London-When to come

A lot of London visitors will have the time of their trip dictated in some way by things like work, when the kids have school holidays, price fluctuations. If you are lucky enough to have a free choice, when’s the best time to come?

June, July and August are naturally the real busy periods, there’s no guarantee on the weather but its generally pretty ok with average temperature’s for those three months in the low 20’sC/70’sF. Anecdotally I can tell you June and July this year were great, long sunny days and high temperatures, August changed to grey skies and cooler weather for the whole month and that was followed by the warmest September on record.

Like the image of London being a fog shrouded place, the idea that it’s always raining will have to change too. Whether its global warming or not, there are warmer winters and less rain than when I was growing up.

Summer also benefits from the longer daylight hours, London’s at a latitude of 51.5 degrees, that’s higher than any city in the continental US or places like Japan and China, so in summer daylight can last from around 4.40am to 9.30pm. British Summer Time (daylight savings) starts on the last Sunday in March when the clocks go forward one hour and ends on the Sunday after the fourth Saturday in October. 29th October is the day to turn the time back this year.

I think April and May are good months to visit, you can get decent weather, accomodation should be cheaper than the high summer and you can avoid the hordes of tourists that absolutely pack out central London. I wouldn’t recommend January or February, grey, dull, maybe rain and not the time to see London at its best.

London is buzzying and looks good at Christmastime but with the pound so strong against other world currencies it’s not the ideal place to come and do your Christmas shopping.