Biggest Tourist Traps in London

hey the fell Travelers Mark here with Walters world and today we're here in London today we're going to talk about are some of the tourist traps that tourists might fall into when they do come here to London but I'll be honest with you most of the tourist traps here in London are actually fun to go to and if you've got kids they're actually really really good but I know that some people want to know what a place that maybe should put lower on my list to go see or maybe ones that might feel like a tourist trap so I can save my money okay because that's one of the big things here is more the tourist traps are more of a losing of your money trap than they are actually not worth going to see so I want to put that out there first and if we're looking at some of like just the old standbys for tourist traps you know Madame Tussauds the London dungeon the clink Museum Ripley's Believe It or Not you know these kind of museums that are kind of standard anywhere you go around Europe or you go around the US you'll see these kind of museums I'll replace you know torture and Dungeons and oh my goodnessiness those things are all over so you don't necessarily have to do that here you can do that other places but if you have kids they're actually fun for the kids and I know Jocelyn she loves going to the wax museums Madame tussault but that's one thing I think is important to mention for some of those tourist traps just to get that out of the way and probably one of the tourist traps you're definitely going to see and definitely get pictures of is the London Eye and the thing is the London Eye it's just a ferris wheel which is cool don't get me wrong it has a nice view but you're stuck in there for 30 minutes going around and it's not cheap I mean we're talking if you're taking your family with you we're talking you know we're paying for a few meals with what it's going to cost to actually go around that with your family of four or five so that's one thing I think is important to mention with the London Eye it can be a nice view but honestly it's more for me it's better just to look at from the outside and have your pictures of it and move on because yeah it's it's a bit over the top in terms of tourist trappiness same kind of thing if you look to the London Shard you know it's you know the tallest building and there's actually an Outlook you can go up and see but you have to pay for the view and frankly London is much better with the stylized Skyline or seen it from down below at street level than it is from above Okay so so I wouldn't waste your time going out there for that because it is kind of a tour strap like if you have to choose between one view I would probably do the London Eye Over The Shard now another tourist trap that some people find is actually the crown jewels and I'll be honest with you I can understand how the crown jewels can be kind of a tour strap because going to the Tower of London which is something you have to do that's one of my favorite things to do when I'm here but the tourist trap nature of it is if you want to see the crown jewels you have to go to the Tower and the tower is a very pricey experience so that might be something that kind of turns you off and makes it feel a bit like well I've got to pay all this so if you do go see the crown jewels make sure you go go tour the beefeaters do those things because honestly you feel like you're getting kind of ripped off with the the crown jewels because they literally have you on a conveyor belt going by now some more tourist traps you're going to see when you're just walking around I gotta say Piccadilly Circus for as famous as it sounds you've heard about it's basically just a bunch of Road Crossings with some lit up signs all around and like a a statue in the middle that's it like it's not really much you're just gonna walk through it Lester Square here also a tourist trap if you want to go see a movie go someplace else in London because it'll be a lot less expensive than going to see it there and speaking of walking tour straps going to Abbey Road to get your picture I mean come on you kind of waste your time it's like going to Strawberry Fields in New York City where it's just this this thing in the ground like okay I got a picture of it but it literally is it's a working crosswalk so you know it's not that exciting another thing that's not as exciting as you think it's going to be or as magical as you think it's going to be is going to platform nine and three quarters so if you go to King's cross you'll see a huge line there like snaking back and forth to go get a picture of people holding onto the trolley going into the wall at platform nine and three quarters the thing is the tourist trap nature of that is it's not really where it happened in the movie and there's a huge you know tour shop next to it just for platform nine and three quarters so that can be a bit much but if you're Harry Potter fan again it's worth going waiting the line for 30 45 minutes to get your picture and then move on and I think that kind of goes into another kind of tourist trap Nature's any place in in London that's an Instagram spot or famous because it was in a movie some of those things do get kind of tourist trappy because people overplay it now another tourist trap I think is important for people to know is the Heathrow Express now the thing is if you have a lot of luggage the Heathrow Express coming from Heathrow into London is actually a good thing to do but if you only have like a carry-on bag or a backpack taking Heathrow Express is significantly more expensive than just taking the normal tube in so I know for myself I just take the tube in from Heathrow because it's cheap it gets where we want to go it gives me more options than just go into one station so something to kind of think about and going along with the airport kind of theme I think another tourist trap are overly cheap flights that come in at bad times because you'll see flights to London that are great especially if you're all over Europe you'll see all these great flight prices but the problem is you'll get to Stansted Airport at like two in the morning is there a train to get you in is there public transportation or a bus to get you in and you if there's not you might end up spending 100 200 pounds 200 to take taxi in so you're 35.35 Euro 35 pound flight actually ends up costing you like 300 pounds because of Transportation so do check the prices for multiple Airlines and look at what the overall cost is to get into town with that one because that's one that a lot of tourists fall for another thing I think is important to mention is the shopping at Harrods or Oxford Street yes window shopping at Harrods and window shopping at Oxford Street is fun you should definitely do it but the actual shopping part that's kind of a tourist trap because you can find these things online you can go to your local shops and buy these things and probably less than what you're going to fight on Oxford Street or in Harrods now another thing that happens in all big cities that are always tourist traps or any kind of Rickshaw or pedicab anything like that you got to realize once you get on that you're kind of at their mercy so you need to make sure you're negotiating the price before you get on because otherwise you might think what would have been like a 20 pound ride turns into a 50 pound or a hundred pound ride because maybe it's based on meters gone or time so you definitely want to kind of get that set beforehand because otherwise you could be out a lot of cash for not going very far with these rickshaws and you know the pedicabs and stuff another tourist trap that I really don't like and I have this in my scans and my don'ts and my mistakes because if you go to an ATM or you go to a shop and when you pay with your credit card you're not from the UK and they offer to convert your money your payment into Euros or dollars you never want to do that because they always get a better exchange rate for them and you can lose out like I've seen 10 20 30 differences in exchange rates and so that's really ripping you off as a tourist because they're like oh you're guaranteed what it's going to get just say no thank you I do not want the conversion and I'll tell you some restaurants and some stores will tell you oh no it's better for you to take the conversion they're lying okay A lot of times the servers don't realize that their bosses are making more money off those tourists when they do that so they just tell them tell them it's a better thing to do and it's not you want to make sure you get charged in pounds okay so what are some other tourist traps you know about here in London that other tourists might want to know about so they don't fall for them or maybe they know something they might want to do because some of these things really are kind of fun to do let us know in the comments below so we can help other Travelers and I'm now going to go to the changing the guard with my cousin and I know some people feel that's a tourist trap but I feel that something really should do when you're here so buy from London

Channel: Wolters World

Views: 35,329

Keywords: travel, europe, wolters world, travel advice, tourist attractions, travel vlogger, honest travel, Walters World

Id: 4jQvwXFaBTA

Length: 7min 15sec (435 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 06 2024