The 5 best museums in London (free and fee-paying)

This guide to the best museums in London will help you to complete the cultural offer on your trip to this historic European city, which we are sure will become one of your favourites in the world.
Moreover, all these museums, most of them free of charge, will allow you to get to know and learn about many disciplines in an enjoyable way, thanks to their good organisation and accessibility.

Based on the experience of our numerous trips to one of the cities with the greatest cultural offer in the world and the visit to most of its museums, some of them on several occasions, we have made this list of what are for us, the 5 most essential free and paid museums in London, according to our preferences. Let's start!

1. British Museum

A trip to London should not miss a visit to the British Museum, the third most visited museum in the world, behind the Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan in New York.
Although the origin and the dubious methods of how some of the great pieces were obtained are not without controversy, the conservation work and the value of this museum for the knowledge of the history of humanity should be appreciated.
There are several essential works to see in the British Museum, such as the Rosetta Stone, the Mummy Room, the Elgin Marbles, the Hoa Hakananai'a moai, the Isle of Lewis Chess, the Nereid Monument, among many others.
Although the museum is free, it is highly recommended to book this guided tour in English with an art and history expert or book this free museum tour to learn about the history of the best pieces.

The best way to get to the British Museum is to take the red line and get off at Holborn or Tottenham Court Road.
Visiting hours: daily from 10am to 5.30pm, except Fridays when it closes at 8.30pm.

The Rosetta Stone

2. Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum is another of the best museums in London and one of the must-see places to visit in London.
This beautiful brick building, with relief sculptures of flora and fauna on the outside, and a large hall that will leave you speechless on the inside, is worth a visit to the museum on its own.
Plus, admission is free, so you can enjoy one of the largest collections of natural history in the world, with more than 70 million species from various fields, with no excuses.
Among all the rooms where all these pieces are perfectly organised, we recommend the dinosaur room, the fossil room, the mammal room and the hall with the impressive suspended skeleton of a huge blue whale.

To get to the Natural History Museum you can take the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines on the London Underground and get off at the South Kensington stop.
Visiting hours: daily from 10am to 5.50pm.

Natural History Museum

3. National Gallery, one of the best museums in London.

Touring the most important rooms of the National Gallery and then sitting on the steps of the lively Trafalgar Square is one of the best things to do in London for free.
This free gallery is the most important art museum in the city and one of the most valued in the world for the quality of the works on display, among which you can enjoy the more than 2000 paintings that make up the collection of the National Gallery, where you can find masterpieces by Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Goya, Van Eyck, Raphael, among many other geniuses.

You can reach the National Gallery on the Northern and Bakerloo Underground lines stopping at Charing Cross, and on the Northern and Piccadill lines getting off at Leicester Square.
Visiting hours: daily from 10am to 6pm, closing Fridays at 9pm.

National Gallery, one of the best museums in London.

4. Science Museum

The Science Museum is another of our favourite free London museums, combining a large exhibition of world-changing objects with interactive activities.
Among the museum's most impressive rooms are the space room where you can see the Apollo X command module and the aviation room with several historic models. Other museum must-sees include Foucault's pendulum, Boulton and Watt's steam engine, the Earl of Rosse telescope, The Rocket locomotive and a reconstruction of the DNA molecule.
If you have the London Pass, the tourist card that includes more than 80 attractions in the city, you can also see a film in the museum's fantastic IMAX cinema.
For more information about this card you can check this post about the London Pass.

To get to this museum, located very close to the Natural History Museum, you can take the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines and get off at South Kensington station.
Visiting hours: daily from 10am to 6pm.

Science Museum

5. Madame Tussauds

Madame Tussauds is the most famous wax museum in the world and although it lacks the historical value of the other 4, it is well worth a visit, so we recommend a visit especially if it is your first trip to the city.
This museum is also the oldest of the Madame Tussauds museums around the world, having been opened by Marie Tussaud's descendants in 1884.
The museum is divided into different themed rooms with wax reproductions of famous people so similar to the real thing that they leave you speechless, where you can take photos with the British Royal Family, Einsten, Brad Pitt, Barak Obama, Mohammed Ali, Freddy Mercury, Ghandi, comic book superheroes, Star Wars characters, etc...
Admission to Madame Tussauds costs £35 at the box office and you'll have to queue, which at certain times of the day can be quite long, so a good option to avoid the wait and save a few euros on the entrance fee is to book this ticket in advance.
Another option is to book the London Explorer Pass, which allows you entry to 3, 5 or 7 of the city's top attractions including Madame Tussauds, skipping the queues and saving up to 40%.
You can find more information about this tourist card in this London Explorer Pass post.

The museum is located next to Baker Street tube stop (Circle, Jubilee, Bakerloo, Metropolitan and Hammersmith and City lines).
Visiting hours: open daily from 9am and closing times vary between 4pm and 6pm.

Madame Tussauds

Other London museums that could be included in this list are Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert, Museum of London, Churchill War Rooms, Transport Museum, Imperial War, Tate Britain and Sherlock Holmes.