London side trip - The Advice

• Get a Travel Card for the tube. It's overpriced, but as London goes, it's a bargin and it'll make things a lot easier for you.
• The tour buses are expensive, and swing by things a bit quickly. On the other hand, they're a reasonable way to get the quick overview of the city. We took London Pride, but I assume some of the others (such as The Original London Tour) are equivalent. London Pride has a Grand Tour and 7 smaller tours. You should take one of two approaches. If you don't have evening plans take the smaller tours during the day and save the Grand Tour for night (when not many things are open). If you have evening plans, take the Grand Tour early in the day before things get crowded.
• Everything is less crowded in the morning, so try to visit some of the busier attractions then (the Tower of London, for example).
• Out of London Trips
  It takes a lot of time to travel to sights out of central London, so choose carefully. Here's what I thought of the three trips we took:
  • I thought the Stonehenge/Bath bus tour was good. We took the cheap Evan Evans tour - be aware that they have both a cheap one and an expensive one.
  • On our trip to Dover, I would have left earlier in the day, and taken the tour bus from the train station. The way we would have seen more of the Cliffs of Dover and walked less. Dover Castle is worth visiting.
  • I was dissappointed with Windor Castle. Because of very reasonable security concerns (the queen lives there, after all), you don't get to see much of the castle. You do get to see their ostentatious display of wealth, so if that appeals to you then perhaps it's worth your while going.
• Food. Eating out is so expensive (and for us, dissappointing) that it's worth getting restaurant recommendations for dinner and planning to buy food at the grocery store for lunch (and possibly dinner). While the latter may sound cheap (it certainly is less expensive), it'll probably be a better meal than you'll get at many London restaurants.