Things to do in London for the Elderly

Creaky knees will thank you for ticking off some of your London must-sees from the comfort of a sightseeing tour bus. And boy, does this circuit include some big-hitters. We’re talking no less than the Houses of Parliament, Hyde Park, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace and the mighty St Paul’s Cathedral, plus loads more. All you need to do is – as the name suggests – hop on at one of the 20+ stops across the city, then off again at any attraction you wish to explore in more depth. Afterwards, another service will be along soon enough to speed you to your next destination.

Savvy seniors can also pick up a London Pass® Plus, which includes a day’s travel on the Big Bus as well as admission to many of the attractions along its routes, and could save you £££s on standard admission prices. Click here to find out more about The London Pass® and London Pass® Plus.

There are eight Royal Parks in London, all free to enter, all with their own unique attractions and all very well connected by public transport. Relish the idea of idling away an hour or two on one of London’s best-loved boating lakes? Hit up the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Regal flower gardens more your bag? Make a beeline for Regent’s Park. Fancy a spot of deer-spotting in the early morning mist? That’d be Richmond Park.

Most of the Royal Parks are also conveniently close to several more major London attractions, meaning you can easily combine say, a social call on St James’s Park’s resident pelicans with a chance to ogle priceless artistic treasures at The King’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace. Or a peep at the Cutty Sark, Royal Observatory and Old Royal Naval College on a jaunt to Greenwich Park. Again, you’ll find a number of these attractions included with The London Pass®.

Check out our guide to London’s best parks here.

Relive your misspent youth at some of London’s most wonderfully nostalgic museums. Chief among these, the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden features among its many excellent exhibits a classic red London Routemaster bus, vintage posters from the golden age of travel and Underground carriages that are almost certainly older than you are.

Sticking with the transport theme, Farringdon’s fun Postal Museum sees visitors squeeze themselves in for a ride aboard the same miniature train that was used to shuttle mail beneath the streets of London a century ago.

And if that’s whet your appetite for old-fashioned travel, you can fill your boots at several more museums, including the Royal Air Force Museum, National Maritime Museum and London Museum of Water and Steam. Don’t forget to ask for a senior discount, or check The London Pass® for museum inclusions.

Can you even say you’ve been to the UK if you haven’t indulged in a lavish traditional English afternoon tea? No, dear reader, you cannot. The classic tea involves dainty finger sandwiches filled with the likes of salmon and cream cheese, tuna and cucumber and coronation chicken, plus a range of delicate scones and cakes and, of course, that essential pot of Earl Grey or Darjeeling.

You’ll find variations of the afternoon tea on just about every street corner. But you’re on vacation, right? So push the boat out and do it in style with one of ‘the big three’. We’re talking London icons The Ritz, Harrods and Fortnum & Mason, where a luxury tea (with silver service, natch) starts at around £75 per person. 

If there’s a more relaxing London activity than a day spent exploring the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, we’ve yet to discover it. An absolute delight for visitors aged one to 100, Kew is a veritable kaleidoscope of vibrant plantlife, manicured lawns and mature woodlands. Take a gentle stroll beneath great oak and silver beech trees and pause for a picnic by the Great Pagoda, a towering masterpiece of 18th-century Chinoiserie. 

Don’t miss the chance to step inside the beautifully preserved Victorian glasshouses. These perennial Kew favourites contain several thousand species of temperate and tropical plants among them, as well as nesting birds and a Chinese water dragon named Techno!

Check out our guide to London’s most beautiful gardens, including the Barbican Conservatory, Isabella Plantation and Chelsea Physic Garden.

It’s frankly mind-boggling that visitors to London can ogle many of the planet’s most extraordinary historical and cultural treasures for free. That’s right: you can stroll straight in to the British Museum – home of the Rosetta Stone, Elgin Marbles and countless other ancient artefacts – absolutely gratis. Likewise the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, where you can marvel at masterpieces by artists as diverse as Rembrandt, van Gogh, da Vinci and Constable without spending a single penny.

Other free museums in Central London include the Imperial War Museum, the V&A, the Natural History Museum, the National Maritime Museum and the Tate Modern. Fill your boots!

Read our guide to the best places to stay close to London attractions.

Still got gas left in the tank? Great! There’s no better way to top off a day of London sightseeing than with a pre-theatre dinner and a play or a musical at one of London’s world-class West End theatres. We’re talking the Gielgud, the Apollo and the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, to name just a few. Choose your poison from a vast range of touring shows and West End stalwarts including Mamma Mia!, Wicked, Les Misérables and Agatha Christie whodunit The Mousetrap, which has been keeping audiences on the edge of their seats at St Martin’s Theatre, just off Shaftesbury Avenue, for more than half a century.

Looking for more things to do in London? Click the buttons below to discover how you can save with The London Pass® and to choose the right one for you…