I See London
Come with Annika as she does her first international solo traveling! Kicking off her Euro Summer strong with none other than London England!
Annika
8/20/20268 min read
Day 5
Last but not least, my last day took me to the Natural History Museum. It was beautiful and a fun visit! Definitely would be a more family friendly place to explore and would be a must do if you or a loved one is a dinosaur fan (aren’t we all just a little bit).
Why London? It's the best.
So, London. Yeah, it’s pretty epic. There’s plenty to do, great food from all around, lots of culture, easy to navigate transit systems, and oh yeah EVERYBODY SPEAKS ENGLISH. So mainly the reason I’d recommend this as a great first solo spot is because as you’re figuring everything out, everyone is someone you can speak to to ask for help or directions, all the signs are in a language you most definitely know and speak, and you can figure out how you prefer to get around in a foreign country that runs well. It’s a great confidence boost for creating a foundation for solo travel in Europe.
Hostel info
Okay now some hostel deets:
Wombats was by far my favorite hostel to stay in during my European adventures, and also one of the nicest ones I stayed in. I’d highly recommend it for solo travel. They have many spaces for gathering and getting to meet people and make friends: they have their own coffee shop, kitchen, patio, and bar. The bar hosts fun events nearly every evening to gather people and it’s just people from the hostel and is extremely safe. The rooms are very clean and spacious. I roomed in an all girls room with 3 bunk beds and had a locker for my stuff as well as a personal locker by my bed to keep stuff in while I slept with a personal fan for each bed. Our room had it’s own bathroom and shower room. Additionally it was cleaned daily. All I can say was that it was a 10/10. I made great friends and great memories and loved Wombats.
Check it out here!
London, impressed me. I’d certainly go back and you, well you should certainly go. So Cheers to London, I’ll be back for you.
Stay tuned for the next stop in my Euro Summer…what’s your guess?
Mind the Gap, Keep Left, and always See it, Say it, Sorted.
Xoxo,
Annika
The one where she went to London…solo.
Are you thinking of solo travel? Follow along as I share my first solo trip across the world and why I think London might be the best first place for you to travel solo–it definitely was for me!
Soooo she went to London. I did indeed and after a not so quick hop skip and a jump from LAX to London Heathrow I landed in London England. Landing I found that I did indeed have service (planned ahead with my service provider but still, that could have been not so fun). It was approximately 1am for my lovely friends and family back home but don’t you worry, I was indeed determined to bother them with the important details of that my plane did not plummet into the ocean as I crossed it (thank God) and holy hell why was London having a heat wave. Oh and how in the heck was I to get to my hostel? I mean I knew I was going to take the tube in the lovely heat wave but there were some deep breaths involved in the process.
Take the Tube Babe
So here’s my 411 on how to take the tube, especially fresh off a flight.
Step one: get food, get coffee or a water, and go to the bathroom. Literally chill the heck out for a second. If you’re hungry it won’t be too good, even worse if you’re hangry. The tube comes every few minutes you couldn’t be missing it. So take a second and have a deep breath and make sure your creature comforts are accounted for.
Step two: open up apple maps, and you might be thinking not google maps, no. For the tube apple maps rocks, like a lot. Then put in your destination.
Step three: READ. So this might sound straight forward and its kind of because it is, but most people might have a freak. If it says take the picadilly line north towards kensington follow the sign for the piccadilly line and then stand on the side for the one headed north. Yes that is your tube. It is that simple. Then get on it.
Step four: Read again. Now you’re on the tube, look at the lil mappy they have and go oh look I have x more stops until my destination. Badda bing, badda boom baddie. You are riding the tube, the right one, to your dang destination!
I found apple maps was especially helpful because it had the times of the next tubes I could take and I would at most do about 10 minutes of waiting.
Okay, now that that’s sorted…the fun stuff.
Day 1
I made my way from London Heathrow to the wonderful Wombats Hostel. Upon arriving to my hostel I quickly made friends with one of my roommates and we took a little walking tour around London and had some great dinner together.
We began our walk across the London Tower bridge (was indeed NOT falling down). Took a cutie little double decker bus–so fetch, we obviously sat right up top. Got to the London eye, took a little look around, walked to Big Ben to say hello, saw Westminster and parliament, kept it moving to St. James park (right by buckingham palace btw), walked a little more to see the "Man Blinded by Flag" new Banksy statue (at Waterloo Place near the Duke of York Column), headed to Picadilly Circus, and boy if you think we stopped there you would be mistaken, we made it to china town and had some dinner, and then and only then did we make our way back to the hostel. So if you’re wondering if you can get about 15,000 steps in after your flight and walk all over central London you certainly can, the theory is tested.
Day 2
So, day two started slow as I played each day by ear for the most part. I decided that today was the day I wanted to go to the British Museum. It’s free, which is epic. It is also NOT air conditioned–not so epic. So keep that in mind. Now for me, myself, and I this wasn’t too big of a deal but it’s a good thing to be aware of.
So the British Museum. This is likely the most immaculate museums I’ll ever go to in my life. Now this is perhaps because the British went around and stole a bunch of things from a bunch of countries that I have the hunch they’re not too inclined to give back any time soon. I know some were gifts, but I do think that it’s kind of a key part to just be aware of that perhaps some of the people from some of the cultures around the world are not so happy for their stuff to be, well, not theirs anymore. All that aside, it was immaculate. From the numerous amounts of mummies and the perfectly preserved human body (skin and hair still on) to the Greek statues and everything in between. It is certainly on my list of MUST DO’s if you’re going to London. Even if you’re going to England I would do what I could to make it out there, plus it’s free–who wouldn’t love that?
After that I caught up with some girls from my hostel (best roomies of the trip btw) and made some plans to go out! We had the best time getting ready and began at the hostel bar wich honestly ended up being the place we had the most fun! Digital cameras were required, and the USA dominated in beer pong (what can I say, we’re just those girls).
Day 3
So my day 3 I made my way (as a pro at using the underground) to Notting Hill for some world class shopping. This looked like things from watches, headscarves, street markets, vintage clothes, baked goods, truly the mecca for all of the everything. I certainly spent a good few hours here and I recommend you do too.
Now back at the hostel I ate some of my leftovers and ended up joining in on a card game which then led to joining in on a Hostel trivia night hosted at the hostel’s bar! We were Will and the WombaChicks and we dominated-ish!
Day 4
For day 4 I made it up early to go and get my cutie little tour on watching the Changing of the Guard! It was most definitely worth it in my opinion and I was grateful to have been led by our very kind tour guide Phillip to get the best spots of the changing of the guard. Now alone, I’m not sure I would have done it but it was certainly super cool to have gotten to watch and the history provided was amazing and well worth it. This started my morning off right and I slowly made my way back to the hostel to get ready for none other than the Harry Styles concert! Now I wasn’t too sure what to do in London and was definitely very influenced by all of the everyone who was going as well as the $60 ticket price that I was able to secure so off I was… with my new friends from the hostel! So 10/10 would see him again, plus got to see Shenia Twain! It was amazing. We had an epic underground photoshoot waiting for the tube and made it back to the hostel unscathed.
