With family living in London, I am a frequent visitor and every time I set foot in this momentous metropolis, I like it more. Truly, London is growing on me.
London Calling: My Fondness For This City Is Growing
My family lives in the Bermondsey district of southeast London, part of the Southwark Borough. They have a beautiful home just a block from the Thames and I am reminded each time I visit how lovely it is to actually live in London.
Sure, the drive in from Heathrow is somewhat excruciating due to the heavy traffic no matter the time of day (even at 11:00 am, it took us 90 minutes). Sure, London is hardly homogenous: like any major city there are better areas. And Bermondsey is not Kensington or SoHo. But it’s actually quite easy to get around London by Underground and the neighborhood is quiet and clean and gentrifying.
What I appreciated so much this time was great coffee and the beautiful Southwark Park all within short walking distance. Grocery stores too. And even a little stone beach looking across the Thames to the City of London.
And I loved falling asleep at night with a cool breeze and the gentle sound of rain coming through the open window during a time in which Los Angeles was hitting triple-digit temperatures.
LA is difficult to top when it comes to the food scene, but there is also a great diversity of food in London and we enjoyed a delicious dinner from an Israeli place called Bala Baya.
And London is full of history: a world capital steeped in charm and tradition.
I guess the point is that as I travel the world, I could easily see myself living in London.
It’s a city I enjoy returning to over and over and find myself liking more and more each time.
And while there are many cities around the world that I love, there are few I would want to actually live in. London, though, is one of them.
This is part of my summer to Europe trip report.
Worked for a British company for 4 years and sometimes had to go to London once a month. Fantastic city to visit, one of my favorite in the world, I understand your excitement about living there but not sure how I would actually feel living there. It is one of the most expensive places in the world. Everything is too expensive. Some British people are great but working with them is very difficult. Most are the most obnoxious people you will ever meet. They still live in the past and still think they are way more important than they are. Everything is too old and you will need public transportation for most of the things you can drive here. Again, great place to visit but questionable as a place to live.
I live in London and travel to LA and NY often for work and my boss and I always freak out how expensive those two cities are. Hotels, Drinks, Coffee, dining, food delivery, tipping for EVERYTHING! (for us) it is so much more expensive than London. I’ve also lived in NYC and London and rents here are cheaper than NYC and i find on par with LA. Driving everywhere is not a boast – thats one of the awful things about USA v UK/Europe
Worked for a British company for 4 years and sometimes had to go to London once a month. Fantastic city to visit, one of my favorite in the world, I understand your excitement about living there but not sure how I would actually feel living there. It is one of the most expensive places in the world. Everything is too expensive. Some British people are great but working with them is very difficult. Most are the most obnoxious people you will ever meet. They still live in the past and still think they are way more important than they are. Everything is too old and you will need public transportation for most of the things you can drive here. Again, great place to visit but questionable as a place to live.
@Matthew: on a complete different topic, it has become almost impossible to read your blog on an iPhone. If using Safari, the entire screen turns black with ads covering everything. There is no way to navigate through the posts, comments or anything. I understand you need ads but it is now the only thing I can see. Hope you can improve the way the blog looks on phones.
Agreed, I’ve had to permanently mark the site as desktop mode as that’s the only way to browse it on mobile (and that is equally annoying).
Good catch! I’ve noticed this too. Black screen over the text, while inserts are visible. Very annoying.
I’ve got the same issue on my android s22, I find if I use incognito mode it goes away, but it’s super annoying.
I use Adblocker for my desktop and iPhone. They both work really well for issues like this.
Thanks…?
London is terrible for residents mainly because of barriers to build more housing. Young women have to resort to sex work to pay rent. Tall apartment buildings are the way to go to get minimally affordable housing but those are largely banned from many areas.
London is a great playground for tourists, though.
Are you sane? What are you on about young women? You’re spouting utter tosh.
I’d say that your statement would be more accurate if referred to the UK in general. Last year, we traveled to Europe and my wife (who has relatives in the UK) had us stop a few days to pay them a visit + some time in London. To this, I complied but wasn’t enthusiastic because I’d been many times. Well, once we got there, I had to kick myself for ever being reluctant to visit! The UK is awesome, London is great and I’ll never again feel like a trip there is a “been there, done that” deal.
If you are incredibly wealthy and can afford it, there may be no better place in the world to live. But for the rest of the 98% I imagine it’s an awful place to live and a constant struggle with little in the way of upward mobility.
The reality is that the UK needs to start rethinking the strategy of London being the future and begin to encourage mobility and growth in other areas around the nation. When your GDP as a country has now fallen behind Mississippi, yes, Mississippi, you clearly have a problem. The problem is that London is the primary machine driving the economy which is not sustainable for the region or the country. It’s all going to implode pretty soon.
Like L.A.,if you want a reasonably comfortable life,better have a million or more to make it possible.Then too,London is increasingly dangerous,even in tonier districts.The recent Notting Hill carnival ended with rival gangs running through the crowds randomly slashing people with machetes,numerous bobbies were also attacked and even sexually assaulted.Not exactly jolly old England anymore.
Also I think they ruined their iconic skyline with that ghastly Faberge egg building.
Most of the big cities are more dangerous than London, but yeah, it would be nice if there weren’t fools running around stabbing people in London.
I have no clue what half of your commenters are talking about. My family lived there for two years, and it was amazing. Not expensive (if you know where to live, shop, eat etc); not old (our house in NJ is older than our house in Wimbledon was…and infrastructure including internet etc was much newer and more efficient); certainly not more dangerous – that is laughable. Biggest change was accepting that houses and cars were smaller, but for us (family of five) it was an easy transition. Would move back in a heartbeat, and may still in a few more years once kids are all in college.
“ London is hardly ubiquitous”
do you maybe mean “homogeneous”?
Correct. Thanks.
Commuted to and worked there for almost five years and still love it. I usually stayed in Bermondsey and would drive through the Rotherhithe tunnel to work every day (Docklands). If you like jazz go to Ronnie Scotts!
We love the UK (I grew up there), almost like our 2nd home. Infrastructure is far superior to anything here. Of late, we have definitely felt it is a lot cheaper than the US.
I do find it is cheaper than LA both in terms of real estate and even for food and transport.
Well, that tells a lot how bad we are here in the US. UK is still way expensive when compared to other EU countries.
@Vinod: infrastructure is far superior? Tell me more. UK has one of the worst train systems in Europe and outside London the country still lives in the Stone Age. What infrastructure are you talking about?
National rail is bad in that your train may go 15m late, which never happens on the Continent. Compared to the Americas, their rail infrastructure is light years ahead. They also have a comprehensive motorway network, air network, and local/regional bus transportation that’s fairly accessible and used by many. What about their infrastructure is bad?
@Jerry. Germany is a bit of mess trainwaise.
@Jerry: I never said infrastructure was bad. I questioned when it was mentioned it was “light years” ahead of the US.
I used to take the train from London Euston to Manchester all the time. Trains were slow, smelly, huge delays and sometimes we had to take detours to other stations and change trains due to problems in the system. Horrible experience on my side.
What is bad about the highway system in the US or what is so far superior in the UK. I think our highway system is fantastic.
Air network? You can fly to almost everywhere in the US. I mean, small places have an airpot. Good luck with that in the UK.
Don’t know much about bus system in the US but never used in the UK
Thus, I did not say it is bad but not exactly light years ahead of the US.
In my opinion, the UK is light years ahead of the US when it comes to infrastructure. We have travelled extensively and lived in many places. Outside London, the train system is pretty flawless, and in London the public transport is pretty great for such a large city. We never have any problems going anywhere.
There are parts of Europe that have better public transport, but overall the UK is top notch.
Regarding food, we have always been able to get quality food outside London as well.
Why drive from Heathrow? Elizabeth Line makes getting into central London so easy and more comfortable now. Straight shot to Bond Street, change to Jubilee Line, barely more than an hour total. And the two kids are free until they are 11.
Well, if you have small kids, car seat, stroller and luggage although a pain, driving or getting a taxi/Uber is the best option.
That is correct. Public transport too much with two young children (though we took Heathrow Express back).
My kids always love the Heathrow Express. At London Paddington Station in about 20 minutes with excellent Tube connectivity. But definitely a challenge with car seats and strollers etc.
We have not yet tried the Elizabeth line – need to give it a go soon.
As we typically arrive at the crack of dawn into the UK, we try to get to our hotel with minimum fuss- of course, using the LHR express costs a premium.
There is such a big difference between living in London and exploring the countryside. I don’t think I could take most big cities full time (maybe Munich) since they are so hectic but the villages outside of London would be nice to explore.
And I have to say most of the food is bad compared to much of Europe except for tea, scones and beer.
Food in London is amazing BUT because it is such a cosmopolitan place so you have great food from other countries. Outdo London you are stuck with really bad and greasy food that is terrible. You mentioned tea, but I can guarantee you almost none is from the UK. They are good marketers of tea but they don’t produce anything.
NYKer living London for 15 years. You don’t have too look very hard to avoid greasy food outside of London.
Take Cornwall – one of the UKs most rural counties. The Rocket shop in Boscastle. The Dartmore in Lydford. Coombes Head Farm near Launceston. Absolutely top notch.
And to talk fish and chips…. traditionally greasy food, the ones at ‘Life’s a beach’ in Bude are anything but.
I can give you a list like that for most counties below Manchester and slightly abbreviated list for countries above Manchester.
Go explore outside zone 1 and 2 and see what London is really like.
London is the greatest city in the world. “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” Just that simple.
+1, possibly Singapore may be ahead, just for the general cleanliness, discipline and crime free environment
What’s not to love about London? Sure, the weather sucks but you have access to 6 airports and can fly to any corner of earth on a moment’s notice, often for cheap. Stating that one “likes London,” seems obvious, but I understand what you mean in this post, and I feel the same way too.
I would gently challenge the weather point I’d swap ‘sucks’ with ‘is mild’.
It snows once every 5 years and rarely gets below freezing. Also rarely gets above 80F. Summer days are a full 90 min longer. The rain we have tends to be light and persistent so you can often get by sans umbrella without a drenching. That’s all comparatively a virtue to NYC’s oppressive summers, bitter winter, torrential rains.
I love both cold and hot weather – but London is also temperate gem.
London is great city. I lived just outside of London about 25 years ago, and spent extended time in the center of the city about 25 years ago. My biggest concern back then was the air pollution– after a few days in the city, when you’d sneeze or blow your nose, you’d notice that your snot was black with soot. Also, if you’re a believer in eating healthy it seemed like a city where that would be more of a challenge. Otherwise, it was a lot of fun.
Why drive from Heathrow? Too much hassle on the tube with the kids and the bags?
I realize London earned the nickname as the “Big Smoke” but it seems the air quality has greatly improved. I have not noticed any pollution in multiple recent visits and quite the opposite, found the air quite refreshing (sleeping with the window wide open and the rain outside was wonderful…no screen and no mosquitoes either).
The smoke, not the big smoke
Blame Google, not me! 😉
I think that the air quality may have improved. I wondered if it might have been due to a transition of fuels for the buses and lorries.
I did 5 days in London about a year ago and didn’t have the black snot, but it was a small sample size, and we weren’t outside a lot, and spent ~1.5 days outside of the center. Did a day trip to Salisbury– when your kids are older consider the spire tour there, its a good climb; and the Harry Potter studio, which I was ambivalent about until I saw my 7 year old light up with pure excitement when she saw Hermione’s dress on display. Again, probably better when your kids are older, but it was a happy trip for us.
I think the best thing I’ve ever done in London is go to Wimbledon (the tennis tournament, not jus the area).
I agree. Every time I go it grows on me.
As others have said. Even with kids and bags I think the express is just much easier. Cabs are a nightmare in London. Just too much gridlock.
I don’t know about renting but I found London not to be overly expensive.
U thinking you mean the Borough of Southwark, not bureau.
Thank you Peter.
HA! Your first photo is 5 walk from my flat! The putin/zelensky is 10 minutes in the other direction!
London is great for expats – esp ones with wanderlust. The thing with London is most visitors rarely leave certain corridors in zone 1. While cooridors are famous for a reason – there’s so much more to London than zone 1.
Location wise: you can’t beat this side of river centred around Elephant & Castle. With the curve of the river, on foot one can get anywhere north side from Vauxhall to Tower Bridge in 20-30 minutes.
Hope you tried Hana Coffee in Elephant Park.
PS – if you liked Bala Baya (which I do) – you’ll love The Barbery in Covent Garden.
Been to London twice, my first and last time. Airline ticket taxes are some of the highest, the food is nothing to brag about and the subways are jam packed. Been to Italy, Spain and Portugal, all great spots to visit. Food is great, easy to get around, low cost accommodations and really see history that goes back thousands of years. The coliseum in Rome, the canals of Venice and Amsterdam, Lisbon with its cable cars and great food also.
Photos of your kids are the best thing on your blog
I’m London born and raised, but now live in Washington DC. London is now substantially cheaper than DC. Public transportation is easy to negotiate and efficient, supermarket/grocery store prices are very reasonable, with great fresh items like salads and sandwiches, for example.
Yes, traffic generally sucks. Use public transport.
There are still so many charming areas around the capital, and each neighborhood has its own distinct flavour.
Dammit, now I want to go home again….