No matter what’s happening with your trip to London, there are still things you can do to keep yourself excited and on track to plan the trip of a lifetime to this amazing city, even if your trip isn’t for another few months or gets postponed (and please postpone– don’t cancel!)
BTW, we are no longer answering questions about London’s current travel situation, please see our founder Jess’s latest statement. Now… enjoy the article!
Take advantage of flexible cancellation policies and low prices
The cancellation terms that travel companies are offering are unprecedented, especially for airlines, which usually make it so hard to cancel or change your bookings once they’re made.
If you do your research and are an informed consumer, you can plan a trip to London that can be fully refunded in case anything happens, plus you’ll likely get a very good discount.
The Points Guy has a guide with updated US airline cancellation policies, plus a list of hotel chains’ cancellations policies. These of course can update quickly so always check the fine print yourself before you book anything.
When booking a hotel, Booking.com makes it really clear which properties have free cancellation, and until what date you can cancel for a full refund. Again, just be sure to read the fine print before booking. Also check if booking directly with the hotel gives you a better cancellation policy.
Also read this article from a travel expert saying why he’s not putting off booking travel plans this summer.
See some of our preferred partners’ offers (these are affiliate links and help to support us during a difficult time):
Devour Tours does food tours in London and has 15% off tours booked before 20th March 2020. Their tours are restarting 1st May and you can also purchase gift cards for your future trip that can be used on any of their tours around Europe.
Eating Europe also does food tours in London and has a new Flexi-pass which essentially gets you 30% off their tours. Alternatively you can book individual tours for 20% with promo code SPRING2020. They will be restarting their tours on 1st May as well.
Research the hell out of your trip
If your trip has been pushed off a bit, that stinks, but also gives you a ton more time to research things to do, where to eat, etc. You can make your trip even better than it was going to be!
I of course would recommend that your first point of call would be all things Love and London. This website, our Youtube channel, Instagram account, email list and other social media accounts have tons of content that you could spend hours watching and reading, helping you piece together your perfect trip.
I personally think Youtube is the best platform for travel planning, as the more content you watch about visiting London, the more that Youtube suggests other London-related videos that it thinks you’ll get value from. So you can pull a ton of great tips from one good couch session on the Youtube app.
You can watch the video below to see how I make the 3-Day London Itinerary step-by-step, so with all of this extra research time, you can make your own if you’d like.
Buy things that can be used in the long-term
There are other things you can get to start to get ready for a trip to London, that won’t go to waste even if your trip gets postponed.
Travel guides– books and digital ones– can be used for years down the line. So even if you, say, buy the 2020 version of our 3-Day London Itinerary and your trip gets postponed to 2021, you can still use it then, no problem. Obviously, the same goes for things like Lonely Planet guide books. Some information may be a bit out of date but it will mostly do the job just fine.
Even getting things like special clothing items or a new suitcase will help support the travel and retail industry but can still be used even if your trip gets pushed off a few months. Check out our What to Get for Your London Trip page for some ideas, and also our London Packing Guide.
Finally, here are some things you might forget to bring on your trip, that you could pick up now…
No matter what’s going on with your trip, you can keep yourself excited and take advantage of lots of perks coming from a negative situation. Plus, you’ll do your part to help keep travel businesses operating. Let me know in the comments what else you’re doing to keep your planning for your trip going.
