Black Cab Tour or Hop-On Hop-Off Bus in London: Which Is Worth It?
The short answer
For one or two travellers on a budget, take the bus. For three or more, or anybody with limited time or limited mobility, the cab wins on arithmetic as well as on comfort: a From $304 two-hour tour split four ways is about $76 each, and it comes to your door.
The two products are not the same thing
A hop-on hop-off bus sells you a day of transport on a fixed loop with recorded commentary. A black cab tour sells you a vehicle, a driver and a block of hours, with a route you can change while it is happening. They overlap in what they show you and in almost nothing else.
The arithmetic, done properly
| Hop-on hop-off bus | Black cab tour | |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | A seat, usually for 24 hours | The whole vehicle, for a block of hours |
| Cost for two | Two tickets | One fare from From $304 |
| Cost for five | Five tickets | The same one fare |
| Route | Fixed loop | Yours, and changeable mid-tour |
| Commentary | Recorded or a roaming guide | One person, talking to you |
| Gets to your hotel | No | Yes, inside the zone |
| Waits while you look | It leaves; the next one is 20 minutes | It waits |
The tipping point is three travellers. Below that the bus is cheaper and there is no argument. At four or five the two are close on money and not close on anything else. The full price-by-party table is in what a black cab tour costs.
The case for the bus
It is honest to make it. A bus ticket is cheap, it lasts all day, and it lets you get off at the Tower, spend three hours there and pick the loop back up. If your plan is to go inside things at your own pace, that is exactly the right product, and no cab tour here includes admission to anything.
It also suits a traveller alone. One person paying a whole cab fare for two hours is paying a lot for company, however good the company is.
The case for the cab
Four things a bus cannot do.
- It comes to you. No walk to a stop, no waiting in the rain, no working out which loop you are on.
- It goes where the bus route does not. Abbey Road, Leadenhall Market, Cecil Court, the Bank of England Museum, a Cotswolds village.
- It answers questions. A recording cannot tell you what that building is, and every one of these drivers has passed the Knowledge of London.
- It is wheelchair accessible, always. Transport for London requires it of every licensed taxi, which is not true of any other format.
What about the underground?
Cheapest of all, and the reason people underestimate the distances. Westminster to the Tower is two changes and a walk at each end. In a cab it is one leg with a commentary, and in a group it costs less than the fares. Where a cab may and may not collect you is on the pickup and routes page.
What each one costs you in time
Money is the obvious comparison and time is the one that decides it. A bus loop runs every ten to twenty minutes, so every stop you get off at costs you the wait for the next one as well as the time you spent. Three stops in a day is a comfortable maximum, and an hour of the day goes on waiting.
A cab has no headway. It waits while you look and leaves when you are back in, which is why a three-hour cab tour publishes fourteen stops and a bus day rarely reaches five. The published stop times, taken from the operators' own itineraries, are on what a tour stops at.
Can you do both?
Yes, and it is a good plan for a longer trip. Take the cab on the first morning for two or three hours, learn the geography and hear what each building is. Then buy a bus ticket for a later day and use it as transport between the places you decided you wanted to go into properly.
That order matters. Doing it the other way round means spending your orientation day on a loop that cannot answer a question, and then paying for a private guide to show you things you have already seen. What a first cab booking involves is in how to book a black cab tour.
What the bus does better, in the end
It is worth being straight about this, because a page that only argues one way is not worth reading. A bus ticket is open-ended: buy it in the morning and it is still valid at five, so the day can change shape as you go. A cab booking cannot do that. Three hours is three hours, agreed in advance, and if the morning runs late you lose the end of it rather than the start.
The bus also has the upper deck, which children like more than any commentary, and it runs on a loop you can rejoin from wherever you happen to be standing. If your plan for London is loose, that flexibility is worth real money and the cab's advantages mostly are not.
Where the cab wins is where the plan is tight: a short trip, a fixed morning, a party of four or more, or anybody for whom the walk between stops is the problem. That is not a marketing claim, it is what the reviews describe over and over on the reviews page.
Which to book, by traveller
| If you are | Book |
|---|---|
| Travelling alone on a budget | The bus |
| A couple with a full week in London | The bus, then a themed cab tour |
| A family of four or five | The cab |
| Here for two days | The cab, on the first morning |
| Travelling with a wheelchair user | The cab |
| Set on going inside the Tower and the Abbey | The bus, plus your own tickets |
If the cab is the answer, which tour to book sorts them by hours and theme, and what a tour stops at shows what each route actually reaches.
Tours that beat a bus ticket on value
London Private Black Cab Tour: 2 hour highlights/hotel pick-up
The cheapest fare here, and the one that beats four bus tickets outright once there are four of you.
From $304 per group, up to 6
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6 Hour Private London Sightseeing Tour
A full day and fourteen stops, including the Bank of England Museum and Guildhall, which no bus loop reaches.
From $687 per group, up to 6
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Private London Black Cab Sightseeing Tour – Personalized & Fun
Four to six hours with the route left blank, which is the thing a fixed loop can never offer.
From $698 per group, up to 6
Check Availability