5 Mistakes we made planning our trip to London and Paris
As I gain more experience traveling, I learn so much along the way. I now know how to better prepare for our future trips, and for others, which is extremely important as a travel agent.
My husband, Cecilio, and I had a blast during our trip to London and Paris in 2019, but there are some things we could’ve done to make our trip easier and smoother sailing. I went back to London in 2024 as a solo traveler, and it was so much easier that time around, because I’ve traveled a lot more since then (especially in a post-pandemic world).
Without further ado, here are some mistakes we made while planning for this trip. And hopefully, YOU will learn not to make the same ones and have a fun, stress-free trip.
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5 Mistakes we made booking our trip to London and Paris (so you don’t have to)
1. Staying in Croydon instead of Central London
I was scrolling through the Airbnb listings, and it seemed like I couldn’t have my cake and eat it too. We wanted the whole apartment (instead of just a private room), in the city center. It appeared that most of those apartments that met our criteria cost almost as much as a hotel. So I found this super cute studio apartment that was only around $80 a night. Problem is, it wasn’t in the center. It was in Croydon, a borough in Zones 3–6. I was okay with that and figured that we needed to take public transportation to central London.
And boy, did we take a lot of public transportation. I was naive in underestimating how much time we’d spend on the buses and trains. Our apartment was far away from East Croydon Station, so we took a bus just to get there.
Thankfully, there was a bus stop in front of our apartment. But after arriving at the station, we would then take a long train ride all the way to Victoria Station. That took almost an hour each way.
If there was any upside to staying in Croydon, it would be that we got to experience the off-beaten path. We were where most of the Londoners lived, ate, and commuted.
When I went to London the second time as a solo traveler, I stayed in Notting Hill. I had a much better time since the Notting Hill Gate Station was across the street from where I stayed, making it a lot easier to get around the city.
Notting Hill is in the Kensington & Chelsea Borough, which is in Zones 1 and 2 in London. Zone 1 is Central London. Ideally, you want to stay in Zone 1 to navigate Central London, which is already pretty spread out.
2. Not taking vitamins or Emergen-C before leaving for our trip
Always listen to your mom. My mom would hound me about taking vitamins, and she always takes vitamins and Emergen-C before leaving for a flight. We probably got sick on the plane.
I know that you can still get sick even when you take all of the precautions, but I feel that if we did, we would’ve had a lower chance of catching a cold. This was the worst cold I’ve ever had. We probably got hit hard because we were in two other countries and our bodies were not used to the pathogens there.
I got a sore throat on our 3rd day (the day we took a trip to Stonehenge), but my cold came in full force the day we left to go to Paris. Cecilio got hit on our 2nd day in Paris. What made it difficult was that even though our hotel was next to a pharmacy, we had to walk a few blocks to another one to get medicine. Most of the pharmacies in Paris are closed on Sundays. There are only a handful of ones that are open everyday, 24/7.
Now I take Vitamin C and Multivitamin gummies every day. I’m not perfect, but I try my best when I don’t forget. And wherever we go (and beyond), I am pouring a powder of Emergen-C into a glass of water and gulping that shit down the day before we leave for a flight.
3. Eating at Nando’s
I don’t know why I was so obsessed with wanting to try Nando’s. I saw fellow bloggers talk about it, I saw the menu, and everything sounded delicious.
There’s a Nando’s in Earl’s Court where we got picked up and dropped off for our Stonehenge/Bath tour, so we had dinner there. We ordered half a pound of peri-peri chicken, chips, garlic bread, and halloumi sticks. The chicken and garlic bread were on the dry side, and the chips tasted “meh”.
The Halloumi sticks were salty AF too. I guess I just wanted to try a fast food joint in another country, although there are Nando’s in the US (just not in California).
There are so many better places to eat in London, like in Notting Hill, Covent Garden, and Borough Market.
4. Waiting too long to purchase the Eurostar tickets
I looked up the Eurostar tickets back in August to go from St. Pancras to Gare du Nord, and they were around $80–$100 for a 9:15 a.m. departure.
We slept on that too long. We checked again a few weeks before we left, and the price shot up to $134. Even prices for less desirable departure times (like at 6 a.m.) rose significantly.
If you already booked your flight and hotel stays and you know your itinerary, book the Eurostar ticket ASAP and don’t wait until the last minute.
I recommend booking your tickets months in advance on Rail Europe if you want to transfer from London to Paris (or vice versa), as they have great deals. You can book your Eurostar tickets there!
5. Not staying long enough
Well, I admit this part was out of our control. Not just because it would’ve been more expensive, but because I have the standard 2-week vacation time in the US. Cecilio gets a month off because he has worked at the same company for 5 years, and more vacation time is one of those added perks.
We already felt rushed in London and Paris. If I had more vacation time, I totally would’ve added in extra days off so that we could’ve added Amsterdam to our itinerary, as we do want to go there one day, too.
You live and you learn, and the more experience we get traveling, the more efficient we’ll be at planning and preparing! Especially if we do decide to go to Tokyo next year, which will require a lot more preparation on our end!
Planning to go to London and/or Paris yourself?
If a trip to London, Paris, or anywhere in Europe are on your radar, please save this posts and take notes so that you don’t make the same blunders that Cecilio and I did.
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Hannah is a travel writer, graphic designer, and the founder/editor of Hannah on Horizon. She is based in Sacramento, California, living with her husband and two adorable dogs. She shares tips on how to experience luxury travel on any budget, and how to maximize time at each trip or destination, no matter what your budget or amount of vacation time at work. She enjoys making you feel like you have visited each destination with her through her storytelling and informative writing style.