So you want to travel in London

My advice, car hire.

Now you might think that this is a bad idea considering that the traffic around most of London is comparable to Mumbai. There’s a reason why Mumbai is always depicted as an impoverished, overcrowded and violent place, that’s because of its traffic. 

Once I was sat with a group of Vietnam veterans, they were all recounting their own personal stories of the horrors of the war when someone off handily mentioned that they don’t know what true horror is, they have never had to drive through Mumbai before. All the Nam veterans humbly agreed and quickly moved on. While Mumbai traffic is terrible beyond description, London can still one up it because of one major factor, tourists.

While Mumbai might have 27 million people trying to get out, London has 27 million people trying to get in, every year, just looking to absently wander into speeding traffic.

Please note that this is not an accurate representation of tourists in London as the sun is actually shining in this photo, the sun has not been seen in London since the afternoon of May 22, 1987

However at the end of the day, driving through London is still, the best option compared to the others.

The London Underground

Ah, the world famous underground subway system of London, fast and efficient, also, disgusting, stuffy, loud, expensive, and of course, jammed full of people. Imagine for a moment how dirty your own living space gets with just your or your family there, now imagine the kind of waste of litter, spills, smells, and stains of 2.5 million people, everyday! Never sit in an open seat in underground tubs, something has undoubtedly taken place that you have not been a witness to that is the reason no one is sitting in that particular empty seat. Also I hope you enjoy the smell of the underground because that’s what you will smell like after you use it, forever, it never washes away. 

The London Buses

Don’t be fooled into thinking these giant red double decker buses are for actual transportation, they are mobile apartments for bums, drug addicts, and psychiatric patients that have escaped confinement. You should be okay as long as you don’t sit in the top tier and are only on the bus for a few minute long intervals. The backs of these buses don’t actually have doors so you can jump out of the bus while it’s still moving in case the top gets too crowed or if some kind of indescribable liquid starts to sweep down the stairs or corners of the bus. Remember, duck and roll.

Walking

Walking, timeless, what’s a cheaper more interpersonal method of travel then a good walk, it would be an excellent suggestion if walking through London was like the first image,  it is however, exactly like this.

It is actually impossible to walk successfully in any given direction on the London sidewalks, attempting to move left, right, forward or backwards will ultimately just lead you back to where you started, or worse, going in the opposite direction. The direction you flow in random, so it’s best to sail the crowd without fighting it and hope you get near something that’s interesting enough to justify being there, but that’s not likely to happen. If you thought the traffic was obnoxious, just wait till you get your head into those London pedestrians. My advice is don’t try to walk around London with other pedestrians until you somehow develop mental powers to float above them.

So, in the end, its always better to travel through London via car, if you don’t own a car, get one through car rental, although you still wont get anywhere, at least you can fortify your car to be your own personal defense against the horrors of the city, and then in 50 years time you can be assured that your grandchildren wont be asking you why you smell like old socks and yacht urine because you happened to catch a ride on the underground.