Bloomsbury London: Why This Neighbourhood is for Smart Travellers

Why Bloomsbury Is for Smart Travellers

Foremost, if you’re looking for a smart location, Bloomsbury is exceptionally walkable to many London attractions.

I learned this when I first moved here during the pre-Google maps days, when I had to rely on instinct and an A-Z map. (IYKYK!) As a university student, I wanted to save money for pubs and clubs, and not travel on the London the Underground. 

Living on Great Russell Street (next to the British Museum), I was able to quickly get to Covent Garden, the West End and Holborn. Being close to King’s Cross and St Pancras also meant jumping on the Eurostar for a continental getaway easily. Several Underground stations nearby make it simple to get further across London when walking isn’t the best option.

That matters more than you might realise when you’re visiting London for the first time. You don’t want every sightseeing day to involve figuring out how to get from one side of the town to another. 

Staying somewhere central and then being able to walk between several experiences will make your trip feel much easier- and therefore smarter.

Bloomsbury is also a good choice if you like the idea of mixing major attractions with smaller, less obvious experiences too. And there are plenty of free things to do here. The most obvious is the British Museum, whose permanent collection is free to enter.

That combination of location, culture and value is a big part of why I think Bloomsbury is such a smart London base.

I’ve put all of the places I’m recommending in this article on my Bloomsbury Google Map, so you can see how close many of them are to one another. My Restaurant Guide is full of maps like this too. They’re by area, cuisine and our favourites.