Meet London, Your London
Find you inner city
It’s impossible to know London. You can meet her many times, several times a day, over years and decades, and still not know her. The London I met when I was twelve years old on my first trip to Europe was vastly different to the one I met when I visited during my undergrad, and vastly different still from the one I met once I moved here. Trapesing from landmark to landmark won’t introduce you to the idiosyncrasies of London’s boroughs or contribute to the overall identity of England’s capital.
Walking tours and bus tours are the equivalent to reading the sleeve of a novel and setting the book back down on the shelf, and unfortunately, that’s all most visitors have time for. They will never know the out-of-the way hidden gem that locales are so fond of, or the best stores or the fastest routes or even how all of these faces of London interconnect.
This however introduces a debate for London’s short-time visitors. Should they stick with the tours and the landmarks, or should they break away and discover a London that’s personal to them? Neither option will provide tourists with the full breadth of what London has to offer, and, really, it depends on what you’re searching for when you travel. Is it for the postcard experience? Is it for the arts? The markets? The shopping? To catch a glimpse of the lives of Londoners? To trace the footsteps of celebrities?
There is a London for everyone, and everyone’s London is different. To meet your true match, however, you first have to ask yourself what you want from London, what kind of experience you’re itching for, and the pace you want to go. Inevitably, what entices people to travel is to experience. After all, if all we were truly interested in when visiting foreign places was to see things, then surely photographs or even Google Maps’s street view would do.
But it’s not the same. Digital recreations (even those amazing new 360o videos) cannot substitute the experience of being here, and that is why it is crucial to to ask yourself what experience you want from London. Very rarely have I ever met anyone who has not had a preconceived notion of what they expect to feel when in London.
It’s quite peculiar, but London is so famous everyone has expectations of it. Bearing this in mind, to truly meet your London, the one you have in your mind’s eye and already love in your heart, you’re going to have to do a little digging. You’ll find the places that you’re interested in, the places that might be off the beaten track, the ones that feel like the
home you’ve never been to. There are events and markets and pop-up shops and street performances and a thousand other things you might find in London. Some you will find online, others you will discover, and sadly, many will slip by you unnoticed.
Do not despair, though, because it really only means one thing. You’ll have a new London to meet on your next visit
Load more triptoids