The Best Cheap Hotels in London

A selection of the best inexpensive hotels in London, England

Hotels in London, England

People complain about Paris, but in my book London is by far the more expensive town—especially when it comes to hotels. Usually your best bet on a budget here is to find a B&B, small hotel offering low rates, or even a hostel. You won't sleep in style, but you'll be able to afford the rest of your trip.

If you can afford a bit more, though, there are some fabulous hotels, from bastions of luxury like the Savoy and the Ritz, to olde worlde boutique hotels where you'll feel like a lord in your private Victorian manorhouse. Here are some of my favorites in every category, starting with cheap-but-nice:

CHEAP (under £100)

Premier Travel Inn London Southwark

Where to Find Other Cheap Hotels in London
Inexpensive hotels congregate in three main areas in London. Victoria, centered upon Victoria train station, is a genteely residential neighborhood not nearly so run-down as most city's station neighborhoods, and packed with inexpensive hotels catering to folks who just stepped off the train or need to catch an early one. The academic and intellectual district of Bloomsbury, home to the British Museum and the University of London, has several streets lined with mid-priced hotels of the old school (rambling halls, teensy rooms, hearty breakfasts); the most hotel-laden is TK. Off the northwest corner of Hyde Park is a collection of middle-income residential nieghborhoods—Paddington, Bayswater, and Notting Hill—popular among budget travelers for their plethora of B&Bs and inexpensive hotels. Nearby Notting Hill Gate is similar, and actually becoming rather hip in its own right.

This place is a bland, modern, cookie-cutter chain joint—think Motel 6, but one that’s particularly clean, comfortable enough (thin walls, though), and modern—but it’s location is killer: on the revived Shouthwark river walk (that’s the south side of the River Thames), bang between the Tate Modern and the daily covered food market, a short stroll from both the Golden Hind (which is far tinier than you’d ever have imagined) and the Globe Theatre (Shakespeare as it was meant to be heard for £5). But it’s true claim to shining fame in my book is that it is attached to the venerable Thameside Anchor Pub, where Shakespeare himself used to get sloshed and Samuel Pepys sat and watched the Great Fire of 1666 consume the City of London across the river. Of course, the limey bastards of the hotel chain had the temerity, shamelessness, and utter lack of style to modernize the main bar in the pub (how they got around various antiquities protection laws is beyond me), but most of the other little bars and snugs creating this multi-level maze of a pub remain, some of them named for famous patrons, including Dr. Johnson, who found fortification here to write his famed dictionary (much of which was penned whilst sitting here with a pint or four). Best bit: you get to take breakfast (a full English fry-up) in a top room of the pub, at a table overlooking the Thames River to the dome of St. Paul’s. This is actually just one of a chain of 450 cheap hotels across the UK (a marriage of two chains that used to be called Travel Inn and Premiere Lodges), and the prices at all are usually excellent for expensive spot like Great Britain—officially starting at £47, though I’ve know sales to bring it even lower and, for late April/early May, the cost will likely be closer to £80-£90. (34 Park Street, Tube: London Bridge.)
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