Compare London tourist passes

Which is the best London tourist pass for you ?

About-Britain.com - a thematic guide to Britain

Compare the main London passes for content and sample prices

(but read the information following this price comparison table too )

What is included..	Turbopass London City Pass	Go City London Explorer	London Sightseeing Pass
Website	London City Pass	London Explorer	London sightseeing.
General assessment ►	BEST CHOICE OF ATTRACTIONS	VALUE from GOOD to POOR depending on choice of attractions	DIFFERENT. Only good for TOURS, not for visitor attractions
Free museums and art galleries	Yes	Yes	Yes
Buckingham Palace	NO	NO	No
The Shard	NO	Optional	No
London Eye	Option	NO	No
Tower of London	Yes	Optional	Paid option
Madame Tussauds	NO	NO	No
London Dungeon	Option	NO	no
London Aquarium	NO	Optional	No
Thames cruise	Yes	Optional	Yes
HMS Belfast	NO	NO	No
Hop-on hop-off tour bus	Yes	Optional	Night tour
Cutty Sark	Yes	Optional	No
Westminster Abbey	NO	Optional	No
Shakespeare's Globe	NO	Optional	No
London Zoo	YES	Optional	No
St Paul's Cathedral	NO	Optional	No
Other paid sites..... in and around London	About 20 more	About 20 more	Bike tours, walking tours, themed tours, theater ticket.
2023 sample rates Prices - 2 Days	Adult: £ 109.90 Child (5 -15) : £ 69.90	Adult £90.40
Prices - 3 Days	Adult: £ 129.90 Child (5 -15) : £ 79.90	Adult : £ 119.00 Child under 16 : £79.00
Prices - 6 Days	Adult: £199.90 Child (5 -15) : £109.90	Adult : £ 159.00 Child under 16 : £109.00
Also available	From 1 day to 7 days
Info and buy	London City Pass Buy online in advance	London Explorer	London sightseeing.

Note: the most popular pass durations are for periods of 2 days, 3 days, or 4 days

IMPORTANT: Remember that entrance to most major art galleries and museums is free

Tourist passes for London? The pros and the cons

Many tourists visiting London buy a pass to gain fast entry into major tourist sites. But before buying a pass, it is useful, if not essential, to compare the different London tourist passes and choose the one that corresponds to your needs. Some visitors may find a tourist pass useful; others may not. Basically it depends on what you want to see and do during your days in London.

If a pass seems like the best solution, you need to make sure that you get the best pass for your needs, as this will depend on what you plan to do and see. Different passes cover different attractions and sights.

To simplify your trip to London, buy your pass online. Most passes can now be downloaded to your smartphone, but are also available as paper passes or print-your-own.

London tourist passes are not essential, but they are very valuable

You will want a pass if....

If you are only visiting London for a few days, and you value your time and don't want to waste too much time standing in queues or lines, then a pass may well be the best option for you. With a London visitor pass in your pocket, you can "skip the lines", i.e. avoid most of the queues that form outside the entrance to monuments and museums... and that can mean litterally saving several hours of queueing if you visit London during a popular period.
To find the pass that's best for your needs ►: Jump straight to the Pass Comparer
If you take the public transport option as well, you can save the bother of buying a travel card or an oyster card for the days when your tourist pass is valid.

You will not need a pass if...

Time is no object for you. Nor will you need a tourist pass if you want to spend most of your time visiting the main public museums and art galleries, such as the National Gallery, the Tate or the Wallace collections. The list of free London museums also includes the fabulous Science Museum, the V&A, and the Natural History museum, and indeed there are over twenty free museums and art galleries in London, including some of the world's greatest. Art lovers and museum lovers could easily spend two weeks just visiting free galleries and museums, and still not see all that there is to see.
If you're intending to stay in London for three days or more, it makes sense to plan your visits carefully, taking in the free attractions on certain days, and the paid entry attractions that feature on London visitor passes on other days.
For example, a visitor spending four days in London might want to take just a two-day visitor pass, visiting paid-entry attractions on those days, and visiting the free museums and other inexpensive or free attractions on the other days.

Ticket queues and security queues

Even if you have a pass, you may need to queue to get past security... or just to show the pass. But you won't need to waste time standing in a line to buy a ticket for each visit you make .

Compare the main different London Passes: 2022

London City Pass : From Turbopass. This pass includes many but not all major attractions (check list below), travel and sightseeing. Sample adult price: 2 days without travel option - £ 99.90. Travel card can be included as an optional extra Check out or buy
Travelcard: Travel only - just a London public transport pass. Or use a contactless credit card. Note that anyone can now use a contactless credit card or debit card on London transport, but that each traveller need a personal card. There is a maximum charge of £10.10 in a single day. More info here
London explorer pass : Select 3, 5 or 7 London attractions that you want to visit. Card valid 60 days, but only for these attractions. No travel option. More info here Check it out
London sightseeing pass. Choose from 1 to 5 days, then do as much as you want.. or can. Check it out. Note: this pass does not include attractions but does include a lot of different themed tours, and also (some) theater tickets. But take care; "premium" shows are not included, or only available for a surcharge, and there is no list of the shows / plays that are available . The website is not clear , so About-Britain.com does not recommend this pass.

The passes in more detail....

London City Pass
Visit an unlimited number of attractions during a limited number of consecutive days. These passes include a hop-on-hop-off tour bus, a Thames river trip, the Tower of London, and all the free museums (of course), as well as the London Eye, Madame Tussauds, and the London Dungeon and lots more. You could visit them all if you had time
The London Explorer pass:
Visit a limited number of attractions (up to 7) on the days you choose, not necessarily consecutive, during a 60-day period. The London Explorer card o card lets you choose either 3 or 5 or 7 paid attractions to visit, and see these over a period of up to 60 days. Although there are over 50 attractions to choose from (some of them not very well-known), you only get access to the 3, 5 or 7 you have chosen.
This card is therefore the best option for people staying for more than a week in London, but wanting to visit a limited number of paid attractions during this period.

Other passes:

Hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus pass Various companies operate hop-on-hop-off bus services in London. Tickets are available for one or more days, and prices start at about £32 for a one-day classic tour. It is easiest to book a ticket online in advance, however with the Original tour you can buy your ticket on the bus, though you have to pay in cash and the ticket will be slightly more expensive.
Note that a hop-on-hop-off pass is included with the main London tourist passes, so if you buy one of the tourist passes, don't buy a hop-on-hop-off bus tour too.
If you just want to visit London from the top of a double-decker bus, and are not in need of a commentary, then it is much cheaper to use normal red London double-decker buses, and to pay using contactless card payment, for which there is a charging cap of £10.10 for a single day (2019 rate). But note that each traveller must have their own contactless credit or debit card.

The London Sightseeing pass This pass is rather different pass from the others. Apart from the Tower of London and a river trip, it does not include many of the standard popular attractions, but it does offer a large range of themed sightseeing tours around London, including a Harry Potter bus tour, James Bond bus tour, hidden London walking tour, Rock 'n' Roll tour and several others. Note that some tours cannot be combined with a single pass. This pass also includes the option of theatre tickets - though some popular shows may incur an extra charge and may not be available on the day you want.

BOOKING ATTRACTIONS DIRECTLY -

Not everyone wants the constraints of a pass. For full freedom, buy tickets à la carte. Most major London attraction tickets can be bought individually on the Tiqets UK website.

PASSES are often the easiest solution, but not necessarily the cheapest way to visit London ...

► Choosing which pass is best for you, or whether you actually need a pass at all, will depend untimately on what you want to see, what you want to do in London, and how long you are staying. London has hundreds of different tourist sights (see London tourist attractions), including museums, monuments, views, places to walk, tours, concert halls, cabarets, restaurants and cafés. No-one has time to see everything. In fact, most tourists, in the space of a short trip to London, can do no more than scratch the surface.
So before choosing a pass, or no pass, ask yourself the following questions.

Do you want to take in at least three paid entry attractions a day (between monuments, museums, river cruise...) . If so, a pass might be the best solution.
Do you want primarily to visit London's great free museums, such as the National Gallery, the Science Museum, or the Tate, rather than other attractions? If so, you probably don't need to buy a pass at all, as most public museums and art galleries are free.
Do you want to pack in as much as possible in a short space of time, including the main sights ? If so, buying a pass will allow you to skip the queues or the lines outside some of the more popular paid entry sites, as well as offering you a better rate than you would get by buying separate tickets for each location.

What to see in London, how much to see, and how best to see it ? These are fundamental questions that need to be addressed by any tourist visiting the British capital. There really is so much to see, and for this reason, buying a tourist pass with free skip-the-line entrance in to some of the top attractions may be the best solution. Or may not be. About-Britain.com looks at the main options.

Prefer to book individual attractions? Book directly with Tiqets.

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