London City Flow: Which Line, Which Direction

Covent Garden and Leicester Square are 280 meters apart. The tube ride between them is 3 minutes plus a walk to each station and a wait, so roughly 12 minutes door to door. The walk between them is 4 minutes. In practice, tourists do the tube trip anyway, because the map suggests it is a stop and it looks reasonable.

This pattern repeats across central London. Bank to Monument is a connected station, they are the same station on the map. Charing Cross to Embankment is a two minute walk above ground. Paddington to Lancaster Gate is faster on foot than through the tube change at Notting Hill Gate.

The Victoria line is the workhorse of central London. It is fast, frequent, and it links most of the key nodes: King's Cross, Euston, Warren Street, Oxford Circus, Victoria. Use it whenever possible.

The Jubilee line is the second best. It runs from Baker Street south through Bond Street and Green Park and out to Westminster, London Bridge, and Canary Wharf. If you are staying in the West End and visiting the South Bank, this is the line.

The Central line is faster than it looks but crowded at rush hour. The Piccadilly line is the airport line and it is slow through central London because it stops everywhere. The Circle and District lines are often the wrong choice: they meander, they are frequently disrupted, and the map makes them look like a shortcut when they usually are not.

The Elizabeth line, opened in 2022, changed the city. Paddington to Canary Wharf in 17 minutes. Use it for east west travel and for arrivals at Heathrow. It is the biggest infrastructure improvement to London transport in 40 years.

Above ground travel is underused by visitors and overused by residents, which suggests something. Buses run everywhere, they use the same contactless payment as the tube, and they give you a view of the city that the tube by definition cannot.

The best routes for a first visitor are the 15 from Trafalgar Square east through the City, which uses old Routemaster buses on part of the route, the 24 from Pimlico north through the West End, and the 148 from Victoria to Notting Hill. Sit upstairs, near the front. On a slow London afternoon, this is genuinely the best transport in the city.

Central London is small on foot. Trafalgar Square to Covent Garden is 8 minutes. Covent Garden to the British Museum is 9 minutes. The British Museum to Soho is 8 minutes. If you plan a day that stays within Zone 1 and moves in one direction, you may end the day having taken the tube twice.

The Thames Path is a continuous walking route along the river and it is the single best afternoon walk in central London. From Westminster Bridge east past the London Eye, the Royal Festival Hall, the Tate Modern, and on to Tower Bridge is a leisurely two hour walk with almost no traffic.

Any contactless credit card or phone works on the tube, bus, and Elizabeth line. There is a daily cap. If you tap in and out with the same card, you will pay no more than roughly 8.90 pounds in Zones 1 and 2 in a single day. Do not buy paper tickets. Do not buy the Oyster card unless you have a specific reason. The contactless card in your wallet is the correct option.