Black cab sightseeing tours put no theme in your way: you hire the cab and its driver for two to six hours and the landmarks are yours to reorder. Fares start at From $304, and every fare covers the whole party rather than a seat.
The shortest and cheapest run here: six stops between Buckingham Palace and the Tower, hotel pickup at both ends, and a fare that covers everybody in the cab.
From $304 per group, up to 6
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Four hours or six with the route left open, and fuel, parking and bottled water already inside the fare. Thirty minutes each at the Palace and St Paul's on the published run.
From $698 per group, up to 6
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Fourteen named stops in three hours, from the Tower of London round to St Paul's Cathedral by way of the London Eye and Piccadilly Circus. The order is yours to rearrange on the day.
From $430 per group, up to 6
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Four hours split between the landmarks and the corners nobody points at, with a drop-off anywhere in central London rather than back where you started.
From $716 per group, up to 6
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Four, five or six hours sold by the block and shaped around a list you hand over first. The only fare here with snacks aboard as well as water.
From $606 per group, up to 6
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
An electric cab with a panoramic glass roof, a hearing induction loop, and pickup at Heathrow or London City — the only run here that meets you at a terminal.
From $419 per group, up to 6
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
The longest run inside the city: fourteen stops from Kensington Palace to Tower Bridge, with half an hour at Guildhall and USB charging in the back.
From $687 per group, up to 6
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
You hire a licensed London taxi and its driver for a block of hours, and the driver guides while they drive. There is no theme to follow and no script to keep to, which is the whole difference between an open route and a themed one. The route is the landmarks, and the landmarks are yours to reorder.
All seven work that way, from two hours to six. They all collect you at an address you choose in central London and they all end wherever you name. None of them goes inside anything, which is a feature rather than an oversight: what you are buying is the frame, and the tickets to the two buildings that held you are yours to buy afterwards.
Every published itinerary here is a starting point. Ask for the City churches, the Roman wall or a street from a film and the morning rebuilds itself, because your driver has passed the Knowledge of London and does not need a map to do it.
Two hours, three, four, five or six, and each length reaches a genuinely different London. Two hours is Westminster to the Tower. Six adds Kensington at one end and the Bank of England Museum at the other. A themed route has a fixed length because its addresses are fixed.
Almost every review that mentions timing says the same thing: they took it on their first morning and it changed how they spent the rest of the week. A themed tour is a better second booking than a first one.
Every one of these hires the cab rather than the seat, so the figure on the card is what the party pays between them. At four travellers a three-hour run works out at about $108 each, which is less than most guided walks and involves no walking.
The honest comparison, because for some travellers it goes the other way.
| An open sightseeing run | A themed route | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 2 to 6 hours, your choice | Fixed at 2.5 to 5 |
| Route | Yours, and changeable mid-tour | The theme decides it |
| Covers | The landmark spine of the city | Addresses most tours never reach |
| Best first booking | Yes | Better as a second |
| Typical fare | From $304 to $716 | $473 to $676 |
| Suits | First-time visitors and groups | Anybody with a specific reason to come |
If you have a reason to come — the music, the films, the lights — take the theme. The Beatles routes reach more than thirty addresses that no sightseeing run touches, and the film-location routes join up nine that no walking route can.
Pick your hours and see what each fare already covers.
Check AvailabilityYou get the vehicle and its driver for the booked hours, live commentary throughout, photo stops with the cab waiting, pickup and drop-off inside the central London zone, and bottled water on about half of them. Fuel, parking and tolls sit inside the fare on several, which means a stop that is awkward to park at costs you nothing to ask for.
You don't get admission anywhere. Not the Tower, not St Paul's, not Westminster Abbey. One of these says so in its own exclusions block, in those words: external sightseeing. Food, drink beyond the water, and gratuities are also outside the fare on almost all of them.
Price band. From $304 for two hours up to $716 for four, and $687 for the six-hour version. Divide by your party before you judge any of them.
Length. Two hours for a first morning, three for most visitors, six if you want the City detail and a lunch stop.
Booking window. A week is comfortable. Take the earliest slot on offer: traffic is what eats a fixed block, and the same fare buys noticeably more of London before ten o'clock.
What to say when they call. Two stops you actually care about, anything that limits walking, and where you want to finish. That conversation is worth more than any choice you make on the booking page.
One or two travellers on a budget. A whole cab fare split two ways is a lot for two hours. A hop-on hop-off ticket does the orientation for a fraction of it, and the arithmetic is worked through in cab against bus.
Anybody who wants to go inside things. None of these fares covers admission, so a day built around the Tower and the Abbey is a day of your own tickets.
Anybody who came for one subject. Take the theme rather than the landmarks, and put the landmarks in a separate short booking.
The private black cab tours of London are all set out with their hours and their caps on Black Cab London Tours.
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead on every sightseeing tour listed here.
Check Availability