This year I've really enjoyed sharing some of my actual itineraries for the likes of New York, Miami South Beach and Edinburgh, instead of just general guides to the cities in question. And this month I visited London for the very first time, for an overnight shopping trip with my Mum. So here is my London Itinerary and how we spent our first 24 hours in London;
How to get there
Travelling down from Scotland, there were a few different options available to us. Flying was the quickest option. But as we would be doing hand luggage only, this meant that we wouldn't be able to bring back any liquids larger than 100ml. And since we knew that we would be coming home with some beauty bits, that immediately ruled that out this time.
Going by bus would take double the amount of time (almost 10 hours!) so we opted to travel by train. It was our first time ever travelling by Virgin Trains. And four and a half hours journey time didn't seem too bad in the grand scheme of things. Although, the five and half hours on the way home, arriving back in Glasgow at 11:30pm was not as fun.
TOP TIP: 12 weeks ahead is the sweet spot for booking trains to London. Sign up for a Trainline email alert; then you can swoop in and get your tickets somewhat cheaper. We paid £45 for our outward journey and £30 for our return journey the following day.
Where to stay
After a significant amount of research I settled on one of Premier Inn's hub hotels. I'd heard nothing but good things both from friends and reviews online. And at £90 for the two of us, in the heart of London, it was a great deal.
hub by Premier Inn London Covent Garden
The room had everything that we could possibly need, was located steps away from Covent Garden, Leicester Square and nearby Regent Street (aka. the perfect location for our very first trip). There was also the possibility of booking a double/accessible room, which was what totally sold us on staying there.
DAY ONE
Travel to London
From Glasgow Central Station to London Euston, it took just over four and a half hours. This meant that we had plenty of time to relax, as well as come up with some last minute plans thanks to our Marco Polo Pocket Travel Guide*. There were so many great travel tips in there. Next time we'll definitely need to dedicate a few days to seeing more of London.
We eventually got into London Euston at around 2:30pm that afternoon. And after navigating a busy and pretty poorly signed train station, we made our way to the Underground.
Take the London Underground
Having never visited before, we were pretty excited to take the London Underground. We adored the New York one (see my How To Navigate The NYC Subway blog post for my top tips). But I've always heard about how ridiculously hot the London Underground is, particularly during the Summer months. However, nothing prepared me for how humid it would be. We only had to travel a few stops and we were so thankful about that. Had we come from the airport, I don't think we could have coped with a longer journey down there.
TOP TIP: As long as you have a contactless card you don't actually need to buy or top up an Oyster card. All you need to do is tap your card when you start your journey and tap it again when you exit.
Explore Covent Garden
After checking in at the hotel and dropping our bags, we headed straight out to explore the surrounding area. The hub (this blog post is not sponsored by them btw but I just have to shout about how happy we were with our stay) is only a few minutes walk from the heart of Covent Garden, which is exactly why we picked that particular hotel.
Covent Garden is one of the most beautiful places that I've ever visited. The pretty little shops, mix of places to explore and just general vibe of the whole area, was very much up our street. We may have spent quite a bit of time taking advantage of all the brilliant photo opps. That's one thing that Glasgow is severely lacking in.
Dinner at Shake Shack
After a bit of a wander, we simply had to make Shake Shack our first port of call. I had fries and what is easily the best chicken burger that I have ever had! It was SO juicy and I'm honestly drooling right now as I sit and type this. I never tried the Chick'n burger when I was in Miami. And I am now sincerely kicking myself for not doing so.
My Mum opted for the classic Shack burger but upgraded her fries to the Chipotle cheddar cheese fries, which are limited edition for Summer 2019.
Even though we were completely stuffed, we had to indulge in some shakes too. I mean, how can you go to Shake Shack and not have an ice cold shake?!
Again, it was one of the best milkshakes that we've both ever had. We were truly amazed by how many Shake Shacks we stumbled across whilst exploring such a small part of London. Seriously, Shake Shack, when are you coming to Scotland?!
Walk off dinner/explore some more
We spent the rest of the evening having a look in the shops and just generally taking in our surroudings/walking off dinner. It was great to visit some stores that we don't have in Scotland such as & Other Stories, MUJI and kikki.k.
We even got a chance to visit the Disney West End pop up shop that I'd seen on Beth(@bethanyfrancesca_)'s fabulous Instagram.
Go see a show
We were located literally steps away (The Duke Of York's Theatre was right next door) from the theatre district. And whilst we didn't see a show this time (we were in bed by 10 o'clock we were that exhausted), we've got it on our list of things to do next time.
DAY TWO
After grabbing some rather indulgent breakfast pastries and freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast and freshening up, we checked out of the hotel ready to really start shopping.
Shop til you drop on Regent Street
That morning we ventured in the opposite direction from the hotel, this time towards Regent and Oxford Street.
The whole reason for us finally making the trip down to London was that we actually won a joint Instagram competition with Regent Street and Kiehl's to have a skincare consultation and be gifted our new routine! I know, we are still pinching ourselves that such a thing happened. Eeee! Expect a blog post on what we took home with us from Kiehl's very soon.
Even though it was starting to get pretty busy, we really enjoyed sauntering along Regent Street and doing a spot of window shopping. So much so that we worked up quite the appetite and quickly headed for lunch nearby.
Lunch at Byron
Just off Regent Street we found Byron, which has always been a firm favourite of mine and somewhere my Mum was happy to try, having missed out when there was a branch in Glasgow.
My Mum absolutely loved her mac and cheese and bacon cheeseburger. Whilst I enjoyed another great chicken burger and their always ridiculously moreish fries.
Check out Carnaby Street & Soho
The street that Byron is located on is in the Soho/Carnaby Street area. And much like with Covent Garden, it is such a lovely little pedestrianised shopping area. My big camera had actually died by this point (the last shots I managed to get were those in Byron). But we will definitely be returning to that area on our next trip, for sure.
My Mum had actually seen a beautiful pair of sunglasses in the Kate Spade sale the evening before. So we went back to Covent Garden instead of venturing further towards Oxford Street this time. I'm so glad that she decided to treat herself to them and it really rounded off our little 'treat yo' self' trip nicely.
There were so many places that we didn't get to see, which just gives us more of an excuse to come for longer next time, particularly as we didn't really visit any of the traditionally tourist-y spots. That's when our Marco Polo Pocket Travel Guide will really come in handy.
But for a mother/daugther trip, we couldn't have asked for anything better. Plus, the weather was perfect (a few weeks earlier London had had a heatwave and the following week, torrential rain so we were really lucky).
Have you ever visited London or wanted to? And which of my recommendations look like something you'd like to do?
This blog post was written in collaboration with Marco Polo Guides but as always, all thoughts are my own.
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