Can someone from London give advice on what section of the city is within walking distance to tourist spots?

I'm from the States and look forward to seeing your beautiful city; however I am on a budget and would like to save on transportation costs. I have no idea what part of London to stay at. I would like to be within walking distance to restaurants and attractions. Any suggestions you give I will be grateful! Also any opinons on hotels/B%26amp;B's under 130 GBP? THANKS!Can someone from London give advice on what section of the city is within walking distance to tourist spots?
Somewhere around Victoria is good for visiting tourist attractions like Houses of Parliament, Tate Gallery, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and is a 10-20 minute walk to places like Trafalgar Square and its galleries, Oxford Street and the Southbank for the Tate gallery etc.





Kensington is good for all the museums around there and is an easy walk to the rest of central London.





Oxford Street is good for the shopping and restaurants in Soho and Marylebone





Somewhere around Waterloo, Vauxhall, London Bridge- might be a bit cheaper but still central enough for most people.





Somewhere a bit further out like Hampstead, Clapham, Hammersmith, Earls Court might offer a better range of restaurants and places to stay but you will have to travel in to the centre for most of the major tourist sites (not that these places arent interesting in their own right)





Travel isnt that expensive (certainly when compared to accommodation) if you get a travel card, either a paper one which is valid after 9:30 and costs around 拢5 or if you get an Oyster pay as you go where you pay for each journey (拢1.50 underground, 拢1 bus) as you take it but never pay more than the daily cap which is 50p less than the rate you would have paid for a paper travelcard.





see http://www.visitlondon.com/Can someone from London give advice on what section of the city is within walking distance to tourist spots?
London is very accessible and pretty much everything you would want to see is within a square mile (trafalgar square, leicester square, national gallery, thames, houses of parliament, st. paul's, tate britain, tate modern, london eye).





As for hotels, there are so many and the prices change so often that it is impossible for someone to give a definitive answer on there. Best bet is to go to www.expedia.co.uk or www.tripadvisor.com (this also gives you honest traveller reviews of the hotels so you don't end up in a flea pit!).





As for transportation costs, you can buy a 1 week travelcard covering whichever zones you wish, this will allow you unlimited travel on any bus, train, underground or tram within the zones you have chosen. You can also buy a pay as you go Oyster card www.tfl.gov.uk for more information.





As long as your hotel is in zone 1 it should be fine to get to anywhere you want. If you want to go to the Natural History museum, VIctoria and Albert Museum and the Science Museum you need to go to Kensington on the bus or tube but once there, they are all next door to each other.





Also make sure you buy an A-Z london street guide as this will make sure you never get lost!





Good luck and have fun.
London is a very big city, and so the tourist spots are pretty spread out - you probably wont be able to walk everywhere. But if you want to stay near the centre then I suppose around Picadilly, russell square area might be the best (although probably not cheap). I agree with the other person who said its best to stay out of the centre (cheaper) and get the tube everywhere (not too expensive if you get day or week passes)
There are travel Inn hotels from 70GBP per night, and that's at towerbridge, just a short ride away from tourist attractions.





You can get around central london on foot once you're in central london. You can buy an oyster card for 10GBP and each time you get on the bus it deducts 1GBP.





There is also an travel inn (select LONDON COUNTY HALL one at travel inn website) right in the heart of london, actually it's right behind the london eye. They're 99 GBP per night....book your hotel stay in advance. Everything there is walking distance if you do stay there, BIG BEN, LONDON EYE, HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, WESTMINISTER ABBEY, BUCKINGHAM PALACE, TRAFALGER SQ, and more...
If you are on a budget it will pay you to stay further out and use the subway daily.





If you buy an Oyster card and travel after 9.30am you will get a big discount on fares.





Oyster is available thought the Transport for London website.





As for hotels/BBS there should be links on the tfl website to accommodation.
Paddington is pretty close and is on the direct train route from Heathrow airport. There are alot of cheap hotels in Sussex Gardens. You would be near Oxford Street, Madam Tussauds, Hyde Park and the tourist (hop on hop off) bus leaves from there. London attractions are pretty close together, but you will still have to walk quite a bit.