October 2024: The nights are getting darker, there’s a faint whiff of ‘pumpkin spice’ on the breeze, and it’s getting harder and harder to resist turning up the thermostat; October has well and truly arrived in London. It may be tempting to go into hibernation as the temperature drops and your Big Coat comes back into rotation, but there are plenty of reasons to get out and about in the city this month.
As well as Halloween festivities and Black History Month celebrations, October is a bumper month for culture. Alongside a plethora of major museum, gallery and theatre openings – the Design Museum’s Tim Burton exhibition, Adrien Brody’s UK stage debut and a big Van Gogh show at the National Gallery, to name a few – October marks the return of a bunch of city-wide fests taking over the capital, including the BFI London Film Festival, the London Literature Festival, London Cocktail Week and Frieze London.
Resist the pull of the sofa, wrap up warm and get out there!
No matter what your vibe, tastes or interests, there is always something to do in London. When the sun’s out, London’s parks turn into leafy social clubs, restaurants dust off their outdoor seating and fountains erupt from dusty concrete squares.
Whether you want to see cutting-edge art exhibitions, iconic attractions, secret spots, world-beating theatre, stunning green spaces, it’s all here and you can probably fit all this in and more still barely feel like you’ve scratched the surface of the city. And that’s before you factor in all those historic London pubs, the latest must-visit restaurants and vibrant LGBTQ+ venues. And if you need somewhere to stay? Check out London’s best hotels or Airbnbs.
This London bucket list (curated by our editors and always hotly debated in the Time Out office) is a good place to start because exploring this city can be a little daunting. There’s something for everyone here, but you need to know where to look.
Plus, if you want to know what’s happening in London, like, right now, check out things to do in London this week and things to do in London this weekend. After a few days pottering about in the capital, you’ll be more than ready to reel off Dr Samuel Johnson’s famous quote: ‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.’
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