Getting Around London Late at Night

The part of the evening people plan least and complain about most. London after eleven is a different city from London at eight, and knowing how it moves saves both money and a good deal of standing on a pavement.

The Night Tube, and when it is actually useful

Friday and Saturday nights only, on the Central, Victoria, Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines. Trains every ten minutes or so, all night.

For central London that mostly means the Victoria and Central lines are your friends and everything else is not. If your evening runs Mayfair to Bayswater, the Central line does it in six minutes for a couple of pounds while a cab crawls through Marble Arch.

Sunday to Thursday there is no Night Tube at all. Last trains run somewhere between half past midnight and one, and the gap between “one more drink” and “the tube has gone” is smaller than people think.

Cabs, black and otherwise

Black cabs are still the fastest way to get across central London late, because the drivers know the one way systems that defeat everybody else. They are also the most expensive, and after midnight there is a surcharge.

The apps are cheaper and slower. The slowness is specific rather than general: in a dense one way grid like Mayfair or Soho you will watch the car circle for eight minutes. Walk two streets to a main road and the same journey starts immediately.

The practical rule for central London is that anything under a mile is faster on foot than in anything with wheels, and a great deal more pleasant.

Walking, which is underrated

Central London is small. Mayfair to Marylebone is fifteen minutes. Paddington to Bayswater is ten. Knightsbridge to Belgravia is eight.

Late at night the streets in these areas are quiet, well lit and entirely unremarkable to walk down. If the whole evening is arranged inside one of them, transport stops being a question at all, which is a reasonable argument for picking an area first and everything else second. Our post on the quietest parts of central London covers which streets those are.

Where the buses beat everything

Rarely mentioned and occasionally right. Night buses run every night, all night, and along the big east to west routes they are quick because nothing else is on the road.

Oxford Street, Bayswater Road and the Embankment are the obvious ones. If your route follows one of those and you are not in a hurry, it is the cheapest option in the city by a wide margin.

If you are meeting somebody

Two things worth arranging rather than improvising.

Getting there. Build in twenty minutes more than the app says, especially on a Friday. Arriving late to a booking eats the booking, and arriving flustered eats the first half hour of it.

Getting home. Decide before the evening rather than at one in the morning. An outcall at a hotel you are staying in removes the question entirely, which is one of the underrated arguments for it. See incall or outcall.

If she is coming to you, the same applies at her end. An outcall late at night in an awkward part of London costs more and takes longer to arrange, which is why notice matters more after eleven than before it. Our guide on hotel bookings covers the arrival itself.

The stations

If you are catching a last train rather than staying, know which terminus and what time before the evening starts, not during it. Paddington, Euston, King’s Cross and Victoria all stop earlier than people assume, and the difference between the last train and the first one is a hotel room.

Our guide on escorts near London stations covers which areas sit conveniently next to which terminus.

The short version

Under a mile, walk. Friday or Saturday, Night Tube. Any other night, watch the last train. And if the whole evening fits inside one postcode, none of this is your problem.

Browse every area we cover, or ring +44 20 7846 3480.