How to pay: tap, don't buy tickets

Forget paper tickets. Touch the same contactless bank card, or the same phone, on the yellow reader when you enter and when you leave every station, and on entry only on buses. The system works out the cheapest fare and stops charging when you reach the daily cap, and on contactless also a weekly cap from Monday to Sunday. Caps for Zones 1 to 6 are frozen until March 2027.

• Use one card per person, and always the same card or phone; mixing them breaks the capping.
• Always touch out at stations, or you are charged the maximum fare.
• Foreign cards work, but check your bank's fee per transaction. An Oyster card avoids that; visitors can buy one at stations.
• Peak times are weekdays roughly 6:30 to 9:30 and 16:00 to 19:00; off-peak is cheaper.

London at night

The Night Tube runs all through Friday and Saturday nights on five lines: the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria, though not over the full length of every line. A section of the London Overground, the Windrush line between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate, also runs all night on those nights. Trains run about every 10 to 20 minutes and off-peak fares apply.

From Sunday to Thursday the Tube stops around midnight and night buses take over. Their route numbers start with N, and some daytime routes run 24 hours. Night buses are slower but cover all of London.

Buses

London's red buses are the cheapest way to see the city. A single journey costs one flat fare however far you go, and with the Hopper fare you can change to other buses or trams within an hour without paying again. Buses do not take cash: tap your card or phone on entry only. All buses are wheelchair accessible.

• Sightseeing routes: route 11 (Liverpool Street, St Paul's, Strand, Trafalgar Square, Westminster, Chelsea), route 15 (Tower of London to Trafalgar Square) and route 24 (Hampstead, Camden, Trafalgar Square, Westminster). Sit upstairs at the front.
• Request stops: press the bell to get off, and wave to stop the bus at a request stop.
• Bus stops: each has a letter code shown on the TfL map; use it in the app to find the right side of the road.

Cable car, trams, bikes and taxis

• The cable car (IFS Cloud Cable Car): crosses the Thames high above the water between North Greenwich, by the O2, and the Royal Docks, near ExCeL. More a ride with a view than real transport.
• Trams: London Trams run in south London around Croydon, Wimbledon and Beckenham. Bus fares and the Hopper apply.
• Hire bikes: TfL's docking-station bikes can be rented with a bank card or the app, and cycle lanes now run across much of the centre. E-bikes from private companies are left on the street.
• Black cabs: licensed taxis can be hailed when the orange light is on; the drivers have passed "the Knowledge", a test on every street in London. Minicabs and app taxis must be booked, never taken from the street.

The districts of London

Greater London is made up of 32 boroughs plus the City of London, the old Roman and medieval square mile, which has its own Lord Mayor and police. The areas visitors use most:

• Westminster: Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, St James's Park.
• The West End: Covent Garden, Soho, Leicester Square and Oxford Street: theatres, shops, restaurants.
• The City of London: St Paul's Cathedral, the Bank of England and the towers of finance; quiet at weekends.
• The South Bank and Southwark: the London Eye, Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe and Borough Market.
• Bloomsbury: the British Museum, the university quarter and Georgian squares.
• Kensington and Chelsea: the South Kensington museums, Hyde Park, Kensington Palace and expensive shopping.
• Camden and Islington: markets, music, pubs and canal walks.
• Shoreditch and Hackney: street art, nightlife, Brick Lane and its curry houses.
• Brixton: the heart of Caribbean and African London; see Brixton, Windrush Square and the Black Cultural Archives.
• Peckham: south London's West African high street, full of Nigerian and Ghanaian shops and restaurants.
• The Docklands and Canary Wharf: the old docks, now a financial district, with the Museum of London Docklands.
• Greenwich: the Royal Observatory, the Cutty Sark and the Prime Meridian.
• Stratford: the Olympic Park and Westfield shopping centre.

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