The Time Out London blog team

You don’t need us to tell you that London is home to some very, very busy transport hubs. Whether you’re having to slalom past slow walkers or you’re stuck with your face in someone’s armpit on the tube, plenty of Londoners will know how crowded the city’s transport services get. It’s no surprise, therefore, that one of London’s major train stations has been named the busiest in the UK. Government body the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) this week published its latest info on Britain’s most crowded rail hubs, ranking every station by its number of entries and exits between April 2024 and March 2025. Coming top of the nationwide list for an impressive third year in a row was Liverpool Street station. The City of London hub clocked a whopping 98 million entries and exits in the time period, a solid 3.5 million more than it did in last year’s list. The ORR says this increase reflects the ‘continuing impact of the Elizabeth line’ since its middle section opened in 2022. ’Pool Street is also served by London Overground and Greater Anglia services, including the Stansted Express. Photograph: Shutterstock The Lizzie line has transformed train travel in London since it launched – and that’s shown by the number of purple service stations that featured in the ORR’s top 10. As well as Liverpool Street, Paddington, Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street all made the list. Once again, the entire top 10 busiest stations in Britain were all found in London. In second place was Waterloo...

London becomes a glorious glittering wonderland this time of year. But it also gets seriously, seriously crowded. Ice skating rinks get booked up weeks in advance, department stores get so full you can barely move, train stations are packed with more tourists and commuters than normal, and good luck getting a seat in a central London pub.  If all of that sounds like your nightmare, don’t worry. It can (mostly) be avoided. To help you swerve the seasonal crowds, location-sharing app Life360 has predicted which London pubs will be the busiest this Christmas. It compiled the list by looking at the number of visits lasting at least one hour within 10 metres of a pub’s location between December 1 to 23 or Dec 31 last year. Obviously, it’s not definitive, but it is a pretty good indicator of busyness.  It looks like the most packed pubs this month are likely to be those nearby offices and commuter routes, owing to all the workers that like to indulge in a few pints post work. According to Life360, London’s busiest boozer this festive season will be The Globe, a City pub that is a literal stone’s throw from Moorgate tube station. Photograph: Shutterstock Nell Gwynne Tavern in Charing Cross came second place in Life360’s research while the Duke of York in Victoria landed in third place.  Life360 said: ‘Aside from the locations showcasing the desired ease of getting home, the top 10 list also reveals that office workers are not shying away from the post work day drink. With The...

Living in London is amazing – we’ve got many of the country’s best restaurants, museums, public parks, live music, theatre and more, all on our doorstep. But being surrounded by all that capital city concrete can also get a bit depressing, especially combined with the extremely high cost of living.  Property platform Rightmove has just unveiled its annual Happy at Home Index, revealing the locations in Britain where people are the most – and least – happy, at home. Rightmove surveyed thousands of Brits about where they live, taking into account not only how residents felt about their properties, but their thoughts on their community, local area and proximity to amenities.  The least happy borough in London, according to Rightmove’s data, was Barking and Dagenham. Coming in dead-last place out of the capital’s 33 boroughs, the east London area ranked 220th nationally.  To the residents of B&D, we say chin up, because we don’t actually agree. Not only is the postcode poised to receive a £200 million investment from the National Lottery Heritage Fund soon, but the area is home to a number of fascinating and beautiful historical attractions, including the Elizabethan Eastbury Manor House, and the Grade II*–listed manor with a medieval moat Valence House Museum.  Photograph: Abdul_Shakoor / Shutterstock.com B&D is also London’s most affordable location, where the average house price is just £335,500. This is much, much cheaper than London’s happiest borough, the affluent...