London With Kids: The Stopover We Didn’t Plan, But Definitely Needed

London was never part of the original plan. In fact, it only came into the picture because of the Schengen visa rules.

By that stage of our trip, we had used our 90 days in the Schengen Zone and needed to spend the next 90 days outside of it. Morocco, the Balkans and Turkey were all part of that bigger puzzle. They weren't just random destinations we picked. They were practical options that kept us close to Europe while we waited for our Schengen days to reset.

For weeks, we tried to work out how to make Turkey and the Balkans happen after Morocco. But no matter how many times we looked at it, we could never quite make it flow. The routes felt awkward. The timing felt off. The accommodation didn’t quite line up. And after Morocco, we were already tired from constantly trying to figure things out.

Looking back, we probably should have gone to the Balkans straight after Italy and saved Morocco for later in the year. It may have made the whole 90-day non-Schengen stretch feel a lot smoother. But travel rarely looks that clear while you’re in the middle of it.

At the time, London suddenly became the easiest answer. It was the cheapest flight we could find out of Marrakech to a non-Schengen country, it gave us six days somewhere familiar, and from there the onward flight to Mexico seemed to fall into place. So instead of forcing another complicated plan, we chose the path that felt simple. And honestly, after Morocco, simple was exactly what we needed.

We arrived in London with a short list of things we wanted to show the kids, and almost immediately, London felt strangely easy. People spoke English. Menus made sense. Supermarkets looked familiar. The trains and buses were simple enough to figure out. We could ask questions without rehearsing them first. We could read signs without translating them. We could walk into a shop and know roughly how things worked. It almost felt like home. Not home exactly, but closer to home than anywhere we had been in months, and we didn’t realise how much we needed that until we were there.

Travelling long-term with kids isn’t just about seeing new places. It’s also about constantly managing the unknown. New languages, new money, new rules, new food, new streets, new transport, new accommodation, new ways of doing almost everything. Some days that is exciting. Other days it is exhausting. We hadn't realised how mentally tiring constant uncertainty had become until it disappeared.

For six days, we could just move. We could show the kids the city without having to work so hard for every little thing. And that made a bigger difference than we expected. The kids loved seeing the famous sights, and there is something pretty special about watching your children’s faces light up when they see places they have only ever seen in books, movies or on television. It was all right there in front of them. The history, the buildings, the buses, the streets, the old pubs, the royal guards, the theatre signs, the crowds, the accents.

We did all the classic London things because, when you're visiting for the first time with kids, they're classic for a reason.

We rode the hop-on hop-off bus.

We stood outside Buckingham Palace.

We watched the Changing of the Guard in the rain.

We saw Tower Bridge.

We walked through busy streets and took in the buildings.

We took the kids to see Matilda in the West End, which ended up being one of the highlights of our stopover.

Not every memory has to be wild or adventurous. Some are just beautiful because they are shared. But London also came with a shock. The cost. After Morocco, London felt ridiculously expensive. Accommodation was expensive. Food was expensive. Transport added up quickly. Even small things seemed to cost more than we expected. We knew London wouldn’t be cheap, but those six days were by far the most expensive of the whole trip so far.

But even with the cost, we didn’t regret it, because London gave us something we needed more than we realised. It gave us a chance to reset between Morocco and Mexico and another big leap. It gave the kids a taste of history in a way that felt real. It gave us a familiar language, familiar food and familiar systems. It gave us a break from constantly figuring things out and sometimes, in long-term travel, that matters just as much as the destination itself.

Looking back, London wasn't one of the biggest adventures of our trip. It wasn't the most exotic place we visited, or the one we'd dreamed about for years. But sometimes travel gives you exactly what you need rather than what you planned. For us, London wasn't just a stopover. It was the reset that helped us fall in love with travelling all over again before the next chapter began in Mexico.