Romelle

If you go the Airbnb route, do read all the reviews for ones you are considering. And also check out the links to the owner's bio.

Lots of free things in London. The wonderful British Museum for starters. Odd little programs at museums and churches just noted on their bulletin boards. Try a search on "free things to do in London".

Romelle

Philatravelgirl

Look at Generator hostel in London for shared room. I would normally say Z Hotels but outside budget.

Walks.com have many great tours that are reasonably priced.

I walk everywhere I can in London and you can look up free events on TimeOut London.

Not sure if I'd splurge on a show - I'd rather do the Jet Boat on Thames or the Harry Potter Studio tour (which is fun).

for food - EAT and Pret are good options as is M&S. Cafe deco near the British Museum (free) is cheap - I got a massive pasta dish and bottle of water for £5.50. I also created my own cupcake and chocolate walking tour in soho which if you have a sweet tooth is fun

For Paris, the street art walking tour is fabulous. You can buy sandwiches at a local Paul cafe.

Blablacar is a ride sharing service in UK and Europe to save money on transit

I have many London and Paris posts on my blog philatravelgirl as they are two of my favorite cities.

mpkz

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...her-shows.html

Tesco/Sainsbury's sandwiches are much cheaper than M&S or Pret. If you stay at a hostel, you should have kitchen facilities available so you can also make/share cheap food.

Oyster card is an obvious money saver - it will automatically decide the cheapest ticket for you, i.e. if you take individual trips where the total price exceeds a day ticket, it will just charge you the price of a day ticket.

$1000 for 10 days is doable. For reference, as a student, I stayed within my €500 per month free-government-money almost every month if you exclude accommodation. As you can get a bed in a central (Kings X etc.) hostel for $20-$40 per night, you still have more overall spending money than I used.

Silver Fox

No. Just that. You should really do some homework based on "actual" not what you "think". The pound is plummeting but not that much.

callum9999

People keep saying to get the Oyster card, but you only need it if you don't have a Contactless debit/credit card.

It's also ridiculously easy to get by in London on $100 a day. I know this site tends to attract people who don't travel on strict budgets, but this is the budget forum after all so I'm rather surprised this is news to so many of you!

You can get shared accommodation in a hostel with decent ratings for the entire stay for $100, or a budget B&B for $400, and a weeks travelcard is $50. Lots of major attractions are free of charge, buy food from supermarkets at low prices and your $1000 budget would even let you take a trip to Paris if you still wanted to go - if you want to slum it take night buses there and back (less that $40 return and saves 2 nights accommodation costs), or much more comfortably take the train (around $80 return and only takes a couple of hours - book now though).

You'll need to tailor this advice until you reach the desired comfort level, but as you can see, you can easily spend 10 days in London for $1000.

EmailKid

@:-)

rollingdeep

Ypu should look at what you want to do for 10 days. London has lots and lots of great free stuff - but if you are not a museum person etc then you may want to think about getting a megabus to another city for a few days. You can get journeys for a couple of pounds each way if you book in advance and generally every other city in the UK will be cheaper than London and give you somewhere else to go out in such as walking in the countryside!

From my personal perspective I would struggle to stay within your budget in central London but that is my style of travel.

RustyC

FWIW, I did a London-Amsterdam-Paris with 2 friends in 1990 and the $100/day still wasn't quite enough even then. Had to do a Visa cash advance via ATM in Paris (my first ever of that sort) to avoid having to ask for a short-term loan. Have gotten better at planning and having back-ups since.

A determined person might still be able to do it, but it wouldn't be much fun. Maybe u could bring a tent and pretend you're starting an Occupy movement, and also go on a fast (er, hunger strike) to underscore that.

RustyC

If it's a first trip it's hard to avoid the big box checks (British Museum, Tower of London, Houses of Parliament, etc., as well as stuff like the pub experience or seeing a show on the West End). Also some rock 'n roll landmarks if you're into that, or an excursion to Stonehenge, etc. That's what the people back home will ask about. On later trips many things will seem like one-offs and going to see York makes perfect sense, but I think it's hard to plan a first trip that way.

iluvcruising2

Many of the museums are free, so that helps. Imperial War Museum, National History Museum etc.

Accom is a killer, so you have to look at some cheap options. Going around by Tube is not that cheap also. If you can walk a lot, it helps.

Food-wise, eat cheaply. We like Greggs (even cheaper than M&S and Pret A Manger), but they are not always available.

See the video for our Greggs experience in London.

This video on Imperial War Museum, which my kids loved.

Oh yes, some pubs serve decent food at prices that are not too bad. We like the Wetherspoon's chain. Here are some video examples of our experience.

Brought the kids to eat here too.

This lunch cost me 8 pounds. There were cheaper options.

callum9999

You didn't "have" to get a Visa cash advance, you wildly overspent. If you physically couldn't find a way to enjoy yourself in London for $100 a day today I'd be concerned, the fact you couldn't do it in 1990 (unless there was a wild exchange difference I'm not considering?) rules you out as being a budget traveller in my mind! (Not because you have to spend that little to qualify as a budget traveller, it's wanting to but not being able to)

No need to bring a tent - I provided real life costings only a few posts above that show it's ridiculously easy to get by comfortably for $100 a day...

MSPeconomist

The London museums that charge admission fees tend to have free evenings every week. Last summer some were experimenting with being open all night, although this seemed motivated by allowing more people to see some of their (not free) special exhibits, which were impossible tickets to get unless you were a member of some friends of the museum group. In fact, I was told that joining the club was the only way to get into the transport museum (definitely not free!) in July.

big_mac

Do you have any examples of these free evenings?

MSPeconomist

IIRC the portrait place (which had music and stations set up to sell wine) on Thursday and the art/design major museum in Knightsbridge on Friday, when they were also open all night to allow more people to see a special exhibit (that was not free and was sold out at all hours). There were others and, in fact, I had the impression that most of the museums were doing this one day or night a week, but this was summer. The London transit museum did not have any free times and, in fact, the only way to get tickets within the next week or two involved joining for a year and making a donation.

Some of them are listed in tourist publications (like Where or What's On) with museum hours. I think google will product a couple articles with partial lists.

big_mac

I asked about the free evenings for museums that normally charge admission, because I haven't seen any other evidence that these actually exist.
Your reply then seems to only be about museums which are free anyway, so that doesn't really help. (I'm guessing National Portrait Gallery and V&A?).

(It's less relevant to this forum - but I'm also not aware of any museums being open 'all night' - apart from the 'sleepovers' they do. Many certainly do have 'late nights' - but nothing beyond about 10pm, as far as I know. I also think that you were possibly misled about the London Transport Museum being fully booked, I don't think they normally even take advance bookings except for groups.).