London takes three days. England takes the other ten.
Which Stonehenge coach also gives you Bath. What an hour on the Thames really costs. Reviews of every tour you can book in England.
1The classic day outStonehenge, Windsor Castle and Bath with Pub Lunch in Lacockfrom $123 
2A London eveningLondon Small Group Tour of Historical Pubsfrom $40
3The Crown JewelsTower of London and Crown Jewels Exhibition Ticketfrom $49
4Oxford, properlyOxford University Walking Tour With University Alumni Guidefrom $41
5After dark in WhitechapelLondon Jack the Ripper Guided Tour with Ripper-Visionfrom $27
England is a walking country. Even the cities were laid out for it.
The lanes behind Westminster, the alleys off Whitechapel Road, a college quad nobody lets you into on your own. Three kinds of walk, what each costs to join, and how long it keeps you out.
Six English bases, and the best day out from each.
A capital you could give a fortnight to, two university towns that hate being compared, a Georgian spa city, a walled northern town with a very dark past, and the Beatles. Pick the one your train ticket already points at.
The Thames is a road, and half of London faces the wrong way to notice.
Westminster down to Greenwich on the tide, a speedboat that opens the throttle past Canary Wharf, a punt under the Cambridge bridges. Cheaper than the sightseeing bus, and considerably better company.
London: pick a river, a palace or a murder, then work outwards.
The whole London list →
The city is too big to see and too good to skip, so a first visit runs on a shortlist: the Tower and its jewels, an hour on the river, and a walk that turns street names into stories. These three carry more travellers than anything else here.
The Tower, and whether to add the Jewels
The Crown Jewels queue sits inside the walls, so the entry time you choose decides your whole morning. Yeoman Warder tours run free once you are through the gate, and are worth planning the day around.
Downriver to Greenwich
You pass Parliament, the Globe, the Tower and Wapping inside an hour, and Greenwich at the far end is a proper half-day of its own. Buy the single rather than the round trip and walk back up the hill.
Whitechapel, and what the guides actually show you
These walks live or die on the guide. The good ones stand you in the real courtyards, keep the projected photographs brief, and finish in a pub that was already there in 1888.
England’s most popular days out.
Every English tour we have reviewed →More travellers take these than anything else in the country, and each one has a plain reason why.
1
Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath from London
See Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath from London in one packed day, with luxury coach travel, expert commentary, and optional admissions.
From · $111
Read our review →
2
London Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Tour with Optional River Cruise
from $39
3
London Small Group Tour of Historical Pubs
from $40
4
Beatles Magical Mystery Tour
from $30
5
“Blue Route” – City & Beatles Tour
from $27
6
Stonehenge, Windsor Castle and Bath with Pub Lunch in Lacock
from $123
7
Oxford University Walking Tour With University Alumni Guide
from $41
8
Tower of London and Crown Jewels Exhibition Ticket
from $49
Stonehenge, Windsor and Bath: the run that fills every coach.
The three-stop day is the most booked thing in England and the most variable. What separates them is time on the ground: whether Bath gets a real two hours or a photo stop, and whether lunch is included or invented at a motorway services.
Every day trip from London →
North of Birmingham the accents change and the tours get better value.
Liverpool sells the Beatles honestly and gives you the waterfront for nothing. Manchester runs on football and on warehouses turned into bars. York keeps its walls, its Shambles and its executions. The Lakes are two hours further and worth the early train.
- 1Beatles Magical Mystery Tourfrom $30
- 2“Blue Route” – City & Beatles Tourfrom $27
- 3The Manchester City Stadium Tourfrom $35
The great English day trip starts at a London kerb at eight.
Stones on Salisbury Plain, a castle the King still uses, honey-coloured villages an hour past Oxford. All of them leave central London after breakfast and have you back before dinner, with somebody else driving.
What an English day out actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A surprising number of the best English days cost less than the train fare to reach them.
Guided walks, ghost tours, museum entries, an hour on the river and a punt on the Cam.
The full days out: Stonehenge and Bath, the Cotswolds, the studio tour, the Lakes.
Private drivers, small-group castle days and the occasional helicopter over the coast.
Three English days you cannot have anywhere else.
Old towns and cathedrals are everywhere in Europe. A stone circle older than the pyramids, four musicians from one port city, and an unsolved autumn in Whitechapel are not.
Stonehenge
The circle went up in stages from roughly 3000 BC, and the bluestones in the inner ring were brought from the Preseli hills in west Wales, some 150 miles away. Standard tickets keep you on the path at a distance. The inner-circle slots run before opening and after closing, are capped at about thirty people, and sell out months ahead.
- 1Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath from London★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 18,662 reviews
- 2Stonehenge, Windsor Castle and Bath with Pub Lunch in Lacock★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 7,402 reviews
- 3Stonehenge, Windsor Castle and Bath Full Day Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,346 reviews
The Beatles in Liverpool
Penny Lane and Strawberry Field are ordinary suburban streets with extraordinary paperwork, and the childhood homes of Lennon and McCartney are National Trust properties you can only enter on a booked minibus. The Cavern on Mathew Street is a rebuild a few doors from the original, which nobody pretends otherwise about.
- 1Beatles Magical Mystery Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 9,266 reviews
- 2“Blue Route” – City & Beatles Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 8,562 reviews
- 3The Beatles Story Experience Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,393 reviews
The Autumn of Terror
Five murders in ten weeks of 1888, inside half a square mile of the East End that has since been rebuilt twice. Almost nothing physical survives, so these walks live on the street plan and the inquest records. Mitre Square is still there, the Ten Bells is still open, and the rest is argument.
- 1London Jack the Ripper Guided Tour with Ripper-Vision★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 4,840 reviews
- 2London Jack The Ripper Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,131 reviews
- 3Ultimate Jack the Ripper : Guided Tour of London★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,495 reviews
Four English bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be sorted the night before over a pint. These four run on timed slots, studio capacity and a state calendar that takes no interest in your dates.
- 01Harry Potter Warner Bros. Studio Tour with Transport from LondonThe studio outside Watford sells its whole day in advance and releases no walk-ups. Weekend slots in the school holidays go months out.
- 02Stonehenge Inner Circle Private Tour from London with Bath VisitEntry is a timed slot with a vehicle cap. Access inside the circle, before and after public hours, is a separate and much smaller ticket.
- 03Tower of London and Crown Jewels Exhibition TicketThe Jewels queue sits inside the Tower, so a late entry slot can cost you an hour standing still. Take the first hour of the day.
- 04Buckingham Palace Entrance Ticket & Changing of the Guard TourThe State Rooms only open while the King is elsewhere, roughly July to September, and the Changing of the Guard does not run every day.
It will rain on you. Have the indoor day already booked.
The forecast is not a plan, and an August afternoon can end a walking tour in ten minutes. England is unusually well equipped for this: the national museums are free, the theatres run matinees, and afternoon tea was more or less invented for a wet Tuesday.
By place — capital, cities and country
By kind of day — walk, boat, castle or pub
London, Windsor, Stonehenge, Bath, the Cotswolds, Oxford, York: the fortnight nearly everyone does first.
The CotswoldsThe newest English tour reviews.
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