I ultimately decided to go to London on a pure basis of flight prices: flights out of Rome were expensive and all had crazy layovers, so I looked elsewhere to leave the continent. And I found an awesome flight from London to Ft Lauderdale, which meant I had a few days to enjoy London!
In all, in 2.5 days in London, I spent $384.66.
How did that work out?
Airfare: $112.30
I flew in from Rome, and I’m including this to show how much the flight was, but I used points for this flight. So it’s not included in the $385.
Visa: $0.00
London has a free visa on arrival for US citizens. And I have to say, the immigration officer who welcomed me to the UK was one of the nicest I’ve met!
Accommodations: $268.41
For the last nights of the trip, I splurged (gasp!) on a real hotel. I stayed in Kensington, right near Hyde Park. Which means this was one hell of a deal on a hotel! (FWIW, hostels in London are crazy expensive, so if I’d gone to a hostel it would have been a similar price.)
Activities: $0.00
I didn’t do any activities that cost money in London! (Except for shopping… which sort of is a different category?)
Transportation: $72.60
This was the express train to and from Gatwick, and the Tube tickets.
Food: $43.67
I had fish and chips and FINALLY tried a real Cronut from Dominique Ansel (yay!). It was just as good as the hype would suggest. And pro tips – apparently, you can just order a cronut when you get to the shop in London. The hype did not become the craze that is the cronut in NYC. I also had a real London curry – I definitely have become a fan of curry on this trip!
Shopping: Unspecified
There is perhaps a yet-to-come post detailing my splurges on the trip (they were ALL handbags…)
Ultimately, it came out to an average of about $153.86 per day. I definitely did NOT get enough time to even begin to really appreciate London, but I did have plenty of time to know that I can’t wait to go back!
