Yes, on the numbers, though only just: 7 out of 10.
The numbers behind the verdict
A One Day ticket is £32 against an £8.90 daily cap on TfL, about 3.6 times the price, and the Red Route takes 2 hours 30 minutes to get round with a bus every 15 to 20 minutes.
What tips it is distance.
The main sights are spread over 7 km and eight of our ten are within a 7 minute walk of a stop.
It is your first day and you want to see Westminster, St Paul's and the Tower from the top deck before deciding what to go into.
You would use the one-way Thames cruise between Westminster Pier and Tower Pier, which comes with the £36.99 Discover ticket.
You are travelling with someone who cannot manage Tube stairs and long interchange corridors.
You have two days and will join the three guided walks included in the £46.99 Essential ticket.
Skip it if
You have one day and a list of museums. A full Red Route loop alone uses 2 hours 30 minutes of it.
The British Museum or Tate Modern is your priority. Neither is within 10 minutes' walk of a Red or Blue Route stop.
You are comfortable tapping in on the Tube, where a whole day in Zones 1 and 2 stops charging at £8.90.
You plan to sightsee into the evening. The last departures from the start stops are 17:12 (Red) and 17:51 (Blue).
London sightseeing bus: the fact sheet
Routes and timetable
Route
Stops
Frequency
Full loop
First / last bus
Red Route
28
15–20 min
150 min
08:42 / 17:12
Blue Route
43
20 min
215 min
10:54 / 17:51
Red Route
The main loop: 28 stops from Green Park through Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, Westminster, the South Bank, St Paul's and the Tower, then back past Buckingham Palace to Victoria.
It takes 2 hours 30 minutes without getting off.
Big Bus's timetable pages give a bus every 15 to 20 minutes and departures from stop 1 between 08:42 and 17:12, while its route overview says 15 to 30 minutes and its service page gives different first and last times, so treat 20 minutes as the good case.
Stop 1 is out of service at present and buses start from stop 2.
Blue Route
43 stops and 3 hours 35 minutes.
It shares 26 stops with the Red Route and adds Harrods, the South Kensington museums, Kensington Palace, Notting Hill, Paddington and Baker Street.
Early buses start mid-route from Gloucester Road at 08:00, and the 10:54 to 17:51 window is for departures from Victoria.
This page lists only two of its 17 extra stops.
The Green Link (10 stops, every 45 minutes, 08:30 to 17:15) connects King's Cross, Euston and the British Museum with Covent Garden and is included in every ticket.
Audio guide in 7 languages. Wheelchair access: yes, according to the operator.
Ticket prices
Ticket
Adult
Child
24 hoursOne Day Ticket
£32
£19
48 hoursEssential Ticket
£46.99
£36.99
72 hours
not sold
Prices are Big Bus's online rates checked on 4 October 2026.
Full prices are higher: £39 for the One Day ticket, £43.99 for Discover and £53.99 for Essential.
All tickets cover the Red, Blue and Green Link routes with recorded commentary in 7 languages.
The One Day ticket is bus only and valid on the chosen date.
Discover (24 hours, £36.99 adult, £29.99 child) adds a one-way Thames cruise between Westminster Pier and Tower Pier.
Essential (48 hours) adds the cruise and three guided walks: Royal, Jack the Ripper and Harry Potter.
Explore (48 hours, £56.99 adult, £46.99 child) adds the 75 minute evening tour, which costs £29.99 bought on its own.
There is no 72 hour ticket.
Family tickets for 2 adults and 2 children start at £113.99 for Discover.
Child tickets are for ages 4 to 15 and under 4s ride free.
Child fare: ages 4 to 15.
The same day by public transport
Transport for London
Adult
Single ride
£3
One day, unlimited rides
£8.90
The day cost is TfL's daily pay as you go cap for Zones 1 and 2, £8.90 in the 2026 fare table, and every sight on this page is inside those zones.
The single fare shown is the off-peak Zone 1 Tube fare of £3.00 with contactless or Oyster.
It is £3.10 at peak times (weekdays 06:30 to 09:30 and 16:00 to 19:00) and £7.00 for a paper ticket.
Buses are £1.75 a ride with a £5.25 daily cap.
Under 11s travel free with a paying adult, and 11 to 15 year olds pay half adult rates once a Young Visitor discount is set on an Oyster card.
Do the sum for your trip
Change the numbers to match your group. Fares are adult fares from the tables above.
Sightseeing bus–
Public transport–
Public transport is charged per ride up to the daily maximum. Multi-day passes can be cheaper still.
24, 48 or 72 hours
24 hours£32 One Day Ticket · £32 per day · 3.6 times public transport for the same days
48 hoursLowest cost per day£46.99 Essential Ticket · £23.50 per day · 2.6 times public transport for the same days
Big Bus sells four plain tickets and none of them lasts 72 hours. The One Day ticket (£32 adult, £19 child) is valid only on the date you pick, until the last bus.
The Discover ticket (£36.99, child £29.99) runs 24 hours from first use and adds the one-way river cruise, so boarding at 13:00 gets you the next morning as well. The Essential ticket (£46.99, child £36.99) runs 48 hours and adds three guided walks.
If you only want the loop once, buy the One Day ticket. If you want the boat, the extra £4.99 for Discover is the better deal.
Two days pays off only if you treat the Blue Route to Kensington as a second day out.
By public transport the same day costs £8.90 at most. That is the daily cap for Zones 1 and 2 when you tap the same contactless card or phone on every Tube and bus.
Stick to buses and the cap is £5.25, with single rides at £1.75. Bus 15 runs from Trafalgar Square past St Paul's Cathedral to the Tower of London, and bus 9 covers Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly, Hyde Park Corner and Kensington High Street.
Both are ordinary double-deckers where the front seats upstairs go to whoever gets there first. You get no commentary and the windows are closed.
Two adults save about £46 on the day compared with two One Day tickets.
Does it suit your trip?
With children
A child ticket covers ages 4 to 15 and under 4s ride free. The One Day child ticket is £19, so two adults and two children pay £102 for the day.
On TfL, under 11s travel free with a paying adult and 11 to 15 year olds pay half adult fares once a Young Visitor discount is added to an Oyster card at a Tube station. That makes the price gap wider for families than for couples.
In the bus's favour, children get a seat, a view and headphones, and nobody has to carry a pushchair down an escalator. Plan on one loop with two stops.
Small children run out of patience well before 2 hours 30 minutes.
The top deck is open. Big Bus says that in bad weather it may send out a bus with a roof instead, but you cannot count on which one arrives.
The lower deck is enclosed on every bus and the view from it is ordinary: shopfronts and the sides of other buses. Bring a waterproof if you want to sit upstairs.
The 24 hour Discover ticket helps here, because a tour started at 13:00 can be finished the next morning if the afternoon turns wet.
The open deck has no shade, and a full Red Route loop is 2 hours 30 minutes in the sun if you stay on. Buses are scheduled every 15 to 20 minutes, so a full bus at Westminster or the Tower in July means that much longer on the pavement.
Start before 10:00 and take water. Stop 26 at Buckingham Palace is skipped between 10:00 and 12:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays because of the Changing of the Guard, which is exactly when most people want it.
If you cannot walk far
Big Bus does not give a flat yes for London. It asks wheelchair users to contact it before travelling with the width and weight of the chair so it can confirm a space, and it does not take mobility scooters.
The top deck is reached by a staircase, so anyone who cannot climb rides downstairs. For people who can manage a few steps but not long walks, the bus does solve a real problem: eight of the ten main sights are within about 500 metres of a stop.
TfL buses are the cheaper fallback, and every one has a ramp and a wheelchair space.
Tap in with contactless and build the day around two walks. Parliament Square to Trafalgar Square along Whitehall is about 1 km and passes the abbey, Downing Street and Horse Guards.
St Paul's to the Tower over the Millennium Bridge and along the south bank is about 3 km and passes Tate Modern, Borough Market and Tower Bridge. Link the two with bus 15 or the District line from Westminster to Tower Hill.
If all you want is one ride on an open deck, Big Bus sells its 75 minute evening tour on its own for £29.99.
Stop 1 at Green Park is out of service until further notice (checked 4 October 2026). Board at stop 2, opposite the Hard Rock Cafe on Piccadilly.
Stop 14 at Covent Garden is suspended. The temporary boarding point is TfL stop E outside the Waldorf Hotel on Aldwych.
For Buckingham Palace on a guard-change morning, get off at Tothill Street (stop 25) or Victoria (stop 27) and walk. Stop 26 is closed from 10:00 to 12:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
The river cruise is one way and takes about 40 minutes. Ride the bus east to the Tower (stop 19), then take the boat back to Westminster Pier.
The British Museum is only on the Green Link, which runs every 45 minutes. From the Covent Garden stop it is a 14 minute walk, usually quicker than waiting.
Commentary is recorded, in 7 languages. Bring your own headphones if you dislike the disposable ones handed out on board.
London hop-on hop-off bus: quick answers
How much is the hop-on hop-off bus in London?
Big Bus charges £32 for an adult One Day ticket and £19 for a child aged 4 to 15 when booked online (checked 4 October 2026). The 24 hour Discover ticket with a river cruise is £36.99 and the 48 hour Essential ticket is £46.99.
How long does the full loop take?
The Red Route takes 2 hours 30 minutes without getting off and has 28 stops. The Blue Route, which adds Kensington, Notting Hill and Baker Street, takes 3 hours 35 minutes.
How often do the buses come?
Every 15 to 20 minutes on the Red Route and every 20 minutes on the Blue Route, according to Big Bus's timetable pages. The Green Link to King's Cross runs every 45 minutes.
Does the bus stop at Buckingham Palace?
Yes, stop 26 is at 1 Buckingham Gate, about 4 minutes' walk from the palace railings. It is closed from 10:00 to 12:30 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays during the Changing of the Guard.
Is the Thames cruise included?
Not with the £32 One Day ticket. It comes with the Discover (£36.99), Essential (£46.99) and Explore (£56.99) tickets and is a one-way trip of about 40 minutes between Westminster Pier and Tower Pier.
Is the sightseeing bus cheaper than the Tube?
No. A day of Tube and bus travel in Zones 1 and 2 is capped at £8.90 on contactless, and a day of buses alone at £5.25. The £32 sightseeing ticket costs about 3.6 times the Tube cap.
Big Bus Tours · LondonOn Civitatis · rated 7.9/10 by 1,728 travellers
Could not be confirmed on an official page and may differ: frequency (Red Route), frequency (Blue Route), first / last bus (Red Route), first / last bus (Blue Route).
