Big news! After YEARS of me begging and threatning (and sending approximately 1,500,000 burger pictures through Facebook), my brother is FINALLY coming to visit!

But pretty much like for finding him the perfect Christmas present, coming up with ideas of things to do in London with your brother can quickly become your worse nightmare.

Lucky for you, I did all the research so you don’t have to.

So here it is: 10 of the best things to do in London with your brother!

1. Walk alongside the Thames, from Westminster to Tower Bridge.

The nicest and most time-efficient way to cover many of the sights first-time visitors to London will want to see.

Including Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Tate Modern, the Monument, Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

You might also have to make a pitstop at the Borough Market to refill your batteries (because it just so happens to be on your way, and you’ll need energy to walk, and also because bread and hog roast and chorizo and pie and cheese and litterally all that is good in the world).

2. Visit a football stadium / see a game.

Is your brother a major sport fan? London is home to many a football stadium, many of which offer tours (and the same goes for many other sports venues, if footy isn’t really your thing).

Check in advance if you want to book tickets for a game as those are quite tricky to get last minute (or get to one of your team’s official pubs early and cheer for your favourite team with breakfast and a pint on the side!)

3. Visit the London Transport Museum.

One of the most interactive museums there is, which means a whole lot of fun for car/train/bus (and London) lovers of all ages. Just remember to mind the gap between the line and the platform while boarding the exhibits!

4. Tour the parks.

If your brother’s anything like mine, he’s much more of an outdoors-y kind of person and full days of back-to-back museum visits simply won’t do the trick.

Luckily, London is also the greenest city in Europe and there are so many beautiful parks to explore.

From the most central ones (Hyde Park, Green Park) to the most off-centred ones (Richmond Park, Kew Gardens), the most wildlife-friendly (St James Park and its pelicans, Richmond Park and its deers) to the buzziest ones, there’s a park for everything and everyone!

5. Tour London’s best burger restaurants.

Any Londoner’s greatest quest is to find the Saint Grail aka the city’s best burger.

There are so many, it’s pretty much an impossible task, but I’ll be damned if I don’t try to do it anyway! (and I’ll use pretty much any excuse to eat burgers…)

Luckily, my brother (just like most guys I know TBH) is as much of a burger enthusiast as I am, so burger crawl it is!

(PS. Lucky Chip & Bleecker St. are my favourite sofar…)

6. Have a Gent’s afternoon tea.

Afternoon tea used to be a rather girly affair, but not anymore.

With more and more restaurants and hotels (Sanctum Soho, Reform bar & Grill, OXO, The Athenaeum, Chapters to name just a few) offering testosterone- (and burger-) filled afternoon tea, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t treat everyone you love to a bit of food and tea (and possibly cigars), regardless of their gender.

7. ALL THE BOOZE.

If your brother -finally- visiting is not a good excuse to go all out on the drinks, I don’t know what is.

Choose your format (pub crawl? brewery tour? whisky bar? speakeasy?), pick your poison and have fun! (just make sure you have a plan to get home safely beforehands okay?)

 

8. Be grossed out at The Huntarian Museum.

Remember those times when you were telling each other horror stories (and subsequently preventing the two of you from ever managing to sleep because eww, ghosts and monsters and what if there’s one under the bed?).

Well, the Huntarian Museum is the grown-up version of this. With the oldest collections of anatomical, pathological and zoological specimens in the UK, including include the skeleton of the 7ft 7in tall ‘Irish giant’, it’s just the right balance between fascinating and freakish!

9. Run from zombies.

A must-do for any ‘Walking Dead’ fan (and let’s be honest, who isn’t?), this immersive game will get your mind racing and adrenaline flowing! Trapped in a room with a zombie, you have 60 minutes to escape the room through a series of clues and puzzles… will you escape in time? Or will you be eaten?

10. Build the coolest Lego robots.

Revive your most cherished chilhood memories at Drink, Shop and Do’s creative evenings of Lego robots building! Entry is free when you buy a drink (very good start to any evening if you ask me!) and then it’s all about chanelling your inner child and getting the creativity flowing!