Welcome to the 2012 Edition of the London Tourism Guide from www.londontourist.org. This is the full text of our guidebook (now out of print), with all the tourist information you need to plan your visit to London - and recommended places to visit outside the capital. We've got details of all London's sights and attractions from Buckingham Palace to the Tower of London - and some hidden gems you probably won't have heard of. We also feature walking guides and tours (bus tours, boat tours and even tours by public transport) to help you get around. Although we're not a booking service ourselves, you can book hotels in London and the rest of the UK with the VENERE HOTEL RESERVATION SERVICE it's an Italian firm - we've booked our own holiday accommodation through them (in Europe mainly...) or LATEROOMS HOTEL BOOKING SERVICE who we used in the States and in the UK. But please remember we only recommend individual hotels mentioned on our Hotels page. DIY Travel is another option with a good spread of boutique hotels and budget options.

If you want history and culture we've got it, but we can also show you how to have a good time. If you want to laze around London's pubs and restaurants, see a show at a West End theatre, take in a concert of one of London's five symphony orchestras, visit the opera or see the next Smiths, Oasis or Rolling Stones appearing in a pub venue we have the details. We offer a mixture of fact and opinion designed to enable you to make the most of your visit, without getting ripped off - we can even show you how to get it all for free.

This is an advertisement-free zone - we don't want to compromise our editorial integrity: we aim to give honest opinions about London, and we don't want to have to pull our punches to please advertisers - as other sites are forced to do. All the information herein is free for you to use, but commercial reproduction is banned. There's a search engine below to get to what you want quickly.

Where there is a website dedicated to an attraction or an organisation we've included a link to save space: get the facts straight from the horse's mouth, use our guide for honest opinion. Wherever possible I've included quotes from our contributors - with a second opinion if they felt very strongly about one of their assignments. We'd also love to hear any comments and to receive details of what you like/hate about London as well as any tips you'd like to pass on to other visitors.

Simon Crutchley
Editor, The London Guide