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The exchange rate may vary a bit, but there is one conversion that will never change: £0 = $0. Here are our picks for the top free things to do in London.

Many of London’s biggest and best cultural attractions are free to enter, and the number of museums offering free entry is staggering. Donations are often more than welcome, and special exhibits usually cost extra.

Major Museums

British Museum

Imperial War Museum London

Museum of London

National Gallery

National Maritime Museum, Queen’s House, and Royal Observatory

National Portrait Gallery

Natural History Museum

Science Museum

Tate Britain

Tate Modern

Victoria & Albert Museum

Smaller Museums and Galleries

Courtauld Institute Gallery (free on Monday 10–2)

Geffrye Museum

Hogarth’s House

Horniman Museum

Houses of Parliament

Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Gallery

Museum of London Docklands

Saatchi Gallery

Serpentine Gallery

Sir John Soane’s Museum

V&A Museum of Childhood

Wallace Collection

St. Martin-in-the-Fields, St. Stephen Walbrook, and St. James’s Church have regular free lunchtime concerts, as does St. George Bloomsbury on Sunday, Hyde Park Chapel on Thursday, and St. Giles-in-the-Fields on Friday. There are regular organ recitals at Westminster Abbey.

Of the music colleges, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, the Guildhall, the Trinity College of Music, and the Royal Opera House have regular free recitals.

For contemporary ears, the area outside the National Theatre on the South Bank (known as the Djanogly Concert Pitch) reverberates to an eclectic range of music weekdays at 5:45 pm, Saturday at 1 pm and 5:45 pm, and Sunday at 1 pm. St. Olave’s Church in The City (8 Hart St.) has lunchtime recitals on Wednesday and Thursday at 1 pm. You can often catch some pretty good musicians busking on the Tube—they’re licensed and have to pass an audition first.

Free jazz and classical evenings (sometimes there’s a charge) are held Thursday to Saturday (plus two Sundays per month) at the excellent Dysart Arms (0208/940–8005 | www.thedysartarms.co.uk) in Richmond. Live jazz also comes to the central and ancient Lamb and Flag (33 Rose St. | 0207/497–9504) on one Sunday a month, from 7:30 pm. For regular doses of free blues, down a drink at the Ain’t Nothing But Blues Bar (20 Kingly St. | 020/7287–0514). One of Camden’s most celebrated pubs, the Dublin Castle (94 Parkway | 020/7485–1773) has long been one of the best places in London to catch big and soon-to-be-big indie acts for about the price of two beers.

If all seats have been sold, the National Theatre sells standing tickets for £5 each. Check at the box office.

Standing-only tickets with slightly obstructed views at the Royal Opera House are between £4 and £15.

“Groundling,” standing-only tickets for £5, are a traditional way to experience Shakespeare’s Globe theater.

Sloane Square’s Royal Court Theatre, one of the United Kingdoms’s best venues for new playwriting, has four restricted-view, standing-room-only tickets at the downstairs Jerwood Theatre for 10 pence (yes, 10p), available one hour before the performance; otherwise all tickets in the Jerwood are £10 on Monday.

Under 30? Becoming an “Access all Arias” member of the English National Opera is free, and allows you to buy tickets for £10.

Take a walk down the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. Claustrophobics steer clear, but for those looking for a quirky journey, take the old lift or the spiral stairs down and stroll under the Thames from the Isle of Dogs to the Cutty Sark tea clipper in Greenwich.

There are free spectacles throughout the year, but one of the most warmly enjoyed is Guy Fawkes’ Night (November 5), when parks throughout the country hold spectacular fireworks displays. On New Year’s Eve thousands of revelers descend the South Bank to watch free fireworks near the London Eye. The Underground usually runs for free well into the small hours.

Barclays Cycle Hire.
The popular Barclays Cycle Hire (0845/026–3630 | www.tfl.gov.uk) scheme has 587 docking stations housing 8,300 bicycles—known locally as “Boris Bikes,” after the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson—around Central London. The first 30 minutes is free, but then it’s £1 for the first hour and £6 for up to 120 minutes; the catch is that you need a £45 yearly membership to get a card (you can also pay for casual use by credit card at most docking stations).

Join a ragtag group of real Londoners on the top deck of a double-decker bus for a ride through some of the most scenic parts of the city. Routes 9 and 15 also operate shortened Heritage routes on the traditional Routemaster buses. You can use your Oyster card or buy tickets from machines at the bus stops for the following routes:

Bus 11: King’s Road, Sloane Square, Victoria station, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, the Strand, the Royal Courts of Justice, Fleet Street, and St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Bus 19: Sloane Square, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park Corner, Green Park, Piccadilly Circus, Shaftsbury Avenue, Oxford Street, Bloomsbury, Angel Islington.

Bus 88: Oxford Circus, Conduit Street, Piccadilly Circus, Haymarket, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, Horse Guards Parade, Westminster station, Westminster Abbey, Horseferry Road, Tate Britain.

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