How to Book a Black Cab Tour in London: Fares, Pickup and What Is Included
The short answer
You hire the cab and its driver for a block of hours, not a seat, so one fare covers up to five or six of you. Prices start at From $304 for two hours and the cab comes to your address in central London. Nothing you go inside is included. Book a week ahead, or in October if you want the Christmas lights, and cancel free up to 24 hours before you start.
What you are actually buying
This is the part most people get wrong before they book, and it changes the whole arithmetic. You are not buying a seat on a tour. You are hiring a licensed London taxi and the person driving it, for two, three, four, six or nine hours, and they guide while they drive.
That has three consequences. The route is yours to change. The cab comes to your door rather than you finding a meeting point. And the fare divides across everybody in the back, which is why a figure that looks steep next to a bus ticket often is not.
The driver is not incidental to this. Every licensed London taxi driver has passed the Knowledge of London, which Transport for London sets as a book of 320 routes and says typically takes three to four years to learn. The full story of that licence is on the black cab page.
What it costs, and how the fare divides
Fares here run from From $304 for two hours to $1,286 for a nine-hour day out in the Cotswolds. Most of the three- and four-hour tours sit between $420 and $700. Every one of those is a price for the vehicle, with a single exception: the Cotswolds day tour is quoted per person, and that is the one fare here you cannot divide.
| A three-hour tour at $430 | Cost each |
|---|---|
| Two travellers | $215 |
| Four travellers | $108 |
| Six travellers | $72 |
Do that sum before you compare anything. A solo traveller is paying the full fare and should probably take the shortest tour; a family of five is paying about the price of five theatre tickets for half a day with a private guide. The full arithmetic, block by block, is in what a black cab tour costs.
Where the cab can collect you
At an address you choose, on all but one of these tours. Several operators publish the postcodes they cover and the lists agree: the West End, Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Marylebone, the City, Islington, Shoreditch, Bankside and Bermondsey are all inside the zone.
Two things to check before you pay. Only one tour here collects at Heathrow or London City, and two say plainly that they never serve an airport. And one tour has no pickup at all: the cheaper Beatles route meets you at Sloane Square Underground station instead. The full set of rules, including what happens at the edges of the zone, is on the pickup and routes page.
How many hours to book
Two hours places the landmarks and settles where everything is. Three is the length most first-time visitors should take, and it is what every themed route runs to. Four to six adds the parts of London nobody photographs, or gives a theme its own day. Nine leaves London altogether.
What is never included
Three things, on every tour listed here.
- Admission to anything. Not the Tower, not St Paul's, not Westminster Abbey, not Windsor Castle. One tour puts it in its own exclusions block: this is external sightseeing.
- Food and drink, unless a listing names it. Bottled water is included on about half of them and one adds snacks.
- Gratuities. Excluded on almost every one, and one adds that a tip is always at your discretion.
If going inside something is the point of your day, buy that ticket yourself and ask the driver to end the tour at its door. Several operators will finish somewhere other than where they started, which is a useful thing to arrange in advance.
When to book
A week ahead is comfortable for most of the year. December is the exception: the Christmas lights runs exist for about seven weeks between the November switch-on and early January, and the evening slots go first. Book those in October.
One operator confirms within 48 hours rather than instantly, so leave a margin if your dates cannot move. And every tour here refunds in full at 24 hours, which means holding a slot costs you nothing if the plan changes. Which month buys what is set out on the month-by-month page.
Booking, step by step
- Pick your hours and your theme. Sightseeing, Beatles, film locations, Christmas lights or a day out of London.
- Check the passenger cap against your party. Six on most, five on a handful.
- Check the pickup rule against your hotel postcode.
- Book, and wait for the operator to make contact.
- When they do, say what you want to see, what you want to skip, and whether anyone in the party has trouble walking. That conversation is what makes the difference.
What happens on the day
The cab arrives at the address you agreed, at the time you agreed, and the clock starts then. Drivers wait: one operator publishes twenty minutes and calls you before leaving. Message them if you are running behind.
Then it is your day. Stops run from five minutes at a passing landmark to ninety at Windsor Castle, and the cab waits at each one. Ask to swap something and it swaps. Ask for a loo stop and you get one, which is not a small thing with children in the back.
Who should book something else
Two travellers. One person paying a whole cab fare for two hours is paying a great deal for company, however good the company is, and a hop-on hop-off ticket does the orientation job for a fraction of it. The full comparison is in cab against bus.
Anybody whose plan is to go inside things at their own pace. None of these fares covers admission anywhere, and a day built around the Tower and the Abbey is a day of tickets you buy yourself. What each landmark gives you from the kerb is on what a tour stops at.
If it rains
Very little changes. You are in a heated vehicle and the photo stops are yours to take or skip, which is the single biggest advantage this format has over a walking tour or an open-top bus. Bring a coat for the stops you do want to make.
What does change is the light rather than the weather. In mid-December London is dark by about four in the afternoon, and in mid-June it is light until after nine. A two o'clock booking is therefore a completely different tour in the two months, and neither is worse — you simply want to know which one you have bought. The month-by-month figures are on the weather page.
Snow is rare and closes nothing. Road closures are the thing that genuinely disrupts a route: state occasions, marathons and demonstrations shut the streets around Westminster and the Mall at short notice, and your driver finds out the same morning you do. What they do about it is rearrange the order, which is the argument for a route that was never fixed in the first place.
The last practical point is the clock. A three-hour booking is three hours from the agreed start, not from when the traffic clears, and that is the one complaint that recurs across the reviews on the reviews page. Take a morning slot in summer if you can: the same fare buys noticeably more of London before ten o'clock than it does at three.
Tours that suit a first booking
London Private Black Cab Tour: 2 hour highlights/hotel pick-up
The cheapest way in and the shortest. Two hours, six stops, hotel pickup, and the fare covers everybody in the cab.
From $304 per group, up to 6
Check Availability
London: Sightseeing Black Cab Tour with Hotel Pickup
Fourteen named stops in three hours, rearranged on the day if you want them in a different order.
From $430 per group, up to 6
Check Availability
London: Iconic London Taxi Tour - Private 3-Hour Tour
The one that will collect you at Heathrow or London City, in an electric cab with a glass roof.
From $419 per group, up to 6
Check Availability