24 awesome alternative London tube maps

Parisian architecture and transport nerd Jug Cerovic revamped the tube map to include details of London's favourite Instagram spots, renaming stops after the most popular hashtags nearby.

Web developer Peter Trotman gave the original design a major overhaul for this interactive travel time (no, not time travel) map, which moves around as you use it.

The sound of the Underground: not just a great Girls Aloud song, but also the inspiration for this interactive map, which uses field recordings from 55 tube, DLR and Overground stations remixed into a wonky aural record of the capital in 2016.

Love the tube map, but hate actually going on the tube? This map shows how London's cycle superhighways, quietways and other popular cycle routes connect up to each other and marks out key destinations along the way. Time to ditch the sweaty Central line and get on yer bike.

To help in your impossible quest to find somewhere cheap to rent in London, Thrillist made a tube rent map, which shows the average rent prices for one-bed flats within one kilometre of each station on the Underground. Even though rent has sky-rocketed in London since this particular map was made, it's a useful (though excruciatingly depressing) tool to use.

Forget 6am spin classes – getting off the tube a couple of stops early is a much more civilised way to squeeze in some exercise before work. You can quantify your effors with this handy map, which shows how many calories you could burn by walking between stations instead of taking the tube.

Trying to tackle the Central line in rush hour is no joke, but one-liner slinging comedian Darren Walsh injected some much-needed LOLs into the tube map, punning his way through the Underground stations.

The night tube has revolutionised nights out in London (see ya later, night bus), but sadly it doesn't cover the entire tube network. If you're not lucky enough to live near a station serving the 24-hour service, this handy map shows all the taxi ranks near night tube stops across London.

We celebrated Halloween by giving the tube map a ghostly makeover, replacing all the stations in zone with spooky puns. Meet you on the platform at Charing Crossbones.

Remember life before the night tube? Us neither. But before the long-awaited 24-hour weekend service officially launched, Max Roberts of Tube Map Central imagined what the new nocturnal map would look like.

You know how the tube map gives you an unrealistic impression of how near or far away things are from each other in the real world? This totally solves that problem. The map shows tube lines, overground lines, mainline rail lines, as well as roads, neighbourhoods, parks and rivers.

London-based creative team Olivia and Irene, the duo who created the brilliant alternative tube badges, made this map to highlight how inaccessible the tube network is for people who need step-free access.

Jug Cerović, a Belgrade-born and Paris-based architect and designer  made this rather smart version of the tube map, clearing up a lot of the issues we have with the real deal.

If you've ever wondered whether it would be quicker to walk – or at least get off a stop early – the folks at TfL created an official walking tube map showing the average walking times for each station

The map created by Mashable features landmarks from the magical books rather than actual London stations – except Paddington and King's Cross because, as you know, Platform 9 3/4 is both an LDN hotspot and an essential Harry Potter tourist attraction.

Summer in London is great, but balmy temperatures outside usually means things get seriously sweaty on the Underground. This TfL map from shows that the Central and Bakerloo lines are the worst culprits, regularly hitting a scorching 32C, while the average ambient temperature across all lines was 22.2C.

Pretend you’re playing a game of old school Super Mario Brothers with this lovely map. Jump into tunnels at interchanges, rescue princesses in distress and power up with a mushroom.

The graphic from Max Roberts features a series of concentric circles and, impressively, a London Underground Roundel in the centre.

This alternative tube map spilled the beans on which stations equal tourist hell and where to avoid briefcase wankers.

Forget bendy buses, artist and designer Kyle Bean used bendy drinking straws to create a beautiful replica of the iconic tube map.

Stephen Walter created this phenomenally detailed hand-drawn map specifically for the Mind the Map exhibition. The dense map of information annotates the fact and fiction of subterranean London, making your journey just that little bit more colourful.

More than 300 languages are spoken in the capital. But which languages are spoken where? This Tube Tongues Map from UCK’s Oliver O’Brien illustrates.

Web developer Bruno Imbrizi created this 3D representation of the complex web of lines and trains as they move past and over each other underground in real time.

Here are the predictable attractions first-time visitors tend to flock to, all overlaid on the tube map itself by John Murphy.