Don't Waste Your Time or Money on This When You Visit London!

So, it's a rainy day. I'm here in central London and this is what a lot of tourists choose to do when they come to visit London. I'm going to decide if from a Londoner's perspective it's a good idea to use services just like this. Right, so you're coming to London and you're thinking about jumping on one of those hop-on hop-off buses. Well, let me save you some time and probably some money as well. These buses have been around for years. Big red double deckers that trundle around the main tourist spots. You basically buy a 24 or a 48 hour ticket and you can hop on and hop off as many times as you like. In theory, it sounds perfect. Especially if it's your first time in a city that you want to tick off. Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Tower of London and all of the remarkable stuff that makes London what it is. Without having to work out the tube. But honestly, in my opinion, they're not very good. In fact, I think they're a bit of a scam. Now, I recently tried Tootbus just to see what the fuss was all about and I have to say it was probably the worst tour of London you could possibly ever imagine. I'm not using the big red bus company today. I'm using another company called Tootbus. I'm going to assess what is it like and should you bother. So, despite claims that Tootbus starts at 8.30 in the morning, you would think that from stop one, it would start at 8.30. So, you think, okay, we're at stop nine. We're going to have a little bit of time to wait. It is now 9.40. So, it's an hour and 10 minutes later and there hasn't been one Tootbus. I kid you not. It is an hour and 10 minutes after the official start time and we still have no sign of Tootbus. He waits. That's what he does. I'm told according to the very unreliable app that it's two stops away. We shall see. It doesn't tell me how many minutes that is. It just tells me it's two stops away. In terms of London bus times, that should be very, very quick. We shall see. There we go. The headphones they give you are genuinely terrible. Tinny. Uncomfortable. Half the time, one side doesn't even work. Then, there's the app that you're supposed to use to monitor where the buses are. It simply refused to work properly. The bus was supposed to have Wi-Fi. It had no Wi-Fi and even though I'm a Londoner with full data on my phone, I couldn't get the app to work properly. The whole thing felt cheap and half No Londoner actually does this. I'm doing this for your benefit. Sat in the rain while, where am I? Oh, yes. We went past the old Russian embassy. I remember protesting outside that embassy for good reason. Here I am, north side of Hyde Park, sitting in the rain, wandering, haunted tourists. Although, the sensible tourists, look at this. They're all at the front, undercover. It's just me. Unfortunately, as the bus gets crowded and the rain sets in, you have to then head downstairs because there's obviously no seats at the front of the bus, at the top, which is covered. Now, here, on a very crowded bus, stood next to the buggy. Obviously, it's conducive to good weather. And I must say, it's especially crap when it's raining, which, let's be honest, happens quite a lot in London. Not only does the traffic get even worse because everyone jumps in a taxi and clogs up the roads, but half the bus becomes completely unusable. You'll get absolutely soaked on the top deck and the bottom deck windows steam up so badly that from all the condensation, you can barely see out anyway. So, you're basically paying to sit in the steamed up box, stuck in traffic, listening to tinny headphones. So, one hour later, I finally get a seat. App's still not working. Lucky I'm in London, so I know where we are. We're at Victoria Station now. So, we've gone all the way from South Kent to Victoria Station. It's taken one hour to do that. One hour. We have this pretty basic audio tour guide. I say basic, very basic. It lasts for about 30 seconds and inputs. Now, we're going into Victoria Station. Would I do that again? Would I even recommend it? I wouldn't even recommend it, to be honest. Sitting on a bus, going around London, I get that you might not be able to walk. You can walk around London, simply go from place to place, get on the buses, use the double deckers, at least go in the direction, sit on the top. You could get a better tour by watching YouTube videos, just like this, just like my channel. You could get better tour. Jules Guides, he does amazing tours. Watch one of those and then go to the destination and you don't need to get on these two buses, big bus companies, sightseeing buses. Not very good. They really are not very good. I can't even speak highly about them. Anyway, that was my brief little snippet into Tootbus and all the other companies. And look, they're all pretty much the same. Tootbus, Big Bus, the others, the formula hasn't really changed in 20 years. You're paying tourist prices for a very below average experience and you don't even get that much time at the actual sites because you're stuck on their schedule. So, here's my honest advice if you're visiting London. Skip the hot on hop-off buses completely. Use the proper public transport instead. The tube and regular buses are far cheaper, faster and you'll actually feel you're in London rather than being herded around with a hundred other tourists. For the history and the stories, just download a decent audio guide onto your phone before you come. Or even better, arm yourself with a few well-made YouTube videos about the places you're planning to visit. You can watch them on the way, pause them, go back and actually learn something. You'll get far more out of it than any of these over-inflated, over-priced bus tours will ever give you. And trust me, as someone who lives here, you'll have a much better time, spend less money and you'll actually remember what you saw. The hop-on, hop-off buses might look convenient on the website. But in reality, you're better off without them. If you appreciated this honest travel content where I'm not trying to sell you anything and I'm not trying to earn any money from you, maybe click that SUBSCRIBE button. Maybe click that LIKE button because it allows this channel to grow and it allows these videos to be seen by more people. And if you are interested in travel, do check out my hundreds and hundreds of videos on other travel destinations. Hopefully, I'll see you in another video. Until next time, keep progressing, keep traveling and keep wondering because you never know what's around the next corner.