The London attractions worth paying for, and the ones that aren't

London's paid attractions range from genuinely unmissable to a queue with a gift shop at the end. The difference isn't price — some of the best cost £37 and some of the worst cost £32. It's whether the thing you pay for exists anywhere else.

Here are twelve of the most-booked, sorted honestly.

Worth the money

Tower of London — £37

The most expensive ticket on this list and the one we'd defend hardest. It is a genuine Norman fortress with nine hundred years of continuous use, the Crown Jewels are inside it, and the Yeoman Warder tours — included, running every half hour — are the best guided hour in London by a distance. Go at opening or after 3pm; the middle of the day is a scrum.

Go early for the Jewels specifically. The queue triples by eleven.

Churchill War Rooms — around £32

The underground bunker where the Second World War was run, left substantially as it was abandoned in 1945. Small, dense and unexpectedly moving. Book a timed slot; walk-ups regularly wait an hour.

Westminster Abbey — £31

A thousand years of coronations and a floor made of dead poets. If you have any interest in British history it earns the money.

If you don't want to pay: attend Evensong. It's free, it's most weekday afternoons, you sit in the quire rather than shuffling past it, and it is a better hour than the audio tour. You don't get to wander, and that's the trade.

Hampton Court Palace — around £29

Henry VIII's kitchens, a Tudor palace, a Baroque palace bolted onto the side of it, and gardens you can lose an afternoon in. It's a 35-minute train from Waterloo, which is exactly why it's calmer than anything in Zone 1. The best full day out on this list.

Kew Gardens — around £22

Three hundred acres, Victorian glasshouses, the treetop walkway. Worth it in any season, and the single best thing to do in London on a hot day.

A Thames Clipper river bus — around £9

Not a tour boat. It's a commuter catamaran that happens to run past the entire skyline. Westminster to Greenwich costs a fraction of a sightseeing cruise, moves faster, and has the same view. Cheaper still with contactless.

Not worth the money

London Eye — from £29

Thirty minutes in a slow glass pod, sharing it with twenty strangers, looking at a skyline you can see for free from four other places. The Eye is a good-looking object. It is a mediocre experience.

Instead: Horizon 22 at 22 Bishopsgate is free, higher, indoors, and books out about a fortnight ahead. Or Sky Garden at 20 Fenchurch Street, also free, with a bar.

The View from the Shard — around £32

Higher than the Eye and roughly the same objection: you are paying £32 for altitude in a city that gives altitude away. The observation deck is often in cloud.

Instead: book a drink at Aqua Shard or Gong on the 52nd floor. You are inside the same building, the view is the same view, and a cocktail costs less than the ticket.

Madame Tussauds — around £35

Waxworks of celebrities, queued for by people who could see photographs of those celebrities for nothing. It is expensive, it is crowded, and the likenesses are variable.

Instead: the National Portrait Gallery is free and full of the actual faces.

The London Dungeon — around £35

Actors, fake blood, jump scares. It is a theme-park attraction wearing history as a costume, and it is not on the London Pass, which tells you something.

Sea Life London Aquarium — around £30

An unremarkable aquarium in a basement in one of the most expensive postcodes in Europe.

Instead: the Natural History Museum is free and has a blue whale hanging from the ceiling.

Hop-on-hop-off bus tours — £35–£45

The pitch is that you see the sights and get around. In practice you sit in traffic on a bus that is slower than the Underground and more expensive than a day's travel.

Instead: ride the number 11 or the 15 from the top deck for £1.75. The 11 runs past Westminster, Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, the Strand and St Paul's. It is the same route, with locals on it, for a twentieth of the price.

The free tier is the real answer

London's best cultural institutions cost nothing. The British Museum, the National Gallery, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, the V&A, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Imperial War Museum and the London Museum all charge nothing for permanent collections. Temporary exhibitions are ticketed; the permanent ones are the reason to go.

A visitor who spends three days on free museums, royal parks, Borough Market, Greenwich and the top deck of a bus has had a better trip than one who spent £300 on tickets. That is unusual among big cities, and it's the single most useful thing to know before you book anything.

If you are paying, pay in the right order

1. Book the free things that require booking first — Horizon 22, Sky Garden. They fill up fastest.
2. Then book timed slots for the two or three paid attractions you genuinely want.
3. Then, and only then, work out whether a London Pass beats those tickets bought individually. Usually it won't.