I was fifteen years old when London decided it owned me. I had come to visit my mother — she and my stepfather were posted to the American Embassy — fully expecting it to be temporary. A boy from the Shenandoah Valley in rural Virginia, passing through. What happened instead was that I never quite left. I moved there. I travelled Europe through high school from London as my base. And when I eventually made my way back to the States and relocated to Hollywood, London remained the city I measured everything else against.
I have returned more times than I can count since then. Each time I step off the Heathrow Express at Paddington, something in me unclenches. London is the only city in the world where I genuinely feel I am coming home — to a place that was never supposed to be mine and became mine anyway. I have friends here I have known for decades. There are neighborhoods I know as intimately as I know my own. And the city itself — endlessly layered, always changing and somehow never changing — still surprises me every single time.
This is not a guide to London. It is a love letter, written over many visits, from someone who knows this city the way you only know a place you have lived in and returned to across a lifetime. And it begins, as all the best London stories do, with a boy who had no business being here at all.
"London is the only city in the world where I genuinely feel I am coming home — to a place that was never supposed to be mine and became mine anyway."
How I Got Here — The Story Behind the Story
Before the hotels, before the restaurants, before the decades of return visits — there is a boy in the Blue Ridge Mountains of rural Virginia who spent years being brutally bullied, ostracized at school, an outsider who found safety almost exclusively at home with his father and stepmother. They lived simply, on a fixed income, in a world that felt very small and not always kind. Travel was not part of the picture. London was not part of the picture. The picture, for a long time, did not look like much at all.
At fifteen I came to visit my mother, who had moved to London with my stepfather — a CIA officer whose posting brought with it, among its meager compensations for government service, access to the American School in London (ASL). She saw immediately what the city was doing to me in those first days. The history, the architecture, the theater, the sheer density of a world that felt ancient and alive at the same time — I was completely undone by it. When she suggested I consider staying, consider transferring to ASL and building the remainder of my high school years here, I understood what she was offering. I also understood what it would cost.
Saying goodbye to my father and stepmother — the people and the place that had been my only real safety for years — was the hardest thing I had done. My father and I were extraordinarily close. Whatever those years of bullying took from me, his love and presence made survivable. He never wavered, never made me feel anything less than completely loved — and that was the ground I stood on when everything else felt unstable. Leaving him was not a small thing. I was trading the only home I had ever known for a city I had been in for less than two weeks. But something in me knew. You don't always get choices this clear. I said yes.
Patrick and his father William Herbert — the man who was home · Saying goodbye was the hardest thing
I arrived back in London and was accepted at ASL — a tight, extraordinary community of students from every corner of the world, children of diplomats and international professionals, most from considerably more comfortable circumstances than our family had ever known. For the first year I kept waiting for the bullying to find me again. It never came. What came instead were people who became genuine friends — Amy, Elisa, Cathleen, Pat, Anne, and so many others — friendships that have lasted to this day. Educators who traveled Europe with us on school trips and are still in my life decades later. A community that made me feel entirely equal regardless of what my family had or didn't have. A world that opened itself to me completely — history, sports, theater, music, culture — and showed me, for the first time, who I might become. Not unlike so many from that tight-knit ASL community, we see each other not as often as we'd like but probably more than most high school friends anywhere manage. I was reminded of exactly that not long ago, catching up with Amy in Houston while shooting a project there — the same easy connection, decades later, as if London were just last year.
What I became, eventually, was a television and film professional — a career born directly from those London years, from the cultural immersion and the voracious curiosity the city instilled in me. And it was the combination of that career and that curiosity that allowed me to travel the world in comfort over the decades that have followed: staying at extraordinary properties, developing the eye and the experience that became 5 Star Travel Guru. My appreciation of luxury travel — of places that deliver comfort, style, history and genuine character all at once — traces directly back to those years in London. It was here that I learned what it means to be somewhere fully, to inhabit a place rather than merely visit it.
Buckingham Palace — first visit to London · ASL senior year · A few years later
Helen & George (RIP) — London, during my senior year · The two people who gave me not just an opportunity, but a city
The prom photo below was taken just before my eighteenth birthday — roughly four years after that first visit, two and a half years into my time at ASL. The Lancaster Ballroom of the Savoy Hotel. A boy from rural Virginia, in a city that was never supposed to be his, in one of the grandest rooms in Europe. The distance traveled between those two points is not measurable in miles.
Amy and I — on a school trip to Poland during our ASL years · And catching up in Houston recently · Some friendships from that tight London community have never really ended
Where to Stay — Three Properties, Three Entirely Different Londons
London’s luxury hotel landscape is extraordinary — Claridge's, The Connaught, The Dorchester, The Lanesborough, Four Seasons Park Lane — the competition at the top of the market is fierce and the standard is genuinely world-class. But these are the three properties I return to, each for its own reasons, and each delivering a completely different experience of the city — with one option that still offers bespoke, well-located and appointed accommodation, but at a more economical price point.
The Savoy — Where London's History Feels Personal
★ The Guru's Personal StandardSenior Prom · The Lancaster Ballroom · The Savoy Hotel · London · A night that started a lifelong relationship
My senior prom was held in the Lancaster Ballroom at the Savoy Hotel. I say this not to be name-dropping but because it explains everything about my relationship with this hotel — it was woven into my London life before I understood what luxury hotels meant. Every return visit since has carried that particular weight of a place that has always been there, in the most personal sense.
The Savoy has been through renovations over the decades, and through all of them it has managed the near-impossible: it preserves the vast accumulated history of the property while delivering every modern luxury its guests expect. The rooms have all the contemporary appointments — the technology, the bathrooms, the linens — and they still feel unmistakably, irreducibly like the Savoy. The Thames-facing suites are among the finest hotel rooms in Europe. The American Bar is a London institution. The Savoy Grill still delivers. And the revolving door on the Strand — the only street in Britain where you drive on the right, a vestige of carriage-age logistics — still makes an entrance feel like an occasion.
Four Seasons London at Ten Trinity Square — Arguably London's Finest Hotel
★ Top 5 Hotel in the WorldI do not use the phrase lightly: the Four Seasons London at Ten Trinity Square is, in my considered opinion after decades and 300+ luxury properties across 60+ countries, a genuine contender for the finest hotel experience in the world. The building itself — the former Port of London Authority headquarters near Tower Bridge, a neo-baroque Grade II listed landmark — sets the stage. But it is what has been done inside that takes your breath away.
Walk through those doors and you feel the history immediately. The old-world architectural bones are all there: the wood-paneled meeting rooms, the ornate sconces, the mouldings of a building that has been accumulating gravitas since 1912. And then it is all wrapped, seamlessly and brilliantly, in ultra-modern luxury — lighting that transforms the spaces without fighting them, tapestries that belong in museums, a spa and fitness center that feel entirely of the present moment. The restaurant, La Dame de Pic by Anne-Sophie Pic, is Michelin-starred and extraordinary. The rooms are among the most beautifully conceived I have ever stayed in.
And then there are the views.
Four Seasons London at Ten Trinity Square — Guest Room Tour
Standing at the window of a guest room at Four Seasons London at Ten Trinity Square, looking directly across the street at the Tower of London — the same Tower of London where Tudor monarchs sent their enemies to meet their end — is one of the most extraordinary perspectives available to a hotel guest anywhere on earth. I have stood at that window more than once and genuinely wondered which king or queen, centuries ago, peered out from a similar vantage point as someone across the street was having a very bad day. The history is not a backdrop here. It is literally across the street, at eye level, unchanged.
The view from your room · The view from your bathtub · The Tower of London, unchanged for centuries
The UN Ballroom · The Rotunda Bar — old world bones, contemporary soul
Four Seasons London at Ten Trinity Square — Fitness Studio
The Spa — a world unto itself
Conrad London St. James — The Insider's Choice
★ Best Value in Luxury London
The Conrad near Buckingham Palace is what I describe as the insider's choice — a genuinely luxurious property at a price point that makes the Savoy and the Four Seasons look even more rarefied by comparison, and with a location that is frankly unbeatable. We are minutes from Covent Garden and the theater district in one direction, and minutes from Mayfair, Knightsbridge, and Kensington in the other. Buckingham Palace is a stone's throw — and from our room, I was fairly certain I could see Charles and Camilla's chambers across the way. Whether that was actually true I will leave as a matter of interpretation and a good story.
Conrad London St. James — lobby reveal · The Hedgerow Bar
The Conrad guest room — proof that Knightsbridge is dangerously close
The location proved its worth immediately on this particular visit — steps from Knightsbridge, we found ourselves at Harrods on day one, picking up a few things we needed for the trip ahead. The bags made it back to the room looking considerably more composed than we did.
The Streets — Shopping, Walking, and the London You Actually Live In
There is a particular London walk I have taken hundreds of times across the decades, and it never loses its power. It begins on Regent Street — one of the great shopping streets in the world, the curved Nash-designed sweep of it, the John Lewis, the Liberty of London just off it, the Apple Store on the corner — and it moves through the city in whichever direction the mood dictates.
Carnaby Street — still the most characterful side street in London, the heart of 1960s counterculture now lined with excellent independent shops and restaurants, always buzzing. Selfridges on Oxford Street is a category of its own: the food halls, the beauty floor, the fashion — it is the department store as experience rather than transaction. Harrods in Knightsbridge is more famous and requires more patience, but the food halls on the ground floor are among the finest in the world and worth the visit regardless of whether you intend to buy anything.
Tucked between the back streets of Regent Street and Selfridges over on Oxford Circus, you'll tumble onto New Bond Street — the perfect destination for those seeking high-end fashion and exquisite jewellery in a more private, almost hushed register. This is the London of "by appointment only" and "private invite" shopping experiences — Cartier, Bulgari, De Beers, Graff, Chanel — where the pace slows, the service becomes deeply personal, and the transaction, when it happens, feels like an occasion rather than a purchase.
Selfridges at Oxford Circus · Harrods, Knightsbridge
Carnaby Street · The red phone box — still there, still perfect
The Tube · The red double-decker — the two great icons of moving through London
Covent Garden — market and performers, as it has always been
A note for the musically inclined — or the sentimentally so: Abbey Road Studios in St John's Wood is twenty minutes from central London and entirely worth the detour. The crossing is still there, the studios are still in operation, and standing on that zebra crossing with the building behind you is one of those genuinely moving experiences that transcends the tourist moment it has also become.
Abbey Road Studios · A dramatic London night — Covent Garden area
Covent Garden is the neighborhood I return to most reliably — the old flower market, the street performers, the piazza, the Royal Opera House rising magnificently at one end. It sits at the intersection of the theater district and London's best casual dining, and it has an energy that is entirely its own.
History You Can Touch — Westminster, The Abbey & High Tea at Parliament
Westminster Abbey is where you come when you want to understand that England has been at this — the kings, the coronations, the wars, the conquests, the extraordinary accumulation of history — for over a thousand years. Every monarch since William the Conqueror has been crowned here. Chaucer is buried here. Newton, Darwin, Dickens. The building itself is Gothic and overwhelming and entirely worth every minute you give it.
Westminster Abbey — the view from above · Big Ben, restored and magnificent
A drive by Buckingham Palace — as one does
One of London's most extraordinary and least-known luxury experiences has historically been high tea at the Houses of Parliament — taken inside the Palace of Westminster itself, in rooms of extraordinary grandeur, during a VIP tour. We have had the privilege of experiencing this and it is genuinely transcendent. However, this offering appears to have been quietly discontinued — likely a casualty of COVID restrictions that was never fully reinstated. Confirm availability before building your itinerary around it, as it is not currently listed on any Parliament dining or tour pages we could find.
The good news: London's afternoon tea alternatives are among the finest in the world and will more than satisfy the most discerning. The Library at County Hall — directly across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament, with extraordinary river views — is an exceptional and less obvious choice. The Ritz on Piccadilly remains the gold standard of the traditional English tea experience. The Rubens at the Palace overlooks the Royal Mews of Buckingham Palace and delivers a gloriously regal setting. And The Guardsman, tucked between Buckingham Palace and St James's Park, is a beautifully intimate option that the crowds haven't yet discovered. Any one of these will do the moment justice.
High tea at the Houses of Parliament — history has never tasted this good
Theater, Soho & The Nights That Make London Irreplaceable
I have seen theater in London and I have seen theater in New York, and I say this with the full knowledge that Broadway will take offense: the West End is the finest concentration of live theater in the world. It is not even close. London is where theater as we know it was invented — the history of it runs through the streets of Covent Garden and the Strand as literally as the Thames runs through the city. I never miss at least one show when I make it back. Not once, in all the visits, have I regretted that.
The Royal Opera House · Piccadilly Circus at night
Soho is the neighborhood I love for its contradictions — quaint bars and intimate pubs alongside some of the most forward-thinking restaurants in the city, nightlife that runs from refined to gloriously louche, people-watching that rewards patience and rewards it generously. I am a Soho House member, and for anyone who shares that membership, London is where it all began — the original Greek Street location is still there, and the clubs across the city (Shoreditch House, Dean Street, White City, and many more) each carry a different piece of what makes London's creative world distinctive.
Patrick and Ross at Piccadilly Circus · At Trafalgar Square
And then there is Shoreditch — the creative, unpredictable, endlessly evolving east London neighborhood that has more genuine energy per square block than almost anywhere in the city. The area rewards wandering: the street art, the independent restaurants, the bars. Chief among them is Callooh Callay — a perennial fixture on the UK's Top 50 Cocktail Bars and a former World's 50 Best Bars regular whose themed cocktail menus have won just about every award going. The name comes from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky, and the bar leans fully into the Alice in Wonderland universe — most of the venue is literally hidden behind a mirrored wardrobe door — a true speakeasy in the finest sense. The drinks are extraordinary, the atmosphere is unlike anything else in the city, and the cassette wall in "the loo" foyer alone is worth the trip to Shoreditch. This is not a tourist stop. It is where London's creative class actually drinks.
Calloo Callay, Shoreditch — World's 50 Best Cocktail Bars · The legendary cassette wall · A proper London pint
On the subject of pubs: I have a philosophy here that has served me well across thirty years of London visits. Don't plan them. Walk into whichever one you pass that looks like locals actually drink there — the one with the worn bar and the slightly sticky carpet and the regulars who know each other's names. Order a pint of whatever they're proud of. Sit near the bar. Listen. The best pub evenings I have ever had in London were entirely accidental.
A London pub near Covent Garden — exactly as it should be
Primrose Hill — Where London Makes You Feel Everything
There is a hill in north London — fifteen minutes from central by tube, ten minutes on foot from Chalk Farm station, which is the closest stop — where you can stand at the top on a clear night and see the entire city spread below you in a sweep of light that stretches from the City and Canary Wharf in the east to the West End and beyond. It is one of the most romantic views in Europe and almost no tourist ever finds it. For the record: Chalk Farm is the practical choice, but for nostalgia I always prefer the longer, beautiful walk from St John's Wood station on the Jubilee Line. I lived in that neighborhood and went to school there, and it never stops feeling like mine — the homes, the shops, the cafes and flats along the high street are quietly gorgeous. The walk itself is half the point.
Primrose Hill is where I go when I need to remember why London matters to me. The walk up in the dark, the village feeling of the neighborhood at the base of the hill, and then that view — the accumulated centuries of the greatest city in the English-speaking world, laid out below you in the particular amber-orange of London at night. I have sat up there alone many times, looking out over it, and it has never failed to put things in perspective.
St John's Wood · My personal favourite Tube stop for accessing Primrose Hill · The neighbourhood walk is half the experience
Beyond the City — Windsor Castle & Hampton Court
Both are within an hour of central London. Both are among the most extraordinary historic properties in Europe. Both are almost always underestimated by visitors who run out of time in the city and never make it out. Don't make that mistake.
Windsor Castle — the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world, still a working royal residence — is 40 minutes by train from Paddington and worth every minute. The State Apartments, the Waterloo Chamber (a room hung with portraits of the leaders who defeated Napoleon), St George's Chapel (the burial place of kings, and of extraordinary Gothic beauty), and the Long Walk stretching out from the castle through the Great Park — all of it is genuinely, not performatively, magnificent.
The Changing of the Guard, Windsor · The Waterloo Chamber
St George's Chapel interior · The Guru at Windsor — it never gets old
Hampton Court Palace — Henry VIII's principal residence, the palace where the Tudor story unfolded in its most dramatic chapters — is 35 minutes by train from Waterloo and an entirely different kind of encounter with English history. The Great Hall, the royal kitchens (still intact, still extraordinary), the baroque gardens stretching down to the Thames, and the maze that has been confusing visitors since 1702. The private dining rooms alone are worth the journey.
The gardens · The royal bed chambers · Private dining · The Guru by the river at Hampton Court
London gives everything to people who give it time and attention. The museums — the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert, the National Gallery, the Tate Modern — are world-class and free. Hyde Park and the Bayswater Road on a Sunday morning, when the artists display their work along the park railings, is one of those London experiences that exists outside of time. Hampstead and Hampstead Heath in any season. The Thames at low tide, revealing the riverbank that Londoners have walked for two thousand years.
I am still finding new things every time I return. After all these years, after all these visits, London still has more left in it than I have managed to see. That, in the end, is what a great city is.
A boy from rural Virginia came to this city not knowing what he was looking for. London knew before he did. It gave him community when he had been denied it, belonging when he had felt none, and a direction when he had no idea which way to turn. It showed him the world — and then gave him the tools to go out and live in it fully.
Every time I walk back through arrivals at Heathrow, every time I check into the Savoy or stand at the window of Four Seasons Ten Trinity Square looking across at the Tower of London unchanged, I feel the full distance of the journey. From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Strand. From a boy who had nowhere to turn to someone who has turned up in the most extraordinary places on earth. London did that. I owe it everything.
Go. Give it your full attention. It will give you back more than you brought.
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London, England · A city for a lifetime
Reviewed by Patrick Raymond · Decades of Luxury Travel · 60+ Countries