Calling all Pser's in England...

[AprilBaby]

I have a 12 hr daytime layover in London coming up and since I have never been to your lovely city I want to go downtown and sight see. Problem here is everything I read says I will get mugged, pick pocketed, etc...
I am sure you would read the same thing about coming to Chicago, but I feel 100% safe when I am downtown in the main shopping/tourist areas. What do you think? How careful do I need to be?

 

[bee*]

I don't live in England but as I live in Ireland I've been to London quite a bit. I've never felt like my safety was threatened, have never been mugged etc. Just take the same precautions that you would take in any big city. You'll have a great time there.

 

[Gailey]

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but 12 hours is not as long as you think it is when it comes to getting in and out of London from Heathrow (I assume it's Heathrow that you are flying to).

I think you need to allow an hour from the plane landing to getting free of immigration. You might be lucky if it's a quiet day and your bags are checked through to your final destination.

Allow another hour to get from the airport into central London. Tube, bus or taxi will be your options. Tube or bus will likely be the fastest but can be daunting in rush hour traffic. Taxi will give you door-to-door service but will be the most expensive, anthing from between 40 pounds (Geez, what happened to the insert symbol button in PS 2.0?) and 75 pounds I should think. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/tax ... /1140.aspx

You will need to allow an hour to get back to the airport and standard check-in for most destinations is about 2 hours. There's 5 hours out of your 12 gone in a heartbeat.

I guess that still gives you a good 6-7 hours to play with. What sort of things are you interested in seeing? Shops, sights etc? Most popular shopping destinations are probably Oxford Street and Regent Street. Liberty is always a nice store to visit: http://www.liberty.co.uk/

I have provided a ton of links in a thread started by 'Lil the Thrill' for her trip to London, but this new version of PS is not letting me find it. Heck, I can't even bring up my own posts, I get an "Access Denied' message, otherwise I would find it for you. Maybe ask Ella if she could help you find it.

Let us know what time you land and what sorts of things interest you and I will see what links I can drum up for you when I get in from work.

 

[AprilBaby]

WOW! I didn't give it that much thought! Our luggage is checked thru to Barcelona, so no worries there. We thought me might want to see some of the historic sights of London, such as palaces, Big Ben, The Tower Bridge...

We better think carefully how much time we will really have, on the other hand 12 hrs in the airport is a long time....

 

[luckynumber]

hop on a sightseeing bus and see the big sights. houses of parliament, buckingham palace etc

there isn't much time to do a lot!

heathrow is quite far from central london

 

[Haven]

I lived in London for one summer during college and the only time anything bad happened was when my backpack was stolen from the bottom of a coach bus in Victoria Station. It was a setup, the thief had a partner who prevented anyone from exiting the bus while he grabbed bags from the bottom. It had all of my possessions in it, but thank goodness I was in college and none of them were worth very much!

ANYWAY . . . I spent the entire summer wandering around the city as a clueless college student and was never mugged or pick pocketed or anything like that. I'm from Chicago, and I felt as safe in London as I do in Chicago, and I feel very safe in Chicago.

I do think it will take you a bit of time to get out of Heathrow and into the center of the city, but I hope you can make it work. I love London, and can't wait to go back. We're planning a trip for next summer.

 

[zoebartlett]

I was thinking the same thing, re: the amount of time you'll actually have once getting out of customs, etc. It would seem like 12 hours is a long time, but I'd think abut narrowing down the things you'll want to see to ensure you'll make it back to the airport in plenty of time for your next flight.

 

[Gailey]

Phew, found it!

Here's the thread that I made recommendations for Lil_The_Thrill in:

viewtopic.php?t=98578

 

[Porridge]

I've never felt less safe in London than I have anywhere else. Just take the usual tourist-in-a-big-city precautions. It will take time to get through customs and into central London, but I think you definitely have time if you plan it. The tour bus is a good idea.

 

[AprilBaby]

Thanks so much for all your help! It's given lots to think about and certainly lots of great suggestions! WIll report back in a month after the trip!