London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
Top of the morning to you London Walkers.
Wherever you are.
It’s Friday, January 9th, 2026.
And here it is, here’s your daily London fix.
Right. White gloves on.
Top hat tipped.
Oyster card at the ready.
Let’s talk about a small but quietly transformative thing.
Not a new line.
Not a shiny station.
Not even a new shade of blue on the Tube map.
Something more modest.
More useful.
A new bit of kit that answers,
with admirable calm,
one of the great existential questions of London life.
“How on earth do I get from here to there?”
Enter the new TfL Go app.
Now, before eyes glaze over and shoulders sag,
let me say this straight out.
This is not a tech review.
No specs.
No jargon.
No evangelising.
This is about how London Walks looks after people.
The legendary London Walks white glove service.
The reassuring hand on the elbow. The quiet aside that says,
“Don’t worry. We’ve got you.”
Because for visitors, newcomers, occasional Londoners, and even battle-hardened Brits who only venture into the capital a few times a year, London transport can feel like a puzzle box designed by a mildly mischievous Victorian engineer. One wrong turn and you’re suddenly in Morden when you meant to be in Moorgate.
The TfL Go app is designed to
take the sting out of that.
Think of it as a very polite,
very knowledgeable Londoner in your pocket.
One who never sighs,
never rolls their eyes, and
never says, “Well obviously you should have changed at Baker Street.”
What does it do?
In essence, it helps you plan journeys across London.
Tube, bus, train, DLR, Elizabeth line, walking, cycling.
It shows you real time arrivals.
It flags up disruptions.
It suggests alternatives.
It even tells you which stations have toilets,
a detail that suddenly becomes of burning importance when you least expect it.
But here’s the thing.
The magic isn’t in the headline features.
It’s in the small kindnesses.
For example,
step free access.
London is old.
Beautifully old.
Heroically old.
But old cities come with stairs.
Lots of them.
The app lets you plan routes that avoid stairs, escalators and
lifts that are out of action.
That’s gold dust if you’re pushing a buggy,
hauling luggage,
nursing a dodgy knee, or
simply not in the mood to
mount Everest between platforms.
It also tells you about
the gaps between train and platform.
That might sound nerdy until
you’re dealing with a suitcase with one wheel that’s seen better days. Or a wheelchair.
Or a small child who has a habit of stopping suddenly at precisely the wrong moment.
Another small marvel.
Real time line status notifications. Not just a general “good service”
or “severe delays”,
but alerts you can personalise by line and time of day.
Tube.
Elizabeth line.
DLR.
London Overground.
You can even pause notifications when you’re out of town.
It’s thoughtful.
Almost tender.
And then there’s the bus thing.
Buses are London’s great unsung heroes.
They go everywhere.
They’re cheap.
They’re scenic.
They’re also baffling if you don’t live here.
The app lets you see entire bus routes on the map,
save favourite stops, and
check arrivals anywhere in the city. Not just the stop you’re standing at. Any stop.
That’s a quiet revolution right there.
London Walks guides have always been great believers in buses.
We’ve long known that some of the best sightseeing in London happens for the price of a single fare
while sitting upstairs,
front seat,
watching the city unspool.
This app makes that easier,
less intimidating, more accessible.
And yes,
it handles the money side too.
You can top up Oyster,
check journey history,
spot incomplete journeys, and
buy Travelcards and passes.
It’s all there.
Sensible.
Straightforward.
Free.
Now let’s widen the lens.
Why does this matter for London Walks?
Here’s why.
Because our walks are about confidence.
About helping people feel at home in London. About making them feel that they belong too.
About turning a vast, complicated city into something navigable, legible, friendly.
We meet people from everywhere. First time visitors.
Returners.
Londoners who’ve lived here for decades
but never quite cracked the transport code beyond their own commute.
One of the most common questions we get before a walk isn’t about history.
It’s about logistics.
How do I get there?
Which station?
Which exit?
What if the line’s down?
This app doesn’t replace human guidance.
Nothing does.
But it complements it beautifully. It’s part of the same philosophy. Remove friction.
Reduce anxiety.
Smooth the path.
And let’s not forget the visitors.
London’s transport system is one of the great wonders of the modern world.
It’s also utterly unlike anywhere else.
The names alone can sound like something from a Dickens novel after a couple of pints.
Mansion House.
Temple.
Elephant and Castle.
Swiss Cottage.
Mornington Crescent,
which of course is not a place at all but a state of mind.
A friendly,
official,
free app that helps visitors navigate that world confidently is a gift. Especially one that’s accessible, clear,
and constantly updated.
Here’s a quirky London travel bauble for you.
The London Underground carries well over a billion passenger journeys a year.
That’s more than the population of Europe moving through those tunnels annually.
No wonder people occasionally look lost.
And here’s another.
Some Tube stations have been open for over 160 years.
The system is layered,
patched,
expanded,
repurposed.
It’s glorious. It’s also complicated. Anything that helps decode it without dumbing it down
deserves a nod.
There’s also something quietly reassuring about this being a TfL app.
Official.
Public.
Free.
Not a faceless global platform harvesting data somewhere over the horizon,
but a tool built by the people who actually run the system.
And that matters.
London Walks is London based. Always has been.
We believe in local knowledge. Human scale.
Real voices.
This app feels cut from the same cloth.
So yes, it’s functional.
It’s factual.
It’s about timetables and routes and status boards.
But it’s also about empowerment. About saying to visitors,
“You can do this.”
About saying to Londoners,
“Here’s a better way.”
In the end, that’s what great cities do.
They don’t just impress.
They help.
So consider this our white glove tip of the week.
Download the TfL Go app.
Have it ready.
Use it in tandem with
a London Walk.
Let it handle the mechanics while we handle the stories.
Good walking.
Good Londoning.
And smooth travelling.
You’ve been listening to This… is London, the London Walks podcast. Emanating from www.walks.com.
Home of London Walks, London’s signature walking tour company.
London’s local, time-honoured, fiercely independent, family-owned, just-the-right-size walking tour company.
And as long as we’re at it, London’s multi-award-winning walking tour company. Indeed, London’s only award-winning walking tour company.
And here’s the secret: London Walks is essentially run as a guides’ cooperative.
That’s the key to everything.
It’s the reason we’re able to attract and keep the best guides in London. You can get schlubbers to do this for £25 a walk. But you cannot get world-class guides – let alone accomplished professionals.
It’s not rocket science: you get what you pay for.
And just as surely, you also get what you don’t pay for.
Back in 1968 when we got started we quickly came to a fork in the road. We had to answer a searching question: Do we want to make the most money? Or do we want to be the best walking tour company in the world?
You want to make the most money you go the schlubbers route. You want to be the best walking tour company in the world you do whatever you have to do to attract and keep the best guides in London – you want them guiding for you, not for somebody else.
Bears repeating: the way we’re structured – a guides’ cooperative – is the key to the whole thing.
It’s the reason for all those awards, it’s the reason people who know go with London Walks, it’s the reason we’ve got a big following, a lively, loyal, discerning following – quality attracts quality.
It’s the reason we’re able – uniquely – to front our walks with accomplished, in many cases distinguished professionals:
By way of example, Stewart Purvis, the former Editor (and subsequently CEO) of Independent Television News.
And Lisa Honan, who had a distinguished career as a diplomat (Lisa was the Governor of St Helena, the island where Napoleon breathed his last and, some say, had his penis amputated – Napoleon didn’t feel a thing – if thing’s the mot juste – he was dead.)
Stewart and Lisa – both of them CBEs – are just a couple of our headline acts.
Or take our Jack the Ripper Walk. It’s the creation of the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, the author of the definitive book on the subject. Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Donald is, in the words of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, “internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper.” Donald’s emeritus now but he’s still the guiding light on our Ripper Walk. He curates the walk. He trains up and mentors our Ripper Walk guides. Fields any and all questions they throw at him.
The London Walks Aristocracy of Talent – its All-Star Team of Guides – includes a former London Mayor. It includes the former Chief Music Critic for the Evening Standard. It includes the Chair of the Association of Professional Tour Guides. And the former chair of the Guild of Guides.
It includes a former Member of Parliament, three terms at Westminster, bringing first-hand experience of power, policy and political theatre to the very streets where it all played out.
It includes two barristers, three doctors, two geologists, a distinguished museum curator and a former Time out Editor.
It includes authors, historians, national journalists, a former London Museum archaeologist, and university professors (one of them an eminent Cambridge University paleontologist).
It includes a criminal defence lawyer, Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre actors, and two professional photographers. And last but not least, the creme de la creme of top flight professionally qualified Blue Badge Guides, including a bevy of MVPs, Oscar winners (people who’ve won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award)… well, you get the idea.
As that travel writer famously put it, “if this were a golf tournament, every name on the Leader Board would be a London Walks guide.”
And as we put it: London Walks Guides make the new familiar and the familiar new.
And here’s the clincher. We’re playing at home.
London Walks is London-based. Period.
We’re not an impersonal, faceless platform run from halfway round the world. There’s no chatbot. No call-centre script. When you contact us, you reach a real person. A Londoner. Someone who actually knows the streets you’re about to walk.
That’s not a detail. That’s the difference.
And on that agreeable note… come then, let us go forward together on some great London Walks.
And that’s by way of saying, Good walking and Good Londoning one and all. See ya next time.