Your London Bucket List: 15 Things to Do in Your First Term

This is one of those London things that never really gets old.

Start around London Bridge or Borough Market, head towards Tate Modern and keep walking along the South Bank towards the London Eye.

You’ll get Tower Bridge, St Paul’s, Shakespeare’s Globe, the river and the London skyline all in one walk.

And no matter which YourTRIBE property you’ve moved into, this is very much your part of London rather than a special day trip.

Tip: Go around sunset and let the city light up while you’re walking.

London is much greener than you might expect.

From Elephant & Castle, try Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park behind the Imperial War Museum, or head a little further to Burgess Park.

Around South Bermondsey, Southwark Park is a great local option, while Russia Dock Woodland feels completely different from the London you see on postcards.

And from Deptford, you can head towards Greenwich Park, where 183 acres of parkland come with one of the best views in London.

Tip: Find one park that becomes your default. Somewhere for a walk, a run, a coffee or an hour away from your laptop.

You should definitely see the London skyline from above.

You don’t necessarily need to pay for an observation deck to do it.

Walk up Stave Hill near Russia Dock Woodland for a view across Docklands, head to the top of Greenwich Park for the classic Canary Wharf skyline, or venture into the City for one of its free public viewing spaces.

These are the kind of places you can return to with every friend or family member who comes to visit.

Tip: Go around golden hour. London looks considerably more expensive when the sun is setting.

If you live at YourTRIBE, Borough Market is far too accessible to treat it as somewhere you visit once with your parents.

There are more than 100 stalls, stands, restaurants, bars and shops, so don’t attempt to conquer it all in one lunchtime.

Go hungry and pick something.

Try a toasted cheese sandwich from Kappacasein, Thai street food from Khanom Krok or seafood from Applebee’s, then come back another week and try something completely different.

Tip: Make a Borough Market note on your phone and rate what you try. By the end of term, you’ll know exactly where to take someone who’s visiting.

Borough Market Trader Directory

Everyone arrives knowing Soho, Camden and Notting Hill.

Your first term is the time to discover the other London.

Walk around Rotherhithe and along the river. Explore Russia Dock Woodland and climb Stave Hill. Spend an afternoon around Bermondsey Street. Head into Peckham or Nunhead. Wander from Deptford into Greenwich without rushing to the landmarks.

These aren’t places you need to tick off.

They’re places you might end up going back to.

Tip: Let food decide where you go. Find somewhere you want to eat, then spend a couple of hours exploring around it.

Market. Food. Park. Views. The river.

Greenwich is very good at Sundays.

Wander around Greenwich Market, grab something to eat and then walk up through Greenwich Park for the view back across London.

And if you’re at Deptford, it’s close enough to become one of your regular places rather than something you visit once.

Tip: Walk there from Deptford and make the journey part of the day.

Sometimes efficiency is overrated.

Get upstairs, grab the front seat if it’s free and watch London go past.

It’s one of the easiest ways to understand how Elephant & Castle connects with central London, how Bermondsey joins the river and how Deptford connects into Greenwich and beyond.

It’s basically sightseeing hidden inside a normal journey.

One of the biggest perks of living in London is that a West End show doesn’t have to be a major planned occasion.

You can wait for a deal.

This autumn there is loads to choose from. Long-running shows include Wicked, Hamilton, Hadestown, Moulin Rouge! and The Devil Wears Prada, while 2026 also brings productions including Into the Woods and High School Musical. Current official listings show performances continuing across the autumn and into December.

Living here also means you can be flexible. Look out for:

• Rush tickets
• Ticket lotteries
• Returns
• Same-day availability
• Midweek performances
• Last-minute deals

Tip: Try doing it backwards. Pick an evening you’re free, look for the best last-minute ticket and let the deal decide what you see.

You might discover something you’d never have booked otherwise.
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One of the best parts of living in London is finding the places you start calling your places.

Elephant & Castle

Start around Elephant Park, Sayer Street and Walworth Road.

For coffee, Hana Coffee on Sayer Street is an easy local one to know.

Then explore the independent food around Elephant Park and Walworth Road rather than automatically jumping on the Tube every time you want to eat.

Southwark

You’re very well placed for Borough Market, London Bridge and the surrounding streets.

For an easy brunch or group meal, Brother Marcus Borough is right by the market.

But the bigger advantage is having Borough Market close enough to keep going back until you’ve found your own favourite stall.

South Bermondsey

Make Bermondsey Street one of your early go-tos.

For coffee, WatchHouse Bermondsey is a local staple. For something more special, Casse-Croûte is a tiny French restaurant that’s perfect to keep in mind when someone comes to visit.

Deptford

Stay local before automatically heading into central London.

Deptford High Street and Market Yard are packed with independent places. The Waiting Room Coffee Bar is an easy one to know, while ZE-ZE Café, Rotisserie & Wine Bar in Deptford Market Yard works for everything from coffee to dinner.

Then you’ve got Greenwich just beyond it.

Your first-term food challenge: find one cheap favourite, one coffee spot and one place you’d recommend to someone visiting.

By Christmas, you’ll probably have more than three.

Being able to casually visit Tate Modern, the V&A, Natural History Museum, British Museum or National Gallery is something you should take advantage of.

You don’t need to spend six hours trying to see every gallery either.

Go to Tate Modern for an hour. See one section. Get a coffee. Leave.

You live here. You can come back.

And Tate Modern is close enough that “popping to the Tate” can genuinely become a thing.

One for when you really need to concentrate.

One for when you want to “study” with friends and spend a suspicious amount of the time talking.

Your university library is an obvious start, but try cafés, public libraries and the study spaces at YourTRIBE too.

Having somewhere you like working that isn’t your bedroom is very useful once deadlines start appearing.

Tip: Find both before you actually need them.

London is one of the easiest cities in the world to try food from somewhere you’ve never visited.

Pick a cuisine. Ask someone where they eat it. Go.

And if you’ve moved to London from another country, reverse it.

Take your flatmates somewhere that serves food from home and order for everyone.

That’s a much better London experience than eating in the same five chains all term.

Try pottery painting. A cookery workshop. Yoga. Jewellery making. A neighbourhood walk. A rooftop film. Something creative.

YourTRIBE’s events programme mixes bigger socials with smaller activities, wellbeing and ways to explore London.

You don’t need everything to already be “your thing” before you try it.

Sometimes that’s exactly the point.

Tip: Spot something you like? Ask someone to come with you. It’s an easy way to turn “we should do something sometime” into actually doing something.

YourTRIBE events

By November, London starts switching into Christmas mode.

The lights go on. Shop windows change. Winter events begin. And suddenly everyone seems to be carrying something involving cinnamon.

The best thing about living here is that you don’t have to cram Christmas in London into one exhausting Saturday.

Do Oxford Street and Regent Street one evening. Covent Garden another. Walk through Carnaby after dinner. Save another night for the South Bank.

Then, as December arrives, go back to the places you liked most.

Tip: Do the Christmas lights on a weekday evening. Living in London means you have the luxury of not trying to see everything at peak weekend time.

This deserves a place on the list too.

Grab your free coffee. Sit downstairs longer than planned. Order food. Make dinner together. Watch a film. Go for a walk. End up talking in the kitchen until far too late.

Not every great London memory needs a ticket or an itinerary.

Sometimes having nowhere you need to be is the plan.