One Day in London by Black Cab: Morning, Afternoon and After Dark

Every listing here sells hours. Not one of them sells a plan. This is the plan: what a morning in a cab covers, what the afternoon adds, where lunch actually fits, and what changes after dark depending on the month you are here.

The shape of a London day

London's sights sit on a line. The royal quarter and Westminster at the western end, the river through the middle, the City and the Tower at the east. Nearly every route here drives that line, because it is the shape the city makes.

What a cab changes is the joins. Walking from Buckingham Palace to the Tower of London is most of an hour; the Underground is two changes and a walk at each end. In a cab it is twenty minutes with a commentary, which is what makes a one-day plan possible at all.

How early should you start?

Earlier than you want to. Three reasons, and they compound.

The Changing of the Guard is at 11am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with soldiers gathering from about 10am, and the roads around Buckingham Palace close before it. One operator sells a 9am pickup specifically to be in place. Second, traffic in central London thickens through the morning, so the same fare buys more of the city at nine than at two. Third, in winter the light is gone by four.

Morning: the royal quarter and Westminster

Start at Buckingham Palace, because everything else is downhill from it in every sense. Published stops here run from ten minutes to a full hour. If the Guard is running, this is where the morning is decided.

Then Westminster: the Abbey from outside at ten to thirty minutes, the Houses of Parliament at ten to twenty, and the Churchill statue on Parliament Square, which is a three-minute detour on almost every route. Cross the bridge for the photograph of the Elizabeth Tower — the far side is where it reads.

Late morning: the river and the South Bank

The London Eye, Westminster Bridge and the South Bank are what the third hour buys. A three-hour tour publishes fourteen stops and most of them are here, because the river is where London is legible: the Palace of Westminster on one side, County Hall and the Eye on the other, and the whole thing photographs from the water's edge.

This is also where a driver's local knowledge starts to show. The reviews name the Roman wall, a red phone box you can stand in, the oldest wine shop in London and a stretch of legal graffiti where a grandson was handed a spray can.

Lunch, and where a cab can actually stop

No fare here includes a meal, and only the six-hour and nine-hour tours have real time for one. On a six-hour booking most drivers build a lunch stop in and will suggest somewhere; several reviews describe restaurant recommendations that outlasted the tour.

On a three-hour booking, eat before or after. Trying to fit lunch into three hours costs you two stops, and the clock does not pause for it.

Afternoon: the City and the Tower

The City is the half of London most visitors miss, and it is where a longer booking pays. St Paul's Cathedral gets five to thirty minutes depending on the tour. The six-hour run adds half an hour at Guildhall and half an hour at the Bank of England Museum, neither of which appears on any shorter route.

Finish at the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, which is where almost every route ends. Ten to thirty minutes at the Tower, from outside, and usually a drive across the bridge rather than a stop on it.

What if you only have half a day?

Then take two hours in the morning and do the rest on foot. The two-hour route covers Buckingham Palace, St James's Palace, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, St Paul's and the Tower, which is the entire spine of the city, and it leaves you the afternoon to go into whichever one held you.

What you lose is the City detail and everything west of Hyde Park. What you gain is a fare of From $304 that divides between everybody in the cab.

After dark: what changes with the season

This is the part nobody plans for. In mid-December London is dark by about four in the afternoon; in mid-June it is light until after nine. A two o'clock booking is a completely different tour in the two months.

Between the November switch-on and early January there is a whole tier of tours built for it: two and a half to three hours after dark under the Oxford Street, Regent Street, Bond Street and Carnaby Street displays, one of them in a cab with a glass roof. Those are on the Christmas lights page, and what the calendar does to the rest of the year is on the month-by-month page.

Three shapes of day, compared

Should you do it in one booking, or two?

Two, if you have the days. A short cab tour on the first morning and a themed one later in the week is a better week than six hours in a single sitting, because the first booking tells you what you want from the second.

One, if you are here for a weekend. In that case take the longest block you can afford and hand the driver a list.

Where the cab can and cannot go

Worth knowing before you build a plan around a place. A licensed taxi may use bus lanes and roads that most traffic cannot, including The Mall, and it can stand on Horse Guards Parade. That is why a cab reaches things a coach never does and why the photographs on the gallery page look the way they do.

What it cannot do is park indefinitely at a ticketed site, or drive into a pedestrian street. So a stop at the Tower of London is a set-down and a pickup rather than a wait in a car park, and Covent Garden or Carnaby Street means walking the last fifty yards. None of that costs you anything except the knowledge that it is how the day works.

The pickup zone itself is the other boundary. Several operators publish it as a list of central postcodes, two will not serve an airport at all and one will. All of that is set out on the pickup and routes page.

What to skip

Anything you intend to go inside. A cab tour that stops for forty minutes so you can queue for the Tower has spent a third of itself on a queue. Buy that ticket separately, ask to be dropped at the door at the end, and let the tour do what it is good at.

Skip the nine-hour Cotswolds day if this is your only day in London, however good it looks. It is four hours of driving and it is a different holiday.

A day that fits around children

The same line, shortened at both ends. Take three hours in the morning rather than six, finish before lunch rather than after it, and pick the route with the shortest stops. A family day built that way covers the same spine and leaves the afternoon for a park.

Two practical points decide it. A London taxi carries no booster seats, which is worth knowing before the cab arrives, and a loo stop happens whenever you ask rather than at the next scheduled halt. The longer version, with the routes that hold attention, is in black cab tours with kids.

Frequently asked questions

What each fare covers before you plan anything is on the planning page, and the black cab tours in London are all set out with their hours on Black Cab London Tours.

Tours built for a full day

6 Hour Private London Sightseeing Tour

Fourteen stops from Kensington Palace to Tower Bridge, with a lunch stop and half an hour at Guildhall.

From $687 per group, up to 6

Check Availability

Private London Black Cab Sightseeing Tour – Personalized & Fun

Four or six hours with the route left blank, and fuel, parking and water already inside the fare.

From $698 per group, up to 6

Check Availability

London: Christmas Lights Tour in a Black Cab

The after-dark half of the plan, between the November switch-on and early January.

From $486 per group, up to 6

Check Availability