Secrets to Living the London Life
as an affluent local instead of a penny pinching tourist
Over 25 years of travelling to London most years, we have gathered many lessons to stretch our travel dollars. Let me share some of our secrets.
How to save heaps on accommodation
Accommodation is the highest component of your travel budget. London is expensive.
Imagine eliminating your total holiday accommodation expense. Simply swap houses with people who live where you want to travel to. It's easy. All you do is set up an account with Home Exchange, create a listing, and add some great pics of your home and availability to the calendar. Then have fun looking for homes in your favourite destinations, send a request to a listing, negotiate the time and details, and you are set.
In 2019, we spent 6 months in UK and Europe spread across 3 home exchanges: Coastal Brittany in France, a cosy home in a quintessential Devon village up a narrow country lane from Dartmoor National Park and an urban Surrey home with vintage Lotus in the garage. No, we didn't get to drive it; we had to make do with their more modern luxury car to explore iconic Richmond Park or Kew Gardens. All swapped for our beach house and car on Australia's east coast.
In addition, we house sat for the owners of a 13th-century grand country estate in Hampshire, a 'short carriage ride' from Jane Austen's home Chawton House.
Zero accommodation cost for 6 months of living as affluent locals.
Secondly, Air B&B provides the next best cost-effective accommodation. However, London Air B&B hosts are now limited to 90 days a year, creating spare capacity and limiting tourists' choices. Or does it? I recently heard about this hack on how to do Air B&B with a twist.
Email the Air B&B host. If you ask for their phone number, Air B&B will delete it from the email, so have them code it in letters or another way. Call them, and they may do a deal outside the Air B&B restriction.
Or book for the first night, and then you will have access to the Air B&B host to communicate and organise an off-Air B&B arrangement for the rest of the required stay.
Once you have stayed with an Air B&B, organise subsequent visits directly.
Up to you how to use this information. I make suggestions; you make decisions.
Over the years, we have developed a worldwide network of Home Exchangers and Air B&B Hosts who have become friends for life. They can also recommend places they have stayed and hook us up directly with the hosts they have stayed with. Finally, we love catching up in all sorts of places worldwide.
How to do hotels
Find a hotel chain and stick to it.
We use the Premier Inn hotel chain when not using Home Exchange or Air B&B, so we know what we get each time we stay.
My tip is to upgrade to a room with a fridge (I know, we take fridges for granted in Australian hotels). You can keep fresh milk for tea and brekkie cereals. If you do not want to eat out for dinner after a good day's hiking, you can pick up a prepared salad from a supermarket, add some smoked salmon, and eat well at a reasonable cost. We always carry cutlery packs.
The other hotel hack is to spend the night before a flight from Heathrow at an airport hotel. I do not trust any motorway to be free-flowing anytime, especially on international flight days.
Reduce stress at every point.
How to save on rental cars
This is the second-highest travel expense.
As mentioned, if you negotiate a home exchange, a car swap is often included in the exchange. Insurance is adjusted to allow for other adults to drive the car. As you are using each other's house and car, you have reason to take good care of the assets. It is a system that just works.
If you have to hire a car, my tip is to add car excess insurance to your travel insurance rather than taking it out with the hire car company/s as you travel.
Big savings.
Get a local sim card
The days of looking for wifi hotspots are over.
It is a simple matter to purchase a sim card in the country you go to. As we visit London frequently, we have a Giff Gaff account. They sent a new sim to our home country address so we could hit the ground running as soon as we step off the plane at Heathrow rather than looking for a sim and deciding which one to purchase on the spur of the moment.
The benefit of having a local sim is that you have access to wifi wherever you are. Tap into Google Maps the minute you leave the airport and as you move around.
Remember to...
First, ensure that any accounts you have 2FA on (and may need to access overseas) are linked to an authenticator app, or an email address in addition to/instead of a home country phone number. This means you don’t have to change back to your home country's sim to get the 2FA message to access the account.
Second, set up and use a VPN (Virtual Private Network). We have one attached to our password manager and use it whenever we are away from our secure home network, at home or abroad.
Stay digitally safe.
Explore England with your own National Trust Membership
A membership will save you a lot.
Currently, annual membership for a couple is £139.20 per annum (family £146.40). If you consider the cost of one entry ranges from £30-£40 for a couple or £40-£50 for a family plus parking, it doesn't take long to become cost-effective.
In our recent 2-month visit, we probably visited National Trust properties to park, hike, soak up history and eat scrumptious cream teas around 20 times.
It's worth it.
Some of my favourite things to do for free
Once you have walked the Monopoly Board and visited free museums and galleries in Central London, you might want to get your camera IG ready for these FREE Spring and Summer highlights:
A visit to Bluebells fields. You don't have to go far to find one in April.
Visit a Peony Farm in full bloom. Beware the narrow country lanes to get there.
Browse the famous Colombia Road Flower Markets on a vibey Sunday morning with millions of other people soaking up the atmosphere of just one of the many iconic London markets. Pick up fresh bagels from the man on Brick Lane on the way back.
Chelsea in Bloom is associated with the Chelsea Flower Show. Kings Road businesses decorate their premises with stunning floral displays. You get a 'Chelsea Flower Show' flavour for free. Get there early if you want IG photos without people! How about some pretend house hunting while you are there?
I love a quirky village Duck Race. Thousands of purchased rubber ducks are released into the river to meander their way to a finish line, watched on by thousands of people along the banks of a tiny waterway, hoping their duck will win. Shoreham in Kent is my favourite.
When the race is over, you just wander next door to the Winery for an afternoon pizza and glass of Rosé in brilliant sunshine.
Perfect!
Could these savings create space for a Business Class ticket? Yes, they could.
Oh my gosh, I love this post. Practical and fun. I feel like I now have my own personal travel guide. Thank you!
Good practical advice.