Is the London Pass worth it? A 2- and 3-day check

The London Pass is worth it if you visit three or more paid sights a day – and only then. In our 2-day test plan, the official single tickets add up to £198, while the 2-day All-Inclusive Pass costs £155 on gocity.com: a saving of £43. If you only manage two sights a day, the same trip costs £126 in single tickets, and the pass loses you money. Below is the full calculation, with every price taken from the attraction's own website (as of 26 October 2026).

The London Pass is the London product of Go City. How the two pass types work in general – All-Inclusive for a number of days, Explorer for a number of attractions – is explained in our Go City explainer. This article does the maths for London only.

What the London Pass includes

Go City lists 116 attractions for London. The All-Inclusive Pass covers all of them and is sold for 1 to 10 days; the Explorer Pass covers a smaller selection of 2 to 7 attractions, to be used within 30 days of the first visit. The classics a first-time visitor would pick are all on the list:

• Tower of London, Tower Bridge and St Paul's Cathedral
• Westminster Abbey, The London Eye and The View from The Shard
• Kensington Palace, Windsor Castle, Hampton Court Palace and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• HMS Belfast, Cutty Sark, London Zoo and Madame Tussauds London
• the City Cruises 24 Hour Thames River Pass and a 2-Day Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
• many walking tours, food experiences and, in the All-Inclusive Pass, day trips such as Stonehenge

One London detail matters for the maths: the All-Inclusive Pass is a balance of credits. One credit is worth £1, and each entry deducts the attraction's standard gate price. A 2-day adult pass holds 490 credits, a 3-day pass 670. For the plans below, that limit is never reached.

What is not included

Several things people associate with London are not on the Go City list:

• Churchill War Rooms and SEA LIFE London Aquarium
• the Warner Bros. Studio Tour (Harry Potter)
• tours of the Houses of Parliament
• the British Museum, the National Gallery, Tate Modern, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum – these are free to enter anyway, so a pass adds nothing there (for the Natural History Museum, the All-Inclusive Pass only adds a souvenir guidebook)

Seasonal gaps matter too. The State Rooms of Buckingham Palace are on the pass, but only open in summer. Go City lists the Royal Observatory Greenwich as closed from 2 November until spring 2027, and according to Historic Royal Palaces the Queen's State Apartments at Kensington Palace are closed until spring 2027.

Worked example: 2 and 3 days with the pass vs single tickets

The plan follows the geography of the city: the City and the river on day 1, Westminster and the South Bank on day 2, palaces on day 3. All prices are the standard adult price on the official websites, checked on 26 October 2026. Where the operator says "from", we use that lowest price.

Day 1 costs £109, day 2 £89. Two days come to £198, three days to £254.70. Train tickets to Windsor are not included in either case.

Now the pass prices, as shown on gocity.com on 26 October 2026 (adult):

The pass wins by £43 over two days and £55.70 over three days – but only with this pace. "Relaxed 2 days" is the same trip with two sights a day (Tower of London and St Paul's, then Westminster Abbey and the London Eye): £126 in single tickets, which is £29 less than the pass.

The Explorer Pass is the alternative for a slower trip. Three choices cost £89 – the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and St Paul's together cost £97 in single tickets, so you save £8. Four choices cost £115; add the London Eye (£29 online) and you pay £126 in single tickets, a saving of £11. Small amounts, but you are free to spread the visits over 30 days.

Who the London Pass pays off for – and who should skip it

It pays off for you if:

• you want to see the Tower, the Abbey, St Paul's, the Eye and The Shard within two or three days
• you start at opening time and keep the sights of one day close together
• you also want the river pass or the bus, which you would otherwise buy separately

Skip it if:

• your list is mostly museums – the big ones in London are free
• you prefer two sights a day and long lunches: then single tickets are cheaper, as the relaxed plan shows
• you travel in winter and your favourites are among the seasonal closures listed above

Single tickets for London sights^* are also easy to book on Tiqets or directly with the attraction – compare the price with the official website first.

Booking ahead: time slots with the pass

A pass is not a ticket with a time on it. Go City marks The London Eye, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, The View from The Shard and Madame Tussauds as "Booking required": you reserve a slot in the Go City app before you go. Westminster Abbey says the same on its own website. Book these first, then plan the rest of the day around them.

The pass is activated by the first scan at an attraction, not by buying it or syncing it in the app. The 3-day pass is valid for three calendar days from first use, so start on a morning, not in the afternoon. The Buckingham Palace State Rooms cannot be pre-booked with the pass: in summer you get the next free slot at the gate.

Plan the days before you buy

The real question behind every city pass is time: can you fit three sights into a day without rushing? In YesTrip you get an AI day plan for London with the walking and transport time between stops, so you can see whether the Tower, Tower Bridge and St Paul's fit into one morning and afternoon – and the weather forecast for your travel days, so The Shard does not land on a grey day. Our London city guide is a ready-made starting point, and how many days you need in London helps with the length of the trip. For Windsor and other excursions, see our day trips from London.

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