London is a better walking city than it lets on. Half of it was designed for it – the royal parks, the canal towpaths, the Thames – and the other half has been quietly stitched together by decades of volunteer route-building into a network you can follow for 150 miles without leaving the M25.
Three things have changed for walkers this year and none of them are widely known. The stretch of the Thames Path along the Victoria Embankment that had been closed for the best part of nine years for the super sewer works reopened in January 2026, which restores the single best walk in central London. Hammersmith Bridge remains open on foot and shut to traffic, and the vehicle restoration has been shelved – so the Thames Path crossing works, just not for cars. And there’s a whole new long-distance route: the North to South London Trail, 34 miles from Cockfosters to Carshalton, which almost nobody has walked.
Below, 28 walks sorted by part of the city, from a twenty-minute riverside stroll to a 150-mile ring around the whole thing.
If you would rather your walk had a plot, our self-guided Harry Potter walking tour covers thirteen kilometres and sixteen filming locations across the same ground.
The Hampstead Heath route pairs well with our guide to restaurants in Hampstead, which flags which kitchens are open mid-afternoon.
Best walks in central London
The South Bank
Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge · 2.5 miles · flat and step-free
The one everyone should do first. You pass the London Eye, the Southbank Centre, the second-hand book market under Waterloo Bridge, the National Theatre, Tate Modern, the Globe and Borough Market, and it costs nothing.
The Victoria Embankment side has just reopened after nine years of Tideway works, so you can now do the north bank properly again too – cross at the Millennium Bridge and come back the other way for a five-mile loop. Our South Bank guide has where to stop.
The London Wall Walk
Tower Hill to the Museum of London site · 1.75 miles · 21 marked panels
A self-guided route following what’s left of the Roman and medieval city wall, marked by tiled information panels. It takes you through car parks, under office blocks and past bastions embedded in 1960s concrete – the most genuinely surprising short walk in the City.
Pair it with our guide to brutalist London, because the route runs straight through the Barbican.
The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk
Seven miles · four royal parks · 90 plaques in the pavement
Follow the 90 bronze plaques set into the ground through St James’s Park, Green Park, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It links Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Spencer House, and it is the easiest way to walk across the whole of central London without touching a main road.
Time it to catch the Changing of the Guard, which runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday rather than daily.
The Jubilee Walkway
15 miles across five loops
Laid out for the Silver Jubilee in 1977 and marked with bronze discs in the pavement. The Western Loop is the best of the five and can be done in an afternoon; the whole thing is a fortnight of lunchtimes if you’re working in town.
The Westminster Walk
Two miles · Westminster Abbey to Trafalgar Square via the river
Short, dense and almost entirely on landmarks: the Abbey, Parliament, Whitehall, Horse Guards, the Cenotaph and Trafalgar Square. Good for a first day in London; better in the hour after sunrise when it’s empty.
South London walks
Crystal Palace Park to Nunhead Cemetery
Four miles · the ridge across south London
The best long view in south London and one of its oddest attractions at the start: the Crystal Palace dinosaurs, built in 1854 by sculptors who had never seen a complete skeleton and got almost everything wrong.
From there the walk runs along the ridge to Nunhead Cemetery, one of the Magnificent Seven, where a break in the trees gives you St Paul’s framed dead centre. Go via One Tree Hill for the better version.
The Wandle Trail
Croydon to Wandsworth · 12 miles · riverside, mostly flat
A river most Londoners have never heard of, running from East Croydon to the Thames at Wandsworth, past old mills, wetlands and Merton Abbey Mills. It is the single most improved walk in London over the last twenty years – the Wandle was an open sewer within living memory and now has trout in it.
The Vanguard Way
Croydon to the Sussex coast · 66 miles · or just the first eight
It starts at East Croydon station and ends at Newhaven. You do not have to do all of it: the stretch out to Selsdon Wood and the North Downs is a proper day’s walking with real hills, reachable on an Oyster card. More like it in our guide to hiking near London.
Sydenham Hill Wood
1.5 miles · the last of the Great North Wood
Ancient woodland with a disused Victorian railway tunnel, a folly and a genuine sense of being nowhere near a city. Connects to Dulwich Park and sits on the Green Chain Walk network.
More in our guide to the best forests near London and to Forest Hill.
The Green Chain Walk
50 miles across south-east London · 11 linked sections
A network rather than a line, connecting Thamesmead, Oxleas Wood, Shooters Hill, Crystal Palace and the Thames Barrier. Section by section it is the most underrated walking in London – Oxleas Wood in particular is 8,000 years old and nobody is ever in it.
The Line
Greenwich to Stratford · 3 miles · sculpture trail
London’s only dedicated modern art walk, following the Greenwich Meridian and the waterways, with work by Antony Gormley, Tracey Emin and others along the way. Free, and you can cut it in half. Full details in our guide to The Line.
East London walks
The Lea Valley Walk
50 miles · Hertfordshire to the Thames · do the last eight
The section from Tottenham Hale down through Walthamstow Wetlands and the Olympic Park to Limehouse is the good bit: reservoirs, herons, canal boats, industrial ruins and about nine decent pubs. Entirely flat.
Epping and Theydon Country Walk
Six miles · Epping Forest
Six thousand acres of ancient forest at the end of the Central line, with hornbeam pollards, Iron Age earthworks and a Tudor hunting lodge. Start at Theydon Bois and you’re in the trees within two minutes of leaving the station. More routes in our Epping Forest walks guide.
Regent’s Canal
Little Venice to Limehouse · 8.5 miles · flat, towpath the whole way
The best long flat walk in London: from Little Venice through Regent’s Park and the zoo, down through Camden and King’s Cross, along the back of Islington and Hackney, out to the Thames at Limehouse.
Note the Islington Tunnel – there’s no towpath through it and you have to go over the top. Our Regent’s Canal guide and our canal walks round-up have the detail.
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
Two to five miles · waymarked loops
Better than it has any right to be a decade on: wildflower meadows, the Lea running through it, the ArcelorMittal Orbit and a genuinely good set of waymarked routes. Free and open all hours.
Art in the Park Trail
Stratford · two miles
A short signed loop around the Olympic Park taking in the permanent public art, including Tracey Emin’s neon and the Orbit. Good with children.
North London walks
The Hampstead Heath circular
Four miles · the best hills in London
Parliament Hill for the skyline, the bathing ponds if you’re brave, Kenwood House for the Rembrandt and the Vermeer, and the Hill Garden and Pergola at the west end, which is the most romantic ruin in London and almost always empty.
Our Hampstead Heath walks guide has four different routes. Add Highgate Cemetery on the east side if you’ve booked.
Parkland Walk
Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace · 4.5 miles · a railway line gone feral
London’s longest local nature reserve, along the bed of the old Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace railway, closed to passengers in 1954 and now a green corridor of brambles, platforms and one famous spriggan sculpture crawling out of the brickwork.
Worth checking before you go: Islington has been running works on the southern section, with a diversion in place, and it also breaks section 12 of the Capital Ring. The northern half through Highgate is unaffected.
Alexandra Park
Two miles · Wood Green
The other end of the Parkland Walk, with the best cheap view in north London from the terrace in front of Alexandra Palace – the whole city laid out, free, at any hour.
The Canonbury walk
Two miles · Islington
Georgian squares, the New River path, Canonbury Tower and a route that finishes on Upper Street. One of the best short architectural walks in the city, and it links straight onto the Regent’s Canal.
Abney Park
One mile · Stoke Newington
A Magnificent Seven cemetery run half-wild as a woodland nature reserve, with a derelict Gothic chapel at the centre. See our Abney Park guide; Kensal Green is the equivalent in the west.
West London walks
The Tamsin Trail
Richmond Park · 7.3 miles · circular, surfaced
A full circuit of the perimeter of Richmond Park, London’s largest, with around 600 red and fallow deer in it and King Henry’s Mound giving you a protected sightline to St Paul’s ten miles away. Surfaced the whole way, so it works in winter.
Isabella Plantation
Richmond Park · 40 acres · peaks late April
A woodland garden inside the park, planted with evergreen azaleas that go off like a firework in the last week of April and the first week of May. Free, and one of the best gardens in London.
The Chiswick riverside walk
Four miles · Hammersmith to Kew
Along the Thames past Chiswick Eyot, the Fuller’s brewery, a run of riverside pubs and Chiswick House. Hammersmith Bridge is open to pedestrians and cyclists throughout – only cars are shut out, and the vehicle restoration has now been shelved.
Wimbledon Common
Up to seven miles · 1,140 acres
Heath, woodland, bogs, a windmill and enough space to lose yourself properly. It joins Putney Heath and Richmond Park, so you can chain all three into a very long day.
Long-distance walks in and around London
The Thames Path
184 miles, Cotswolds to the Thames Barrier · or do a day of it
The only National Trail that follows a river from source to sea, and the last forty miles of it are in London. The Embankment section reopened in January 2026 after nine years of Tideway works, which finally makes the central stretch continuous again.
Best London day: Richmond to Putney, or Greenwich to the Thames Barrier. Our River Thames facts are a good primer.
The Capital Ring
78 miles · 15 sections · a circle through inner London
A waymarked loop through the inner suburbs – Woolwich, Crystal Palace, Richmond, Wembley, Highgate, Hackney – designed so every section starts and ends at a station. Most people do one section a weekend and finish it in a summer.
Section 12 is currently disrupted by the Parkland Walk works; check before you set out.
The London Loop
150 miles · 24 sections · the outer ring
The Capital Ring’s big sibling, running right round the edge of Greater London through countryside most Londoners never see: Havering, the Chilterns foothills, the North Downs, Upminster to Uxbridge. Every section is reachable by train.
The Jubilee Greenway
37 miles · one mile for every year of the Diamond Jubilee
Links the 2012 Olympic sites, the royal parks and the Thames in a loop from Buckingham Palace. Waymarked with 3,000 bronze discs and almost entirely flat.
The North to South London Trail
34 miles · Cockfosters to Carshalton · launched 2024
The newest of the long routes and the least walked: a straight north-south traverse of the whole city, from the end of the Piccadilly line in Cockfosters down to Carshalton in the south. It crosses the Capital Ring twice and takes in parks, cemeteries and back rivers most people have never heard of.
Four or five sections makes a comfortable series of days out.
What’s changed for walkers this year
- The Thames Path is whole again. The Victoria Embankment section reopened in January 2026 after nine years of super sewer works. Worth redoing if you gave up on it.
- Hammersmith Bridge stays open on foot. Pedestrians and cyclists cross freely; the £300m restoration to reopen it to vehicles has been shelved, so plan around it rather than waiting for it.
- The Parkland Walk has works on its southern section, with a diversion, which also disrupts Capital Ring section 12. Check the Islington council page before you rely on the full route.
- There’s a new long-distance route – the 34-mile North to South London Trail from Cockfosters to Carshalton, launched in 2024 and still very quiet.
The London x London Take: The best single day’s walking in London is the South Bank from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge and then straight on to Rotherhithe – about five miles, entirely flat, entirely free, and it takes you past six of the things people pay to see. Do it late on a summer evening, finishing at the Mayflower in Rotherhithe. Nothing else in the city gives you that much for that little effort.
Read next
- The best parks in London
- The best parks in north London
- The best views in London
- The most beautiful places in London
- London’s best gardens
- The best hikes near London
- The best canal walks in London
- Epping Forest walks
- Hampstead Heath walks
- The Green Chain Walk
- The Line: London’s sculpture walk
- The best forests near London
