London

30 Jun, 2026

I just spent a week in London, my first time there and my first time to Europe. Thank you to the 50+ people who provided advice, so much of it was valuable and led directly to us doing things we would not otherwise have known about.

I do not believe you can make sense of a place in one visit, much less have a firm understanding of it; it took me years of regular visits to wrap my head around New York City and as many times as I've been to Vegas, I still don't think I actually feel like I know it.

Nevertheless, here are my initial random reactions to London.

1. Holy shit, what a city. Compares favorably to New York on nearly all dimensions for me. Just interesting neighborhood after interesting neighborhood. A snap to get around on foot or subway. A shocking mix of old and new. History everywhere. Art and architecture everywhere. I even liked the food (see below). I usually prefer mid-size cities that operate like large towns; most of the big American cities I find disappointing and/or a hassle. London was the first big city that I really liked as a big city.

2. I'm stunned at people who thought spending a week in London was too long of a visit and/or that I would run out of things to do. I feel like I barely scratched the surface. The number of neighborhoods worth half a day's inspection seemed almost endless.

3. I was not prepared for how friendly and helpful the Brits were as a people. Strangers on the tube. People on the street. Service workers. English tourists. The voice announcements on the Tube. Just wonderful. Not an experience I'm used to in American big cities, though I suppose I have noticed some modest version of it in Toronto and Montreal.

4. I thought the food was good! Though there were notable dissenters, the modal advice I got before the trip was "eat a lot of Indian food, everything else is mediocre." I did indeed eat a lot of Indian food and it was as good as advertised. But I only had one meal all week where I was like "ok, I see what the critics mean." We had excellent Chinese, Mexican, Barbecue, and Thai. None of that, of course, is English cuisine, but that's no different than New York. I would surely tire of the pub food, but even that I found tasty and exceeding expectation.

5. The pub culture is amazing and delightful. Though this was my first time in Europe, I have spent a lot of time in Montreal and so I was familiar with European-style outdoor cafes and such. This was so much better. The density of pubs is shocking, but the number of people standing around outside of them drinking at 4pm on a weekday is truly stunning. There's an Epcot feel to seeing people gathered around a barrel that has been converted into a table outside a pub—Wait, this actually happens?—and it gave me a wry smile even after seeing it dozens of times.¹ I also did not expect so many of the pubs to be so small, true neighborhood bar rooms.

6. We watched the England-Panama World Cup game at a neighborhood pub, and that confirmed what I already believed about soccer: it's a flawed game qua game, but just an amazing sport because of how much so many people love it. College football, but infused with nationalism.

7. I did not expect the monarchy to be so overwhelmingly present in the culture. I have no basis of comparison; I've never been to any of the other crown republics. So perhaps this isn't a British thing. But it felt like everything was named after Elizabeth or Victoria. And you seemingly can't go five minutes without be reminded of the Crown. I found it charming. And I did like the idea of having a permanent, inert head of state family to name stuff after, instead of elected politicians.

8. The lack of air conditioning is beyond stupid. The first three days we were there were during the incredible heat wave. It wasn't that bad; the heat and humidity were no worse than typical hot summer days on the East Coast here. And many museums, shops, theaters, and restaurants now have A/C, as do some of the tube lines. But the lack of it in the apartments is insane. We had booked an AirBnb, but I cancelled the first three days and switched to a hotel with A/C because sleeping in 90 degrees just isn't fun. The second half of our trip the weather was excellent and our AirBnB was easily cooled by opening windows.

9. A/C aside, I was impressed with the modern infrastructure. We cleared customs at Heathrow without ever interacting with a human. The Tube reminds me of the New York subway's excellent coverage, except more frequent, cleaner, and without the petty disorder. Everything is tap to pay. Security measures at attractions are unobtrusive. The queues move well.

10. Speaking of which, I never saw any of the increased crime you hear so much about on social media. We wandered all over the city to dozens of neighborhoods, north and south, east and west, and I never for a minute felt unsafe, day or night. (We obviously didn't seek out bad areas, of course.) I don't doubt that immigration has caused genuine friction in England due to real, substantive issues, but the number of "how many times did you get assaulted by a brown person" responses to my tweet about enjoying London gave me the sense that this is an issue politicized beyond any and all scope of reality.

11. The British Museum was excellent. The size of the collection is obviously wild, but what I really liked was the presentation. Too much of the Smithsonian is huge physical displays and build-ups of single pieces. The British Museum simply puts out a ton of items, in an almost unassuming manner. Great density of stuff. We spent half a day and worked through the ancient Greek collections. I doubt we saw 10% of the museum.

12. That said, I'm mostly a history/architecture/neighborhoods guy. The big stuff delivers in London (everything Westminster, St. Paul's, the Tower) but I was loving the endless-list of second-level stuff you can happen upon randomly. The random 500+ year old churches were a big highlight for me. Southwark Cathedral perhaps the best. The old "Brits think 100 miles is a long distance; Americans think 100 years is a long time" really hits home when you are constantly bombarded with structures that predate Jamestown. Oh, John Harvard was baptized in this church in 1607? I love that stuff.

13. Despite all this, I think my favorite thing was the day we spent in Oxford. Now, I'm a total sucker for Collegiate Gothic architecture. There's little I like more than wandering around Yale. But Oxford was just next level. Yale, but way bigger, way more dense, way older, and way more meticulously attention to detail.² And instead of a college existing in a town (like Yale in New Haven), Oxford really feels like the town got integrated into the college. We did the tour at Christchurch and that was interesting and fun, but I was charmed just walking the streets and wandering whatever door we came upon.

14. I was struck by how easy it was to avoid politics on the trip. That's not London, that's modern decentralized media. Never had to read a paper or turn on a radio or TV, and so we were able to exist, if we chose, from all local news. I would guess that visiting London as a prime minister stepped down in the 70s or 80s would have been much more front of mind. I had to actually seek it out when I was interested in learning about it.