Create your own sightseeing bus tour

London’s red double-decker buses are famous all over the world, and you can turn them into your very own affordable sightseeing bus tour experience!

But those come with a price tag, whereas for just £1.75 - the price of a single journey - you can ride a regular London bus past some of the best sights in the city! You probably won't want to stay on for the whole journey, just pick and choose what you want to see.

Scroll down for our top routes for do-it-yourself bus tours!

How to pay

The easiest, and cheapest, way to travel by bus is to tap your contactless card or mobile phone, or use an Oyster card.

The Oyster card is London's smart card for travel, and you can get one at ticket machines and ticket offices - or you can order one online before you visit. They cost £7, so unless you want a physical card for some reason, you can save that money by using contactless.

A single journey with contactless or Oyster is £1.75, which also includes a Hopper fare - meaning if you switch buses with an hour, you don't pay any extra.

Both of these payment options will cap your travel once you reach a certain threshold, for example if you're travelling in zones 1 and 2, and you tap in and out properly, you won't pay more than £8.90 (the cost of a day's zone 1-2 travelcard) for a day's travel.

Be aware that paper tickets are much more expensive, so avoid doing that if you can help it. If you want a day or week travelcard, your contactless or oyster will perform that calculation for you as you use it for pay as you go, and will cap it when you reach the same amount as a travelcard would have cost you.

You can find more info on fares on the tfl website.

Our Top DIY bus tours

These are routes which we think offer you some great views past some of the best bits of the city. And of course, the ULTIMATE experience is to bag the front seats on the top deck - so you can feel like you’re driving the bus yourself!

Number 15 and Number 24

You can do these two routes for the price of one by using the Hopper fare - which lets you switch buses however many times you want within an hour.

From the Number 15, you can see The Shard, Sky Garden, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Courts of Justice, then get off on the Strand at Savoy Street, which is right next to Covent Garden. Here you'll have a bit of time to grab a snack or two and make your way to Leicester Square to pick up the number 24 from the stop right by the tube station. Just remember you'll need to board before an hour is up to be able to get that second journey for free.

Board the Number 24 near Leicester Square and you'll see Trafalgar Square, Downing Street, Horse Guards Parade, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Get off at St James's Park stop and it's a short walk to reach Buckingham Palace!

Number 9 

The Number 9 bus starts at Aldwych and goes along the Strand, past Somerset House and Covent Garden. Then onwards through Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. Then past Green Park and through Knightsbridge and Kensington, where you'll find the museums, Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Palace and the Design Museum. You'll finally finish up in Hammersmith.

Number 26 

This route starts in Victoria but pick it up in Westminster, where there’s Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Then the bus goes along Whitehall up to Trafalgar Square, along the Strand to Aldwych and the Royal Courts of Justice.

Then you wind through the City - past the Old Bailey and St Paul’s cathedral, past Bank and on to Liverpool Street, where you can jump off to visit Spitalfields, or stay on a few more stops to hit up the bars and restaurants of Shoreditch. If you stay on board, you'll continue on through Hackney where the bus terminates at Hackney Wick, just past the northern edge of Victoria Park.

Number 88 

The Number 88 does a great north-south route. If you’re staying south of the river Thames, hop on at Vauxhall and enjoy passing Tate Britain before hitting the sights of Westminster.

This bus then also goes up to Trafalgar Square but then heads on up through the West End, along Haymarket to Piccadilly Circus then on to Oxford Circus.

Stay on board and you’ll keep going past the grand terraced houses by Regents Park, and on to trendy Camden. Beyond that it travels to Kentish Town, where you’ll find some great pubs, before terminating at Parliament Hill Fields.