Crossing from Soho to the South Bank on foot often beats waiting for a train entirely
A City That Rewards Underestimating The Tube
By Fiona MacLeod. One detail first-time visitors consistently underestimate is just how compact central London’s actual centre really is, with a walk from Soho across to the South Bank taking roughly twenty minutes on foot, often genuinely faster than the alternative of navigating down to a platform, waiting for a train, and walking back up again at the other end for what amounts to a single, short Underground hop.
This compactness means an itinerary built purely around Tube connections between attractions frequently produces more total walking and waiting than a route planned with a proper street map and a willingness to simply walk the shorter connections directly above ground.
Why This Matters For How You Should Actually Plan Each Day
Grouping attractions by genuine walking proximity rather than by Tube line convenience often produces a considerably more efficient day, particularly during peak commuter hours when platform crowding and train frequency can add meaningfully more time to a short journey than the equivalent walk would have taken outright.
A Personal Recommendation From Years Of Repeat Visits
Having made this same mistake myself on earlier visits, defaulting to the Tube for genuinely short hops that would have been faster on foot, I now build every London day around a proper street map first, treating the Underground as the tool for longer crossings rather than the automatic default for every single journey.
A Habit That Changes How Much You Actually See
Adopting this walking-first approach to short central London journeys genuinely increases how much of the city you experience directly, rather than watching it pass by through a train window between stops you never actually see at street level. This principle applies particularly well to South Bank, Southwark, and the City of London specifically, three areas that sit considerably closer together on foot than their separate Tube station names might otherwise suggest to someone planning purely by transport map alone.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/
