Your guide to 366 things to do with kids in London, including Play in the Park and Take One Picture 2026, and more — updated weekly. (Updated August 2026)
51 kids activities and family events are listed in London right now, including 26 free things to do.
Updated August 2026
Which museums are actually free, where to go when it rains, what works at each age, and how to move a family around the city — written for people planning a real day out in London.
The South Kensington museum quarter is the strongest single day out in the country: the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the V&A sit within five minutes of each other, all free to enter, all connected to the tube by a subway from South Kensington station so you never cross a road. Treat it as one museum per visit rather than three — the Science Museum's Wonderlab and the Natural History Museum's dinosaur gallery each absorb a full morning on their own. On the river, the Tower of London pairs the Crown Jewels and the ravens with a genuinely good hour of Yeoman Warder storytelling, and Tower Bridge's glass walkway is next door.
For a bigger trip, Kew Gardens has the Children's Garden and the Treetop Walkway and takes a full day, ZSL London Zoo sits inside Regent's Park so you can combine it with the boating lake, and the Warner Bros. Studio Tour at Leavesden is the one out-of-town booking that needs planning weeks ahead. Greenwich packs the Cutty Sark, the Royal Observatory, the Maritime Museum and a park with the best view in London into one walkable hill. Browse the top 10 attractions for kids in London for the full shortlist.
London's national museums are free by law, which is the city's great family advantage: the Natural History Museum, Science Museum, V&A, British Museum, National Gallery, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, National Maritime Museum and the Museum of London Docklands all cost nothing to enter, and only the ticketed special exhibitions charge. Add the Royal Parks — Hyde Park's Diana Memorial Playground, the Princess Diana playground at Kensington Gardens, the deer at Richmond Park, and the Hampstead Heath ponds and Parliament Hill kite slope. The Horniman Museum in Forest Hill is free for its collections and has an aquarium and a bandstand view across the city; Battersea Park has a free playground and the Peace Pagoda; and the South Bank between the London Eye and Tate Modern is a free afternoon of street performers, skate park and sand on the foreshore at low tide.
For organised free activity rather than open space, look at free events for kids in London — library storytimes, museum craft drop-ins, city farm sessions and park trails run most weeks and rarely need booking.
Rain is the default planning assumption, and London is better equipped for it than almost anywhere. The free national museums are the obvious hold, but the ones built specifically for children are worth knowing: the Young V&A in Bethnal Green is free, entirely hands-on and the best wet-weather option in the city for under-10s; the Horniman and the Museum of London Docklands both have dedicated children's galleries. SEA LIFE London and the London Dungeon sit under one roof at County Hall, so a wet afternoon needs one queue and no coats. For active indoor time, Clip 'n Climb in Chelsea, the trampoline parks around Wembley and Stratford, and the indoor play centres across Zone 2 take walk-ins outside school holidays. Westfield Stratford and Westfield London both work as a covered loop with a buggy when nothing else fits.
You can filter straight to museum events for kids in London, arts and crafts workshops and family theatre in the West End, all of which are almost entirely indoor.
Toddlers (0–4): the Diana Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens, Coram's Fields in Bloomsbury (no adult admitted without a child, and there is a small city farm), Hackney City Farm, Kew's Children's Garden and library rhymetimes. Keep to two hours and somewhere with a café and a buggy park. Toddler activities in London lists what is currently running for this age.
Ages 5–8: the Natural History Museum dinosaurs, ZSL London Zoo, the Cutty Sark, the Golden Hinde and the Tower of London, where the Warders' tours hold this age better than any label-reading gallery. Activities for children aged 6–11 shows what is on for this bracket now.
Ages 9–12: Wonderlab at the Science Museum, the Royal Observatory planetarium at Greenwich, the Imperial War Museum, escape rooms and climbing walls across east London, and the Thames Clipper as transport that counts as an activity. Older children also get the most out of outdoor activities across London — Go Ape at Battersea, open-water swimming at the Hampstead ponds and the Lee Valley trails.
Under-11s travel free on the tube, DLR, Overground and buses when with a fee-paying adult, and under-5s need no ticket at all — which makes public transport far cheaper than driving for a family. Avoid the Congestion Charge and ULEZ by leaving the car outside Zone 1 entirely. The step-free map matters more than the tube map with a buggy: the DLR, the Elizabeth line and the Jubilee line east of Westminster are almost fully step-free, while most deep-level Zone 1 stations are not. Buses are always step-free and always cheaper, and the front upstairs seats are an attraction in themselves. For the river, the Thames Clipper accepts contactless and Oyster and turns a transfer between Greenwich, Tower and Westminster into part of the day out. Allow more time than the app says: school-holiday queues at the big museums start before opening, so arrive at 10am or after 2.30pm.