norm?
00:58:12.100 | That's doable.
00:58:13.100 | So we have a really big range.
00:58:14.940 | So some places will be reservations.
00:58:17.780 | And if they're booked up, they're booked up.
00:58:19.580 | Some places will have a mix of they'll reserve half of it for walk ins and half of it for
00:58:24.860 | reservations.
00:58:25.980 | And then some places are walk ins only.
00:58:28.260 | So it kind of just depends on and for every budget that varies.
00:58:32.940 | So it's not like if it's a budget restaurant, it's always walk in.
00:58:36.100 | They sometimes will do reservations as well.
00:58:38.940 | If you're trying to find something that's like an easy walk in and you're kind of like,
00:58:42.900 | we've had a long day, I don't want to do too much research.
00:58:46.460 | Pizza is really good here.
00:58:47.460 | There's a lot of places that do good Italian pizza for very affordable and that they do
00:58:52.460 | kids menus as well, like there's Pizza Pilgrims and Franco Manca.
00:58:56.740 | Those are two different places.
00:58:58.340 | They're fantastic, really easy.
00:58:59.940 | You'll be able to get in no problem.
00:59:02.260 | And you had one more Italian.
00:59:03.260 | Oh, yes.
00:59:04.260 | So, yeah, I went here last night.
00:59:05.340 | So it's it's fresh on the mind right now.
00:59:07.220 | And it's in the it's in the guides as well.
00:59:09.500 | So you'll see it in there.
00:59:10.980 | So it's called Padella and they do basically simple pasta dishes.
00:59:16.340 | And the word Padella comes from the Italian word that is I forget exactly what the Italian
00:59:21.940 | word is, but it's what you call how they actually make the pasta here, which is they kind of
00:59:28.740 | they make they finish it off in a pan basically.
00:59:33.180 | Very simple, but really, really good and also affordable.
00:59:37.100 | This is a walk in place, which if you go at five thirty, you're golden.
00:59:41.320 | You will be able to get in.
00:59:42.320 | No problem.
00:59:43.320 | Otherwise, people queue up or they have like a queuing system where they can text you when
00:59:48.240 | your table is ready.
00:59:50.380 | If you go to Padella, my recommendations are to start with the burrata and order bread
00:59:55.680 | on the side because the burrata there is so beautiful.
00:59:59.780 | And then I always ordered the cacio e pepe because they it's the best cacio e pepe I've
01:00:05.180 | had in London.
01:00:06.900 | It's not too cheesy.
01:00:08.380 | It's like it's just really nice.
01:00:11.020 | So those are always my recommendations.
01:00:12.880 | And I love going there.
01:00:14.240 | What about just general dining etiquette?
01:00:15.820 | Are meals slow or meals fast?
01:00:17.540 | Is there something you need to know to get the attention of the waitstaff, tipping all
01:00:21.700 | this stuff?
01:00:22.880 | So things are generally a bit slower than say, if we're comparing to the US.
01:00:28.420 | So we are having I won't get into all the reasons, but every place is very understaffed
01:00:35.700 | right now.
01:00:36.700 | So just kind of pack your patience pants when you come, because especially I mean, Chris,
01:00:43.140 | you're coming very soon and it's a very, very busy time of year.
01:00:46.080 | So it's things are just generally slower, but it's probably going to continue like that
01:00:50.060 | for the next year or so.
01:00:52.620 | So patience definitely.
01:00:56.260 | So you probably will have to like ask for the server unless you're in a more high end
01:01:00.900 | place.
01:01:01.900 | But you might have to a few times like raise your hand and be like, can we get some more
01:01:04.500 | water?
01:01:05.500 | Can we get this blah, blah, blah.
01:01:06.500 | And you definitely will have to ask for the bill.
01:01:09.780 | And then do you want me to go through tipping?
01:01:11.900 | Or wherever it applies if beyond restaurants?
01:01:15.100 | Okay, perfect.
01:01:16.100 | So for restaurants in London, generally what happens is you will get the bill and on the
01:01:21.580 | bill, it will say optional service charge.
01:01:24.060 | And that's generally 12 and a half percent that's been added onto your bill.
01:01:28.760 | If you've had really bad service, you can ask for that to be removed.
01:01:33.820 | Generally we people just end up paying it even if they weren't super happy.
01:01:39.100 | But once you've paid that service charge, you don't have to tip anything additional
01:01:43.580 | on top of that.
01:01:44.580 | And that service charge usually gets distributed between front of house and back of house.
01:01:48.740 | So it doesn't only go to your server, it just gets put into the pool and it goes to people
01:01:54.220 | in the kitchen as well.
01:01:56.620 | In terms of tipping for other things, we're not a huge tipping culture here.
01:02:01.940 | If you're at the hotel and your bags have been carried for you, you could tip but you
01:02:07.100 | won't make anyone upset if you don't.
01:02:09.740 | But of course, no one's going to be upset about some extra money.
01:02:14.600 | For taxis and things like that, you can round up to the next pound or if you had someone
01:02:19.940 | who was really great and you had a long journey from the airport or something, you can give
01:02:23.100 | an extra couple of pounds.
01:02:25.220 | But you don't have to -- it's not like extremely expected.
01:02:31.460 | I'm in my very like British mode now.
01:02:33.380 | What else do people usually tip on?
01:02:34.980 | I don't know, you'd get a drink at a bar, you leave a couple bucks.
01:02:39.540 | Oh, yes.
01:02:40.540 | If you go up to the bar and you're ordering yourself, so someone's not come to your table,
01:02:46.940 | then you do not have to tip.
01:02:48.620 | You can.
01:02:49.620 | So sometimes people will leave like a pound coin.
01:02:52.540 | Sometimes a bar will have a jar where you can leave tips.
01:02:56.500 | There's also this thing where you can say, "Oh, can I like buy you one as well?" to the
01:03:01.460 | bartender and then they will basically charge you for another drink and then that money
01:03:07.100 | will go into a pot for everyone at the end of the night.
01:03:11.300 | I think sometimes it's a little bit dodgy if they actually get that.
01:03:14.500 | So if you do want to tip, I would just say, "Leave a pound coin or two," and that's going
01:03:18.420 | to be like the best option.
01:03:20.140 | But you don't -- again, like you don't have to.
01:03:22.260 | I never tip at the bar.
01:03:24.260 | Occasionally, if I've had someone really good, I'll pop something into -- if they have a
01:03:27.860 | tip jar.
01:03:28.860 | But it's definitely for sure not expected at all and there will be no service charge
01:03:32.900 | added on to your bill if you order at the bar.
01:03:35.980 | If you got table service, then service charge will probably be added.
01:03:39.620 | And if it's not, then you can leave around 10% if you'd like.
01:03:43.700 | So while we're on the topic of drinking at a bar, it might not be as relevant to our
01:03:47.700 | trip, but I want to talk a little bit about nightlife because I feel like London is well
01:03:52.100 | known for it.
01:03:54.300 | Let's talk about what people should be doing at night who aren't in the situation we are
01:03:57.900 | with two kids, two and under.
01:04:01.340 | What's nightlife like?
01:04:02.340 | Where should people go?
01:04:03.340 | What should people be doing?
01:04:04.660 | The biggest areas for nightlife in London are generally Soho and Shoreditch.
01:04:10.060 | So Soho is the very center of London.
01:04:13.340 | It's very eclectic.
01:04:14.820 | It's also where the majority of the LGBTQ+ clubs and bars are.
01:04:19.420 | So anyone who's looking for that, Soho is your place for that.
01:04:24.780 | And then Shoreditch is a little bit more artsy-ish kind of, but also very popular for all different
01:04:30.260 | types of people who want to go out.
01:04:33.100 | Both areas have both cheap and cheerful drinking.
01:04:37.260 | That's very like rowdy and crowded.
01:04:39.300 | They've got the cocktail bars, wine bars, and then both also have clubs.
01:04:44.700 | I'm not going to lie, clubs are not really my thing anymore, but I can give a couple
01:04:53.460 | of recommendations off the top of my head.
01:04:55.940 | So in Soho, there's a club called Freedom, which is quite popular.
01:05:00.460 | They've got a pretty like standard upstairs and then down in the basement, they've got
01:05:04.020 | DJs and a dance floor.
01:05:06.500 | And then for Shoreditch, we had a really famous place there that just got shut, but actually
01:05:12.420 | you can just walk around and follow the crowds and hear the music and then you can find places
01:05:17.860 | that way.
01:05:18.860 | So it's pretty easy and yeah.
01:05:20.760 | And then what time do things close?
01:05:23.340 | Does transportation still run?
01:05:25.660 | So okay, transportation generally stops at midnight when we talk about the tube.
01:05:32.260 | If you are out past midnight, there are a couple of options.
01:05:36.580 | There are night buses, so they have an N in front of the number.
01:05:40.260 | And so if you're using City Mapper or Google Maps and you're trying to get back to your
01:05:44.460 | hotel, you might see N87 and that will be a night bus and those run all night.
01:05:50.500 | There are also some night tubes which run all night as well on Friday and Saturday nights.
01:05:56.620 | So again, Google Maps might be like, "Oh, go on this line," and that's because it's
01:06:00.160 | running all night.
01:06:01.900 | Both of those are generally pretty safe options, but also, of course, you can get taxis.
01:06:08.140 | So you can either use Uber or Free Now if you want to call a taxi or if you see a black
01:06:13.820 | cab, which we're quite famous for our black cabs here, and it's got a light on, that means
01:06:18.540 | that it's free and available so you can put your hand out and call it and they'll pull
01:06:21.940 | over and take you.
01:06:23.260 | Do one of those apps also call if you're like, "I want to take the London black cab experience,"
01:06:27.900 | which I've heard actually for kids is easy because you could roll a stroller in and set
01:06:31.460 | it down.
01:06:32.460 | It's not so crazy.
01:06:33.460 | Yeah.
01:06:34.460 | Both Uber and Free Now call black cabs.
01:06:38.540 | I know Uber does.
01:06:39.540 | I'm pretty sure Free Now does.
01:06:41.180 | And yes, I 100% agree.
01:06:43.100 | Also anybody who might be traveling with someone with a wheelchair, the black cabs are the
01:06:47.580 | best option because the seats fold up so they can accommodate wheelchairs.
01:06:50.980 | So wheelchairs, buggies, which is the British term, the strollers, things like that.
01:06:56.700 | Also, if you just have a lot of bags too, they're best for that.
01:07:01.060 | And then in terms of when the actual nightlife closes, so generally, pubs will only stay
01:07:06.620 | open until about 11, 11.30, bars will stay open until about 2, 2.30, and then the clubs,
01:07:13.580 | a lot of them shut at 4, but also a lot of them go a lot later than 4.
01:07:17.460 | So depending on which one you decide to go to.
01:07:20.740 | I can assure you that I am more likely to be waking up at 4 than still awake at 4.
01:07:25.580 | Same.
01:07:26.580 | And while we're on transportation, right?
01:07:28.660 | So that makes sense.
01:07:29.660 | I feel like we're planning on doing a lot more public transit than taxis, I guess.
01:07:34.500 | What about the airport getting in easy?
01:07:37.100 | Any tips there?
01:07:38.340 | We do have six different airports here in London.
01:07:41.100 | Most people who are flying from like the US or just doing like the big long haul flights
01:07:46.340 | will fly probably into Heathrow Airport.
01:07:48.980 | That's our main airport and our biggest one.
01:07:51.580 | That is technically still kind of London, but it's actually not really.
01:07:55.860 | So it is quite far west of the city, but it's very easy to get into central.
01:08:00.340 | Of course, you can take a taxi or an Uber if you want to, but we have lots of really
01:08:04.300 | good public transport options with the main one being well, the main couple being the
01:08:10.900 | Elizabeth Line, which only just launched a few months ago back in May.
01:08:15.620 | And that is basically like a tube line and it can actually get you into Paddington Station.
01:08:22.700 | It can get you into central London.
01:08:24.340 | It also can get you to East London to Liverpool Street Station.
01:08:28.540 | And it only costs £12.70 at the moment, which is great.
01:08:34.340 | There's also the Heathrow Express, which gets into Paddington and it's faster than the Elizabeth
01:08:39.860 | Line.
01:08:40.860 | It only takes about 16 minutes, I think it is, but it's also £25 per adult, although
01:08:47.460 | kids under 16 go free with an adult.
01:08:52.580 | It also doesn't really make sense to take the Heathrow Express because you might not
01:08:56.900 | be staying anywhere near Paddington.
01:08:58.780 | So your best bet really is to use City Mapper or Google Maps and navigate from Heathrow
01:09:04.940 | to your hotel and see which options are saying for you, but also make sure you adjust for
01:09:09.940 | your arrival time, because if it's really early or really late, then the availability
01:09:16.580 | drastically reduces.
01:09:19.200 | So then you might actually get stuck just taking a taxi or a very, very long night bus.
01:09:24.380 | I know the London theatre scene is pretty big.
01:09:27.260 | In New York, my wife and I hit up a lot of Broadway shows.
01:09:30.060 | We did the Rush stuff to get discounts on tickets.
01:09:32.740 | We did all the kind of cool, crazy theatre, immersive stuff like Sleep No More.
01:09:38.140 | Anything stand out in those areas?
01:09:40.780 | Yes.
01:09:41.980 | So we have the people who have done Sleep No More, so Punchdrunk, they recently have
01:09:49.700 | opened a similar to Sleep No More show called The Burnt City here in London, and I just
01:09:55.500 | went last week and it was awesome.
01:09:57.780 | Highly, highly recommend it.
01:10:00.460 | For people who don't know what that is, it's basically, it's like immersive theatre, right?
01:10:04.660 | Where you go into, well, first of all, if you're a viewer, you have to wear a mask.
01:10:10.180 | You always have to keep this like mask on.
01:10:12.940 | And you go into what's like this huge set.
01:10:15.420 | And we don't mean like a COVID mask, we're talking like face masks.
01:10:18.500 | Exactly.
01:10:19.500 | It looks like the scream mask a little bit, but a little not as quite as scary, I think.
01:10:25.500 | And then what you do is you go into what is like basically a massive movie set that has
01:10:30.140 | multiple different rooms and all these different props, and you see live actors that are acting
01:10:36.820 | out different scenarios.
01:10:38.620 | And sometimes they interact, sometimes they split ways, and you follow all of these people
01:10:42.860 | around and follow their stories.
01:10:46.180 | And the details are amazing, like even the smells of the room are different.
01:10:50.060 | Chris, I know I'm preaching to the choir here, you've done all this already, but it was a
01:10:54.820 | really amazing theatrical experience.
01:10:58.300 | So definitely if they're running until April, I think at the moment.
01:11:02.020 | So if you're in London before April, 2023, definitely check that out.
01:11:06.260 | But if you want to do something a little bit more traditional in the London theatre scene,
01:11:10.340 | there is the longest running theatre show of all time here in London, which is called
01:11:15.060 | Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, and it's been on for 70 years.
01:11:19.180 | So this is the 70 year anniversary.
01:11:21.120 | So it's actually quite special if you end up getting like, I guess it's only a few people
01:11:25.600 | will be able to get there before it's a 71st year, but still, it is like a linchpin of
01:11:31.460 | London theatre.
01:11:33.460 | And it's very kind of old school, and it very much represents British whodunit theatre,
01:11:41.300 | which is a little bit like over the top, but it's really fun.
01:11:45.300 | And it's really cool.
01:11:47.580 | It's just definitely like a very London experience.
01:11:50.300 | So I would highly recommend people get tickets to that.
01:11:52.940 | And you can actually get like 15 pound tickets for that.
01:11:55.860 | Even if you book in advance, if you just go for the really high up seats, but they also
01:11:59.720 | do some last minute deals as well, which you can get through TKTS or it's also called Official
01:12:06.180 | London Theatre.
01:12:07.180 | Wow.
01:12:08.180 | Okay.
01:12:09.180 | I feel like this is a masterclass in London, which was the goal.
01:12:13.220 | We talked, I think, about most of the things people need to plan out in advance.
01:12:16.660 | So I just want to recap, like make your reservations at restaurants if you want to go to hotspots
01:12:20.840 | and you want to eat in prime time.
01:12:23.100 | Any tickets for things that especially during peak season tourist attractions, any other
01:12:28.280 | things that people really need to make sure they figure out before they get there?
01:12:31.780 | Yeah, I think if you're doing peak season, anything that you can book in advance is a
01:12:37.260 | good idea.
01:12:38.260 | Also, ever since COVID, a lot of the major attractions are now having time to entry.
01:12:43.840 | Not all of them stick to it, but they will sell out for a certain time.
01:12:47.760 | So if you've got a pretty strict schedule that you want to stick to, then at least give
01:12:52.360 | yourself a couple of days ahead of time to book the tickets.
01:12:55.700 | So you don't have to worry about like, "Oh, well, now we didn't get the time that we wanted.
01:12:59.780 | So we're going to have to run back and do this and do that, blah, blah, blah."
01:13:05.220 | I would say in 2023, anyone who's visiting, tourism has really come back with a vengeance
01:13:13.540 | and we're already seeing availability of hotels really low for even like the end of next year.
01:13:20.680 | So I would definitely recommend anyone coming next year to book hotel as quickly as possible.
01:13:29.020 | You can always do something that you can cancel, but it would just be good to have something
01:13:33.660 | just in case you don't find anything else at the price that you're looking for.
01:13:37.020 | So just get it done, do it in advance.
01:13:39.500 | Any favorites amongst the hotels that fall in that category of like, you might not find
01:13:44.460 | them on the major sites, you might overlook it because it seems like it is this random
01:13:48.500 | property?
01:13:49.500 | Yeah.
01:13:50.500 | So there's one place I really like, again, in East London, it's called Mama Shelter.
01:13:55.420 | And they do, I think it's a Parisian brand because they've got a few places in France.
01:14:01.180 | And LA.
01:14:02.420 | And oh, that's right.
01:14:03.420 | That's the one in LA.
01:14:04.420 | Yeah.
01:14:05.420 | I helped our au pair book a room there like six months ago.
01:14:08.420 | So and she said it was really cool.
01:14:10.220 | Yeah, they've got a really nice rooftop at that one.
01:14:12.420 | It's really nice.
01:14:13.740 | The one here, I think gets overlooked sometimes because it's a little bit out of the way it
01:14:19.540 | is out of the way if you want to do only the main attractions, but it's actually really
01:14:24.580 | well located.
01:14:25.580 | If you want to do some of the more local stuff in East London, for example, it's not far
01:14:31.100 | from Broadway Market, which is this Saturday market that's quite famous now.
01:14:35.940 | Lots of great stalls selling food and jewelry and artisan pieces and things like that.
01:14:41.360 | Also walkable in about 20 minutes to Shoreditch, or there's a bus that will get you there even
01:14:45.700 | quicker.
01:14:46.700 | And it's a good, I would say it's on the higher range of budget hotels, but the staff are
01:14:53.060 | amazing.
01:14:54.060 | It's really colorful.
01:14:55.060 | They do karaoke nights.
01:14:56.500 | They've got a gym there.
01:14:58.540 | You can and if you book in advance, you can get a pretty good deal there.
01:15:01.060 | So that's probably one of my favorite recommendations for hotels.
01:15:06.020 | Anything on the next tier up, like the mid-range?
01:15:10.260 | So I really like the Henrietta Hotel.
01:15:12.700 | Maybe it's more luxury.
01:15:14.220 | The Henrietta Hotel is right in Covent Garden.
01:15:16.180 | It is a small boutique hotel that is French inspired and really beautiful decor.
01:15:23.580 | You can't get any better on the location.
01:15:25.400 | You just walk out the front door, you're in Covent Garden.
01:15:28.180 | It's amazing.
01:15:29.520 | And the rooms are beautiful and they're big and the bathrooms are amazing.
01:15:32.700 | And then I have a really special luxury high-end recommendation.
01:15:37.460 | We talked about the Shangri-La earlier.
01:15:41.060 | That hotel is the highest hotel in London, obviously, because it's in the tallest building
01:15:46.140 | in Western Europe and is super special too, because they have an indoor pool, which is
01:15:53.620 | the highest hotel pool in Western Europe, but probably a lot of other parts of Europe
01:15:58.900 | as well.
01:16:00.140 | So it's got floor-to-ceiling windows, and you're just swimming around, looking down
01:16:04.640 | onto London and across the skyline.
01:16:07.440 | It's a pretty special experience.
01:16:08.860 | So definitely, I recommend that one.
01:16:12.260 | We filmed a video in one of their suites there.
01:16:15.260 | It was the coolest experience.
01:16:16.820 | It was awesome.
01:16:17.820 | There's going to be a lot of links in the show notes to anything you mentioned.
01:16:20.620 | Send me all those links also.
01:16:22.860 | And for anyone who's new and hasn't heard, we have a hotel booking service at All The
01:16:27.620 | Hacks that, for those five-star hotels, can hook you up with usually an upgrade, a property
01:16:33.580 | credit, late check-in, early check-out, free breakfast, all that stuff.
01:16:37.340 | So you just go to allthehacks.com/upgrades, and you can see that.
01:16:41.700 | Also a couple other hotel things.
01:16:43.620 | So one, this is new for me.
01:16:45.700 | Normally, we stay at hotels.
01:16:48.060 | And we're never really the Airbnb type.
01:16:49.980 | And then we started traveling with a family, and we were like, "Okay, we got two adults,
01:16:53.580 | two kids, and an au pair.
01:16:55.220 | We're looking at hotels."
01:16:56.340 | One of the challenges in Europe is that a lot of hotels have capacity limits on rooms.
01:17:01.620 | And so I do know that if you are booking a chain, whether it's Hyatt or Accor or Marriott
01:17:07.140 | or Hilton, I think almost all of them have a program in Europe, including some of the
01:17:11.420 | hotels in London, where you get 50% off the second room.
01:17:14.740 | So definitely inquire.
01:17:16.900 | It's not just if you book two rooms.
01:17:17.900 | But if you book two rooms and your kids are coming, they give you a deal for that second
01:17:21.700 | room.
01:17:23.220 | That's true in a lot of other places.
01:17:25.140 | And then we booked an Airbnb, and I didn't know this, but you can negotiate Airbnbs.
01:17:31.340 | And so we saw a place, we're planning it pretty last minute, and we're like, "Hey, you have
01:17:37.500 | six days free.
01:17:38.800 | We're going to be there for those exact six days you have free.
01:17:43.060 | We're coming in a week.
01:17:44.540 | So your place is a little nicer than some of the places we're looking at, and it's a
01:17:48.540 | little more expensive.
01:17:49.540 | If you could bring it down 25%, we'd book it."
01:17:52.180 | And we did that for London.
01:17:53.420 | We're also going to Paris.
01:17:54.740 | And both places brought the price down about 20%.
01:17:58.540 | And we booked it right away.
01:17:59.540 | And so we were able to save 20%.
01:18:00.840 | So normally, I think the idea of staying at a hotel where you got free breakfast and there's
01:18:04.860 | a lot more things figured out was easier.
01:18:07.240 | But it turns out if you're two adults, two kids in an au pair, we just couldn't find
01:18:12.260 | a hotel setup that worked, especially over the holidays, where we would be able to have
01:18:16.740 | a place that we could hang out while the kids are sleeping in the rooms.
01:18:19.920 | And so I think for the next little bit, it's going to be hard for us, but...
01:18:25.500 | Can I give a recommendation for anyone who is looking for something like that and wants
01:18:30.200 | to do almost like a service department?
01:18:32.760 | I don't even know what that means, but of course you can.
01:18:35.920 | It's basically, it's like an apart hotel, I would say.
01:18:38.920 | So there's this brand here in London called the Cheval Residences.
01:18:43.920 | This is quite...
01:18:44.920 | Actually, you can get pretty good deals there if you book in advance.
01:18:47.680 | So you just have to kind of like play it out, but they've got one property that overlooks
01:18:56.200 | Tower Bridge and they have apartments that do...
01:19:01.040 | You can get like two-bedroom.
01:19:02.040 | I think they have three-bedroom as well.
01:19:04.100 | And they're great with kids because they can provide anything you might need like cribs,
01:19:10.520 | high chairs, they can accommodate stuff if you want to bring your pets.
01:19:17.360 | Anything you basically need, they can give it to you.
01:19:19.680 | And then this place is extra special because if you get one of the Riverside places, you
01:19:24.960 | wake up and you go on your little balcony and overlook Tower Bridge.
01:19:28.640 | It's amazing.
01:19:29.640 | But there, when I have families that are looking for...
01:19:33.960 | Because we kind of, personally for us, we try to dissuade people from Airbnb just because
01:19:39.600 | of the ethical side of it in London.
01:19:41.640 | We're having a really bad housing crisis here.
01:19:44.680 | So I usually try to push people to apart hotels.
01:19:47.840 | And with families who need like the multiple rooms off of the living area, Cheval usually
01:19:53.680 | is like a really good option for that.
01:19:55.980 | And it's really nice.
01:19:57.180 | Well, I apologize for contributing to your London problem.
01:20:02.380 | It's okay.
01:20:03.380 | No, no.
01:20:04.380 | It's okay.
01:20:05.380 | It's a tricky one.
01:20:06.380 | I understand the...
01:20:07.380 | But you guys are...
01:20:08.380 | You're not the only people who have struggled with that.
01:20:10.340 | And that's part of where Airbnb has flourished is for stuff like that.
01:20:15.220 | So it's not to shame you or anything, but we just...
01:20:18.100 | I try to give alternatives.
01:20:19.980 | And on the topic of kids, what's the vibe of bringing your kids around?
01:20:23.940 | People are annoyed by it.
01:20:25.260 | Are they cool?
01:20:27.180 | What should we be thinking?
01:20:28.180 | Can you give my wife breastfeed in public?
01:20:30.780 | I know London's a little conservative.
01:20:32.620 | She can definitely breastfeed in public.
01:20:34.280 | That's totally fine.
01:20:35.940 | I think that...
01:20:38.940 | I don't have kids, so I can't fully speak for families who are going out in the world
01:20:43.960 | all the time in London with children.
01:20:47.300 | Most of the time though, as long as the kids are fairly well-behaved and they're feeling
01:20:52.940 | okay, it's pretty doable, especially during the day.
01:20:58.040 | You can take the kids anywhere during the day.
01:21:00.020 | All restaurants will take them, they'll accommodate them, all of the sites and everything, obviously.
01:21:05.900 | And like we talked about, pubs, you can take the kids to the pubs during the day as well.
01:21:10.180 | So generally, the reception is good.
01:21:13.940 | And I have been told by parent friends that the reception is better in London than New
01:21:18.940 | York and some of the other major cities that they've been in.
01:21:21.100 | All right.
01:21:22.100 | Well, I am incredibly excited for this trip.
01:21:24.900 | I have one last thing before we wrap.
01:21:27.920 | We're not going to put this in the show notes.
01:21:29.980 | You've already given a lot of great recommendations, but is there one best kept secret that you
01:21:34.780 | were like, "I don't really want anyone to know that this restaurant is here.
01:21:37.380 | It's my favorite.
01:21:38.380 | It's not crowded yet," or bar or something that we can leave right at the end of the
01:21:41.620 | episode only for the people that are still here?
01:21:44.260 | Yeah.
01:21:45.260 | Okay.
01:21:46.260 | This is like, there's a cocktail bar that's called Lounge Bohemia, and it is in Shoreditch.
01:21:55.780 | I had passed it a million times.
01:21:58.460 | It's just like a very random door.
01:22:01.740 | I would say it's speakeasy vibes.
01:22:04.140 | I'd pass it a million times over my nine, 10 years here, and someone eventually was
01:22:09.060 | like, "Oh, you've never been there.
01:22:10.060 | You should go try it."
01:22:11.060 | I was like, "Okay."
01:22:12.060 | I randomly went in there one day, and it's this tiny, tiny little basement bar that has
01:22:18.160 | like 10 seats, and they do very experimental cocktails.
01:22:25.100 | Basically the guy who runs it, who ironically does not drink, so his wife tests all the
01:22:30.640 | cocktails for him, but he runs this bar as a tester for the work that he does for corporate
01:22:39.540 | events and things like that.
01:22:42.700 | He gets hired to do these crazy, crazy, huge special events, really high end, but you can
01:22:48.420 | go to Lounge Bohemia, and you can do a tasting menu, and it's, I believe, five different
01:22:55.380 | cocktails that are off the wall.
01:22:59.580 | One of the cocktails I had was, it was called a Canadian Breakfast, and they brought out
01:23:06.080 | this little tray that had a little pan of blueberry pancakes, and then they lit a fire
01:23:15.780 | and cooked the pancakes, and then you mixed up the jam, and that was part of the drink,
01:23:22.420 | and then you put the pancakes in the drink.
01:23:24.260 | It's just crazy stuff like that.
01:23:26.220 | One of the cocktails was called Winnie the Pooh, and it has an actual bee on the side
01:23:32.220 | of it that, I'm vegetarian, so I made sure that no bees were hurt in the making of this
01:23:38.780 | cocktail.
01:23:39.780 | They're residual bees from, I forget what he was, he said it was exactly, that would
01:23:42.900 | have just gone to waste anyway, actually, but it's an actual bee that sits on the side
01:23:48.300 | of the drink, and you can eat it.
01:23:51.500 | It's like off the wall, crazy, crazy stuff.
01:23:55.620 | Because it's so small, you do need to book ahead, but if you're a cocktail connoisseur
01:24:02.100 | who really likes off the wall, crazy stuff, that's the best place to go.
01:24:08.300 | I feel like you just described me.
01:24:09.860 | I love crazy, weird cocktails.
01:24:12.100 | The only twist that would make it hit every mark for me is if it was also a spicy cocktail,
01:24:16.860 | but I'm sure there is one there that meets that criteria.
01:24:22.700 | I've been fortunate to peruse a ton of your content, but where can everyone here go to
01:24:28.100 | plan their next trip and get all the stuff you're putting out?
01:24:31.980 | Everything is under the name Love & London.
01:24:35.000 | We have over 300 YouTube videos at this point talking about how to take the tube, where
01:24:40.860 | to eat, things like that, mistakes not to make.
01:24:44.300 | We also have a website, we've got Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and an email list, so there's
01:24:51.340 | lots of tons of free content.
01:24:54.580 | And then we've got a few of our paid guides like the itineraries that we talked about,
01:24:58.260 | which are all linked on the website.
01:25:00.060 | Also, we do have something for your listeners.
01:25:03.380 | We do have a special discount that can be used in the Love & London shop, which is where
01:25:08.180 | you can buy all of our digital travel guides.
01:25:10.780 | So we will put a little discount code for 10% off the entire shop in the show notes
01:25:18.740 | or we'll put it somewhere.
01:25:21.340 | Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes, and so you can find that and everybody can check
01:25:25.820 | that out.
01:25:26.820 | Thank you.
01:25:27.820 | Cool.
01:25:28.820 | Yeah.
01:25:29.820 | And there's a one-on-one guide that's also free that I'll link to in the show notes,
01:25:31.340 | which was great, like just kind of high-level overview.
01:25:33.500 | So I really appreciate it.
01:25:35.540 | Oh, you did not market one thing that I think is the crown jewel of the content that you
01:25:40.620 | sell is so much of my trip planning is usually done in Google Maps, and we're just really
01:25:47.140 | far behind on this trip because we planned it a week ago.
01:25:51.100 | And in the guide, it was like, "Click here.
01:25:53.100 | Boom.
01:25:54.100 | Here is your Google Map."
01:25:55.100 | And I was like, "What?"
01:25:56.100 | So I now have this like better than I normally would lay out, like with icons of this is
01:26:01.060 | a restaurant, this is a bar, that kind of stuff.
01:26:04.180 | And I think that that is undersold on your website because I think that you could just
01:26:11.620 | sell for maybe even the same price, the Google Map of it.
01:26:16.100 | And so that was my favorite feature is that now I have Google Maps loaded on my phone
01:26:20.340 | where I'm like, "When we're out and about, we know what we're doing and we could find
01:26:23.580 | cool spots."
01:26:24.580 | So thank you for putting those in there.
01:26:26.940 | Make sure everyone else knows about them.
01:26:28.540 | Cool.
01:26:29.540 | Yeah.
01:26:30.540 | No, that was...
01:26:31.540 | I added that because I was like, "I feel like when I get stuff like this, I'm always just
01:26:35.260 | adding it to Google Maps anyway."
01:26:36.780 | So I'm like, "Why don't I just do it for them?"
01:26:39.980 | So it made sense.
01:26:40.980 | Yeah.
01:26:41.980 | Cool.
01:26:42.980 | Thanks.
01:26:43.980 | Thank you for doing that.
01:26:44.980 | And even more, thank you for being here.
01:26:45.980 | I mean, we have a lot of stuff to figure out.
01:26:47.940 | Good.
01:26:48.940 | No, it's great.
01:26:49.940 | Well, you can ask me anything, obviously, and thank you so much for having me.
01:26:52.580 | I appreciate it.
01:26:53.820 | Yeah.
01:26:54.820 | And maybe we'll see if we run into each other next week, and I'll be excited.
01:26:58.820 | Yeah.