Need advice on what part of London to stay in

Covent Garden

Mayfair. There are some great pubs, little shops and you are within walking distance to most touristy attractions.
We also spend a few days in the Cotswolds and have enjoyed Brighton.

Angel, Islington, or Shoreditch. These are 70% locals. And Angel is the best of them. The others mentioned above are closer to the sites if you prefer to walk. But transit is great so you needn’t worry as much

Day trips:
- Oxford
- Dover
- Canterbury
- Bath
- Cambridge
- St Albans

For a first trip, stay in a central location like SoHo. If when you go back, you can stay in places like Shoreditch.

The tube is good so it really doesn’t matter that much, but I wish I had stayed in a more central spot the first time I went.

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Where are nice areas. I’d prefer to stay in a place that feels local, not touristy.

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We really enjoyed staying in Notting Hill for this exact reason. It had more of a neighborhood feel and usually in the restaurants we went to near our AirBnB we seemed to be the only tourists.

And with the Tube you could easily get wherever you needed to be.

I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Bayswater. It was right across from Hyde Park and has an entrance to the tube a few steps away. You were also in Zone 1 which kept your tube fees a bit lower

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. I’d prefer to stay in a place that feels local, not touristy.

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I tried to do this when I was there and my advice would be to do the opposite. But I will say I had multiple little kids so we were slower moving and transportation was more difficult. We stayed in an Airbnb in Bayswater area which was like 6 blocks from Notting Hill. We were 1 block or less from a coffee shop and Waitrose which appeared to be a higher end grocery store.

The tube is fine, but London is huge. The main things are all pretty close together for adults, but getting there from the moderately priced hotels is not super easy.

I'd recommend staying as close as possible to everything you want to do, then when you want to get away take a train to some local spots. That will be easier in my experience and save you a lot of time if you are mostly hitting the big London stuff.I don't know the areas but I'd strongly consider the east side of the river. Its super close to everything Touristy especially the amount of stops, but seemed to be more away from most tourists and more locals.

The London Circle Line is great as far as only needing one line to get to most places you want to go, if you are staying around Notting Hill or Hyde Park then its a lot of stops which ads up time wise.

Also, definitely consider taking cabs once or twice a day. I love to walk and ride public transportation, the bus system is good also. But sometimes its well worth your time to take a cab for 1.5 miles door to door.

I took one black and white while there. Way more expensive but had a great time talking to the cabbie. Look up the test they had to pass for the job.

So where did you book to stay?

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First trip there. Where are nice areas. I’d prefer to stay in a place that feels local, not touristy. Also any advice on other parts of England to visit?

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You want to stay in central London as close as possible to a tube stop, as to feeling local I would not suggest that or you will need to go out into the burbs and that is a PITA.

One thing you will notice as it is your first time is a distinct lack of what you think of as English folks in London.

I would suggest the Lake District for rural beauty and Bath for urban history, if you have more time Norfolk is cool in its own way, old country roads with stone house and churches everywhere, the ride up the coast to Cromer is pretty nice, lots of old Roman ruins along the way.