Camden is one of London’s quirkiest neighbourhoods and is packed with brilliant places to see. Not sure where to start? Here are 21 cool things to do in Camden, London that you shouldn’t miss.
You won’t be able to quite put your finger on what makes Camden buzz.
Is it the brilliant market bursting with indie and alternative finds? Is it the cool street art? The lively bars? Let us guess, the old-school pubs?
Who knows. As lifelong Londoners, we still can’t say what it is that makes Camden tick.
What we do know is that Camden’s reputation as one of London’s most distinctive areas lives on. Planning your visit? We’ve chosen our favourite things to do and places to go in Camden.
Best things to do in Camden
Go shopping in Camden’s famous markets
We love Camden Market, as it’s like a little microcosm of everything there is to love about London. Think quirky clothing and cool accessories that are the perfect antidote to bland high street fashion.
Camden Market is actually a series of markets, Camden Lock Village, Inverness Street Market, The Stables Market and Buck Street Village, all slightly different but within a short walk of each other, perfect for hunting out your next purchase. You could easily spend an entire day exploring the markets alone.
Street art hunting around Camden
Camden is known as an artsy and creative hub, so it should come as no surprise that its walls are home to plenty of ultra-cool street art. There are a number of tours aimed at helping you find the area’s best pieces, or you can have a nose using our Camden Street Art Guide.
The Camden North area in particular has many striking pieces, including work from well-known street artists. While some of the identities behind the works are revealed, others are totally anonymous, some artists are known only by nicknames like Bambi, the artist behind the well-known portrait of Amy Winehouse on Camden Road. Other street art hotspots include Hawley Street, Castlehaven Road and Kentish Town Road.
Hang out on Regent’s Canal
Want a break from the hustle and bustle of central London? Head for Regent’s Canal towards the gorgeous area known as Little Venice.
It’s one of our favourite things to do in the area, thanks to the sight of the water and the peaceful, quiet atmosphere, though there’s still enough liveliness to remind you that you’re in the midst of London town. Expect plenty of walkers, joggers and people out aboard rowing boats, why not join them?
For more than 200 years, Regent’s Canal has been a peaceful little oasis with a totally different feel and pace to the rest of Camden. It’s free to take a stroll, and if you plan ahead and bring a picnic, it’s nice and cheap too.
Catch a gig at KOKO
It must be clear by now that Camden is not short of fantastic music venues. Another one that should be on your radar is KOKO. The hall has a history of entertainment stretching back to the year 1900 and has played host to some of music’s most famous faces, The Clash, The Jam, Prince and The Prodigy among them.
KOKO’s own history took a dramatic turn in January 2020, when a fire tore through the building during a planned refurbishment, destroying its famous copper dome. The venue closed for two years while the dome and the rest of the Grade II listed building were painstakingly restored, reopening in 2022 as a genuinely expanded 50,000 sq ft space, the original theatre now joined by piano and vinyl rooms, a library, a dome cocktail bar, a penthouse and a hidden speakeasy, alongside the main hall.
When they’re not hosting big names, they usually turn the main hall into a club, one that regularly packs out over the weekend and functions as an unmissable late-night hotspot.
Find out about folk music at Cecil Sharp House
Before Camden Town was all about jazz and indie music, there was folk. For centuries, UK artists have produced traditional folk songs and music, a genre that’s far from relegated to the history books, with the rise of bands like Mumford & Sons keeping it very much alive.
If you want to learn more and catch a gig, we highly recommend Cecil Sharp House, a premier folk venue since the 1930s. Nowadays it holds a huge collection of memorabilia relating to folk music and dancing, alongside frequent shows ranging from traditional folk dancing to modern pop-folk, plus workshops and classes if you fancy learning more yourself.
Go on an adventure at Babylon Park
Whether you’re out and about with the family or want somewhere for a fun date night with a mini-competitive edge, Babylon Park is the ideal spot.
Enjoy all the fun of the fair undercover, whatever the weather, at this indoor theme park with roller-coasters, dodgems, tea-cup rides, classic arcades and sideshow games where you can win a cuddly toy for your kids or your loved one.
How to go: Entry is free, but you’ll need to purchase coins to enjoy the amusements once you arrive, check current opening times here.
Snap the pretty houses (and the views) at Primrose Hill
If you’re wondering what to do in Camden on a budget, a visit to Primrose Hill is a great option.
This beautiful green space is loved by both Londoners and visitors, who retreat here to get away from the hustle and bustle of the capital. One of the highlights is the gorgeous houses around it, especially at Chalcot Crescent and Chalcot Square, pastel-coloured and full of traditional charm, don’t forget to take plenty of snaps. Poet Sylvia Plath once lived on Chalcot Square, worth knowing if you’re the literary type.
From the top of Primrose Hill, you’ll also be treated to some amazing views out over the city of London.
Gorge on street food at Camden’s cool street food spots
Sure, sometimes you want to head out for dinner at one of Camden’s fancy restaurants, and sometimes you just want to snack on delicious, unpretentious food from one of the city’s many cool food markets.
Check out the East Yard at Camden Market, home to dozens of street food vendors, mostly food trucks, all in one convenient location, everything from Vietnamese to Mexican and everything in between. The hardest bit is choosing your meal.
Stroll around Regent’s Park
Regent’s Park lies adjacent to Primrose Hill, and is one of the most beautiful green spots in London. The park was named after King George IV, who before his coronation was often called “the playboy prince”, and he clearly had great taste in gardens, the rose garden alone, with over 12,000 roses, is a genuine highlight.
The park is also popular with local wildlife, home to many different species of birds, but perhaps everyone’s favourite resident is the hedgehog. If you spot one, keep your distance so as not to frighten it.
Feast on cheese and sushi in Camden
It’s no secret that Camden’s restaurant scene is thriving, it feels like every month a clutch of new eateries throw open their doors. Cheese lovers should make a beeline for The Cheese Bar, a space that’s best described as an ode to British cheese.
Their decadently good grilled cheese sarnies surpass anything you could rustle up at home, and the bottomless raclette is the stuff of dreams, 90 minutes of unlimited raclette with ham and cornichons.
On a decidedly lighter note, Japanese restaurant and whisky bar YoKOYA, on Delancey Street, is one of the best and most authentic sushi spots in London, thanks to an extensive selection of small-plate Japanese fare. Not sure what to go for? The salmon skin rolls are a genuine delight.
Need more recommendations? Read our Camden restaurant guide.
Rooftop drinks at Lockside
Camden’s rooftop scene has changed hands more than once over the years, but Lockside, on Camden High Street, is a solid current pick, an outdoor terrace with genuinely good views over the neighbourhood and a signature cocktail list worth working through.
There’s a retractable roof too, for when the London weather inevitably does its thing.
Go on a pub crawl around Camden’s famous pubs
Visiting the pub is an essential part of any trip to Camden Town. Why visit just one, when you can make a night out of it and go on a pub crawl?
Camden is teeming with historic, quirky and charming pubs where soaking in the atmosphere is just as important as downing a pint, be warned, some are very, very quirky, especially the metal ones. There are organised pub crawls you can join, or you can make up your own itinerary for total freedom over what you see and drink.
Some of our favourites include the gothic Black Heart and the brightly coloured Joe’s, you cannot miss it.
Head to a gig at the Roundhouse
Camden is synonymous with music and the arts, so to be considered an absolute stand-out, you have to be good. Really good.
Luckily, the Roundhouse absolutely is. This performing arts space lives up to its stellar reputation, offering an incredible calendar of theatre, live music and more, and is committed to the power of creative arts to transform lives, giving back through frequent workshops and events aimed at young people.
Catching a performance here, especially if it’s in the round, is an experience not to be missed. We highly recommend checking out their calendar with an open mind.
Chill out to music at The Jazz Cafe
The Jazz Cafe sits right in the heart of Camden Town, serving up jazz as it should be, an intimate venue with a genuinely impressive set list through the week. While the emphasis is on jazz, they offer a little more variety than that, reggae and soul are frequently on the calendar, and other genres pop up occasionally too.
The Jazz Cafe does a great job of promoting both up-and-coming local artists and larger international acts, it’s a bit of a mixed bag as to who and what you’ll hear, but it’s always an amazing experience. They also do great food to enjoy with your tunes, though you’ll need to book a spot in the upstairs restaurant to try it, classics like crab linguine and southern fried chicken, plus a mean cocktail menu.
Paint your own pottery at a boozy social pottery session
Art and booze sounds like a potentially cataclysmic combination. Yet, at Social Pottery on Kentish Town Road, you can rock up, pick your piece of pottery, and begin to decorate, all while drinking your own booze.
The sessions, which run regularly throughout the week, are a brilliant way of socialising and whipping up a creative storm, and once it’s been heat-blasted, you can take your finished item home, or make it the perfect holiday gift for someone you love. There’s also a Camden Town studio focused on wheel throwing and hand-building, if painting isn’t quite your thing.
How to go: Book directly with Social Pottery, prices vary by studio and session.
Tour Camden’s famous music spots
It’s no secret that Camden has long been considered one of London’s musical hotspots, one of the most distinctive areas in the music world, having inspired performers including Amy Winehouse, Pink Floyd and the Sex Pistols.
There are so many different landmarks, from venues which launched international careers to art honouring fallen legends, Amy Winehouse, who lived in Camden until her death, features prominently. Taking a tour to learn about the significance of various landmarks is a great way to see Camden and its musical history. You can join a guided tour or make up your own, don’t forget to add in sights like KOKO and the Amy Winehouse statue at Camden Market.
Watch fringe theatre at Etcetera Theatre
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the glitz and glamour of London’s West End theatres, but some of the best performances you can find in this city are happening in the places you might not expect.
Take Etcetera Theatre, an award-winning fringe venue inconspicuously part of a pub, the Oxford Arms. They’ve been running since 1986 and have been a springboard for many of theatre and comedy’s best when they were looking to break into the industry, Russell Brand and Simon Amstell among the names to have performed there. We highly recommend getting tickets to one of their productions, you can’t go wrong.
Tour Camden Town and spot its blue plaques
If, like us, you love to indulge in a little historical nerding, Camden Town is a real hotspot for finding places where many of yesteryear’s famous faces from the arts and medicine lived.
Wandering through Camden, look out for the English Heritage blue plaques that add a little context to the area’s history. Look out for Dylan Thomas at 54 Delancey Street, George Orwell at 50 Lawford Road, the first President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah at 60 Burghley Road, and Walter Sickert at 6 Mornington Crescent.
Also check out the Camden School for Girls on Sandall Road, which pays homage to women’s educational pioneer Frances Mary Buss, and 13 Lyme Street, where South African freedom fighters Ruth First and Joe Slovo, student contemporaries of Nelson Mandela, resided between 1966 and 1978. You can extend the walk to Primrose Hill too, for plaques honouring Friedrich Engels and Sylvia Plath.
Turn your eye into artwork at Iris Galerie
A distinctive artistic experience has set up in the heart of Camden Market with Iris Galerie, where your eye becomes a piece of art.
The experience begins with a photo taken of your eye, before letting you choose from a near-endless array of effects and splashes to exhibit the beauty of your iris, and take home prints to wow visitors to your home.
Indulge your closet raver at Cyberdog
Also located in the heart of Camden Market, in the Stables, is Cyberdog, a trance music and cyber-clothing retail outlet that’s a genuine cult hangout for Camden’s dance music fans, and about as close to Camden’s cultural nucleus as any single shop gets these days.
Stacked with everything you need if you’re heading out raving or into festival season, whistles, glowsticks, retro raving outfits and fluorescent clothing aplenty. The never-ending banging trance tunes pumping through the shop may target a niche crowd, but take some time to go snooping through the goods in the basement.
Unleash your inner rock god (or goddess)
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to form your own band, whether becoming the new Rolling Stones with mates or the Brady Bunch with family, We Jam Studio can make your dreams come true.
Located in a basement music studio in a Camden guitar shop, We Jam Studio lets you pick up an instrument and find your way through the rock classic of your dreams on real instruments. Pop on wigs to bang out the hair metal classic of your choice, and aim to post the highest score on the studio’s interactive leaderboard. Best (or perhaps worst) of all, you get a recording of your performance to take home.
The London x London Take: KOKO is the one worth building an evening around, its post-fire rebuild is a genuinely impressive piece of London history in its own right, not just a gig venue. For something free and easy, Regent’s Canal and the pastel houses of Primrose Hill remain the two best ways to see Camden’s quieter side without spending a penny.
Hi, nice tips you gave, I’ll discover Camden tomorrow!
Just one small thing, there are really a lot of advertisements on your website, which makes it very hard to read your site on a mobile phone! I misclicked several times which is quite annoying when you try to read an interesting article!
Hi Anne, thanks – I’m glad that you found it useful and enjoyed the information and tips. Ads are what enable me to provide such in-depth research and tips free of charge to the end reader – sure you’ll agree that free content is worth a bit of extra effort. Thanks for the feedback though.