What I miss about London
Thoughts about things I really enjoyed during the approximately two years we lived in London.
It's been nearly a year since we left London. We lived there from March of 2023 to March of 2025. I find myself reflecting on the things I really enjoyed during our time there.
Things that I miss about London
- Architecture, especially the older buildings
- Mixed use neighborhoods, with shops and restaurants on the ground floor and apartments above
- Museums, so many good ones
- Public transit, the buses, tube, and rail were all very good and made it easy to get around without a car
- Walkability, thanks to how compact neighborhoods were due to narrow streets, some just a few feet wide
- Bike routes and bike sharing services
- Cozy homes and food businesses
- Culture of hand-me-downs and second hand shopping, especially for kids clothes and toys. We not only saved money but reduced waste. It allowed us to teach our daughter about giving up things she no longer needed to other kids who could use them
- Easy access to the countryside
- Easy access to Europe
- Not significantly further to visit East Coast family in the US than from California
- Parks and green spaces
- Calculating GMT was easy
- The places where streets shut down during lunchtime so food stalls could serve meals
- Good public primary schools being the standard for young children
- So many different gyms and workout methods competing with each other offering amazing trial deals
- Premium dairy products:
- Clotted cream
- Milk from Devonshire and Cornwall
- Blue stilton cheese
- Easy access to French cheeses
- British food, specifically:
- Fish and chips
- Bangers and mash
- Sunday roast at the pub
- Yorkshire puddings
- Water crackers available everywhere
- Seasonal vegetables that were fresh and delicious
Things I don't miss about London
- The constant smoking and vaping
- The cost of living, especially housing and food
- The commonality of theft, especially of phones and bikes