Getting Around London: What It Costs and How to Do It Without Losing Your Mind
London’s transport network is one of the best in the world. It is also very good at quietly draining your account if you don’t know how it works. Here’s everything you need before you tap in for the first time.
Forget the Oyster Card
The first thing most guides will tell you is to get an Oyster card. Ignore that advice. Your contactless bank card or phone does exactly the same thing, charges exactly the same price, and saves you the hassle of buying and topping up a separate card. Tap in, tap out, and the system handles everything automatically.
The one exception: if you’re visiting from outside the UK and your card charges foreign transaction fees on every tap, an Oyster card might save you money. Check with your bank before you travel. For most people though, your card or phone is all you need.
The Tube: How It Actually Works
The Underground covers most of central London and stretches out into the suburbs across nine zones. Almost everything a visitor wants to see sits within Zones 1 and 2.
When you arrive at a station, look for the yellow card readers at the gates. Tap your card or phone to get through. When you arrive at your destination, tap out on the readers at those gates too. This is important. If you forget to tap out, the system charges you the maximum possible fare for that journey and doesn’t feel bad about it.
A single pay-as-you-go fare in Zone 1 currently costs £2.90. That adds up fast if you’re making multiple journeys in a day, which is where the daily cap saves you.
The daily cap for Zones 1 and 2 is £8.90. Once your taps reach that total in a single day, every journey after that is free until midnight. You don’t need to do anything to activate it. The system tracks it automatically and stops charging. On a busy sightseeing day where you’re jumping between stops, you’ll usually hit the cap after three or four journeys and travel free for the rest of the afternoon.
There’s also a weekly cap running Monday to Sunday, set at £40.70 for Zones 1 and 2. If you’re in London for a week and moving around a lot, you’ll likely hit this cap automatically across the week without thinking about it.
Peak times to be aware of: morning peak runs from 6:30 to 9:30 Monday to Friday, and evening peak from 4pm to 7pm. Travel outside those windows if you can. Weekends are off-peak all day.
For navigation: Google Maps works perfectly for the Tube. Type in where you want to go, select the transit option, and it’ll tell you which line to take, where to change, and how long it takes. It’s accurate and it’s free. Citymapper is another option that many Londoners prefer, and it does handle some edge cases slightly better, but for straightforward Tube journeys Google Maps is more than good enough.
The Bus: Cheap, Slow, Scenic
London’s buses cover the entire city and cost £1.75 per journey, a price that has been frozen for years. A flat fare regardless of distance, no zones, no complications. Tap on when you board, don’t bother tapping off.
The bus daily cap sits at £5.25, meaning four journeys and the rest of the day is free. For a day of pottering around on buses, that’s excellent value.
The catch is speed. Buses in London are subject to London traffic, which is a polite way of saying that in peak hours you will sometimes cover one mile in twenty minutes while watching cyclists overtake you. For getting somewhere at a specific time, take the Tube. For a relaxed journey where you want to see the city, the bus is a genuinely enjoyable way to travel. The top deck of a red double-decker through central London is one of the better free experiences the city offers.
Both Google Maps and Citymapper handle bus routes well. Citymapper has a slight edge on live departure times and disruption alerts. Either works fine. Use whichever you already have on your phone.
If You’re Here for Longer: Get a Railcard
If you’re spending more than a week or two in London, or planning to travel around the UK at all, a railcard is worth having. Both cost £35 for a year and give you a third off most rail fares.
16-25 Railcard: Available to anyone aged 16 to 25, and also to mature students in full-time study regardless of age. Costs £35 for one year or £80 for three years. Cheapest place to get one is here https://www.mytrainpal.com/
There’s a trick here worth knowing. You can buy or renew a 1-year 16-25 Railcard up to and including the day before your 26th birthday, and it remains valid until its expiry date one year later. Renew it on the last day you’re eligible and it runs until you’re 27. Do the same with the 26-30 Railcard below and you’ve stretched the savings considerably further than the name suggests.
26-30 Railcard: Available to anyone aged 26 to 30, costs £35 a year, and gives the same third off rail fares. It’s digital only, so it lives on your phone via the
Renew your 26-30 Railcard on the last day of your 30th year and it covers you until you’re 31. Combined with the 16-25 trick above, you can stretch discounted rail travel from age 16 all the way to 32 if you time it right.
One thing to note: on weekday mornings between 4:30 and 10:00, a minimum fare of £12 applies with a railcard. At weekends, on bank holidays, and during July and August, there’s no minimum fare. For London travel specifically, railcard discounts also apply to certain Travelcard purchases, so it’s worth factoring in if you’re planning a longer trip.
Quick Cost Summary
| Cost | |
|---|---|
| Single Tube fare (Zones 1-2) | £2.90 |
| Daily Tube cap (Zones 1-2) | £8.90 |
| Weekly Tube cap (Zones 1-2) | £40.70 |
| Single bus fare | £1.75 |
| Daily bus cap | £5.25 |
| 16-25 or 26-30 Railcard | £35/year |
No Oyster card needed. Contactless bank card or phone, tap in, tap out, and the system caps everything automatically. That’s genuinely all there is to it.
One final tip: every person travelling needs their own separate contactless device. You cannot tap two people through on the same card, and trying to do so will result in penalty fares for both. If you’re travelling as a pair, each person taps their own card independently.