Each has a real advantage the others don’t. Here’s how to actually decide, journey by journey, rather than just defaulting to one option the whole trip.
New visitors almost always default to one single way of getting around London for their entire trip, usually the Tube, and while that is a perfectly sensible baseline choice, it genuinely is not always the best option for every single journey, and readers who mix their transport choices tend to have a noticeably richer trip than those who simply ride the Underground everywhere without exception.
The Tube remains the fastest way to cover real distance, particularly across zones or during peak travel times when road traffic slows buses to a genuine crawl. Its eleven lines cover the city comprehensively, and with a tapped contactless card or Visitor Oyster, the fares are capped daily so you never pay more than a fixed maximum regardless of how many journeys you take in a single day. Its real downside, obviously, is that you are underground the entire time, missing out on the actual city passing by outside the window, which matters more than new visitors often expect given how much of London’s character lives in its street-level detail.
Buses solve exactly that problem, and I genuinely think they are underused by visitors who default straight to the Tube out of habit. A bus journey costs the same flat, low fare as a single Tube journey under the same daily cap, but gives you an actual view of the city as you move through it, iconic red double-deckers included, and the top deck front seat specifically is one of the best free sightseeing vantage points in London, genuinely rivalling some of the paid observation experiences at a fraction of the cost. The tradeoff is journey time, since buses are subject to ordinary road traffic and can run considerably slower than the equivalent Tube journey, particularly during rush hour.
Walking, for anyone reasonably able-bodied and not covering enormous distances, remains genuinely the best way to actually get to know central London specifically. Covent Garden, Westminster, and Soho sit close enough together that walking between them, rather than hopping on and off transport for short hops, lets you stumble across the smaller streets, hidden courtyards, and unexpected details that make this city genuinely rewarding to explore slowly. I would estimate a solid twenty to thirty minute walk covers more genuine discovery than the equivalent Tube journey ever manages, purely because you actually see the city in between your start and end points rather than skipping past it underground.
My honest, practical recommendation: use the Tube for longer cross-city journeys or when you are short on time, hop on a bus for a scenic middle-distance journey when you have a little time to spare, and walk anywhere within central London that sits under roughly a twenty-five minute stroll. Mixing all three across a single day genuinely gives you the fullest, most well-rounded experience of how this city actually moves and feels, rather than experiencing it entirely from underground or entirely from a bus window.
More from this author at Fiona MacLeod, prat.uk.