London Christmas Lights Walk: Self-Guided Route + Map

✨ Our free self-guided Christmas lights walk through the West End: twelve stops from Bond Street to Covent Garden, about 4.7 km on flat pavements, in two halves that meet at Piccadilly Circus, with a map, timings, loos and step-free notes.

This is the walk we do every December we are in London. It starts under the Oxford Street stars at Bond Street station and ends at the tree in Covent Garden, and in between it takes in the Bond Street shop fronts, Burlington Arcade, Fortnum and Mason, the Regent Street angels, Carnaby, the Chinatown lanterns, the Leicester Square market and the Trafalgar Square tree, in that order.

It runs from the quietend of the West End to the busy end on purpose, so the crowds build as the lights do, and it costs nothing beyond whatever you drink on the way.

Below you will find the map, the twelve stops in order with what to look for at each, how long to allow, where the loos and the warm drinks are, and how to split it over two evenings if you would rather. The whole route is on pavement with no steps. The crowds on Regent Street and in Covent Garden are the thing to plan around, and the timing advice below is written for them.

For switch-on dates, the displays outside the West End, and bus, cab, and boat tours, see our full guide to the best Christmas lights in London.

🗺️ The Christmas lights walk map

The twelve stops are marked in order on the map below, with the two optional detours. The whole route is about 4.7 km, or 5.5 km with both detours, and every stop has its own written directions further down the page.

Take it with you. Put your email in the box below and we will send you the route as a Google Maps link, which opens in the app on your phone. All the stops in walking order with directions between them, plus a printable PDF of the whole walk with the timings, the loos and the step-free notes.

The walk is a small slice of our Ultimate London Travel Planning Map, which has more than 900 handpicked places across the whole city in the same format, with our notes on every one.

Before you start: timing, crowds and getting around

• When: The lights come on at dusk, which in December is around 4 pm. Start at Bond Street at 3.45 pm, and it is fully dark by the time you reach Burlington Arcade. Everything on the route is lit from early to mid-November until early January; the Trafalgar Square tree is the exception and is lit on 3 December 2026.
• One evening or two: The full walk is about 4.7 km and takes about an hour and a quarter without stops, or two and a half hours with them. The two halves meet at Piccadilly Circus, so if that is more than you want in one go, do Bond Street to Piccadilly Circus (stops one to six, about 1.9 km) one evening and Regent Street to Covent Garden (stops seven to twelve, about 2.8 km) another.
• Which evening: Weekday evenings are far calmer than Friday, Saturday or Sunday. The three Saturdays before Christmas are the busiest evenings of the year on Regent Street, and the pavements crawl. Bond Street and Mayfair are quiet on any evening, which is part of their appeal.
• Terrain: Flat pavement the whole way, no steps, no cobbles except the Covent Garden piazza, which is smooth setts rather than rough cobbles. Burlington Arcade and the Piccadilly arcades are level from end to end. Expect to move slowly on Regent Street and to queue for a photo at the Covent Garden tree.
• Step-free Tube: Bond Street (Elizabeth, Jubilee and Central lines), where the walk starts, is step-free. Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, Leicester Square and Covent Garden are not. To finish step-free, Tottenham Court Road (Elizabeth, Central and Northern lines) is a ten-minute walk north from Covent Garden up Neal Street; to break the walk step-free at the halfway point, Green Park is five minutes west of Piccadilly Circus along Piccadilly. Our guide to using the Tube covers lifts and step-free routes in more detail.
• Loos: The department stores are your friends: Selfridges at the start, Fortnum and Mason at stop five, Liberty at stop eight. There are public toilets at Leicester Square, the Café in the Crypt under St Martin-in-the-Fields at stop eleven, and toilets in the lower level of Covent Garden market at the end.
• Short on time or energy: Skip the two detours (Berkeley Square at stop three, Jermyn Street at stop five), and you save 800 metres and half an hour. If you can only do one half, do the second: Regent Street, Carnaby and Covent Garden are the lights most people come for.

🎄 Part one: Bond Street to Piccadilly Circus

The quieter half: designer windows, two arcades and the grandest shop fronts in London, on streets that are lit as lavishly as anywhere in the West End and walked by a fraction of the people. About 1.9 km, or 2.7 km with both detours. Our Mayfair area guide covers the streets around stops two to four in daylight.

Stop 1: Selfridges and the Oxford Street stars

• Start: Bond Street station, Oxford Street exit
• Walk: West to Selfridges and back, 400 m
• Allow: 15 minutes

Come out of Bond Street station and you are under the Oxford Street stars, more than 5,000 of them running the whole mile of the street. Turn west and walk 200 metres to Selfridges, whose Christmas windows are the best in London: a dozen or more along the Oxford Street frontage, unveiled in the autumn and changed every year. There are loos and a sit-down inside if you need either before you begin.

Walk back east past the station, with the stars stacked one behind another ahead of you, to South Molton Street, the pedestrian lane on your right just past the station.

Stop 2: South Molton Street and New Bond Street

• Walk: South down South Molton Street, then south along New Bond Street to Burlington Gardens, 700 m
• Allow: 20 minutes

South Molton Street is a short pedestrian lane strung with lights and an illuminated arch, and it brings you out onto New Bond Street, where the lights and the windows are on a different budget from everywhere else.

The street display changes every few years (crowns one year, gold chandeliers another) and the shop fronts are the real show: Cartier has wrapped its whole building in gold, Dior has covered its façade in illuminated seahorses and coral, and Tiffany and the jewellers along here dress the buildings rather than just the windows.

Walk the length of it slowly. It is quiet compared with Regent Street on any night of the week.

Stop 3 (optional): Berkeley Square and Annabel’s

• Walk: West along Bruton Street to Berkeley Square and back, 400 m there and back
• Allow: 15 minutes

Halfway down New Bond Street, Bruton Street leads west to Berkeley Square and to Annabel’s, the private members’ club at number 46, which covers its whole façade in something outrageous every Christmas: a giant peacock one year, a gingerbread house another.

The square’s plane trees are lit too, and the Connaught’s lantern-hung tree is five minutes further on in Carlos Place if you want to keep going.

Come back the way you came to New Bond Street and carry on south; it becomes Old Bond Street at the Burlington Gardens junction.

Stop 4: Burlington Arcade

• Walk: Left into Burlington Gardens, then right through the arcade to Piccadilly, 250 m
• Allow: 10 minutes

Turn left off Old Bond Street into Burlington Gardens and the north entrance of Burlington Arcade is on your right, beside the Royal Academy’s back door.

Built in 1819, it is the prettiest short cut in London in December: lit and decorated from end to end, with giant wreaths hanging the length of it some years and birch trees hung with gold baubles others, and beadles in top hats keeping order as they have for two centuries.

Walk it slowly to the Piccadilly end. It is level throughout and a warm two minutes on a cold night.

Stop 5: Fortnum and Mason and the Piccadilly arcades

• Walk: Across Piccadilly to Fortnum’s, then east along Piccadilly to the Circus, 550 m; the Jermyn Street detour adds 400 m
• Allow: 20 minutes, or 35 with the detour

Fortnum and Mason is diagonally across Piccadilly from the arcade’s south entrance. The façade is lit, the windows are themed and the whole store is dressed from the ground floor up, with lifts to every floor and loos inside; the advent calendar front is the photo everyone takes.

Princes Arcade and Piccadilly Arcade, on the same side of the road, hang stars under their glass roofs and are a warm, level short cut through to Jermyn Street.

The detour: walk east along Jermyn Street, quieter and just as prettily lit, to Waterloo Place, which has its own tree with the Regent Street St James’s lights behind it, then north up Regent Street St James’s to Piccadilly Circus. If you are short on time or legs, stay on Piccadilly and walk straight to the Circus instead.

Stop 6: Piccadilly Circus

• Allow: 5 minutes, or a break here if you are splitting the walk

The giant screens, the Eros fountain and the Criterion building are all lit, and the crowds are at their thickest. Stand on the south side by the fountain and look up Regent Street for the angels curving away above the buses; it is the view on most of the postcards, and it is the start of part two.

If you are doing the walk over two evenings, stop here. Piccadilly Circus station is right here (not step-free); Green Park is five minutes back along Piccadilly. Our Piccadilly Circus area guide has the shops, the arcades and where to eat around it.

🎄 Part two: Regent Street to Covent Garden

The half most people come for: the angels, Carnaby, the lanterns of Chinatown, a Christmas market, the Trafalgar Square tree and the best ending in London. About 2.8 km.

Stop 7: The Regent Street angels

• Walk: North up Regent Street from Piccadilly Circus to Great Marlborough Street, 650 m
• Allow: 20 minutes

Walk north from the Circus up the whole curve of Regent Street under the Spirit of Christmas angels, 45 of them with their wings spread the full width of the street, hanging one behind another all the way up to Oxford Circus.

The best photos are from the west pavement looking back the way you came, with the buses coming down towards you. Hamleys, the toy shop, is on your left about two-thirds of the way up and has its own window show and a doorman in a top hat.

Stay on the west (left-hand) pavement, because Great Marlborough Street, where you turn off for Liberty, is on that side, 150 metres short of Oxford Circus.

Stop 8: Liberty and Carnaby Street

• Walk: Left into Great Marlborough Street, then down Carnaby Street to Beak Street, 350 m
• Allow: 20 minutes, longer if you go into Liberty

Turn left off Regent Street into Great Marlborough Street and the mock-Tudor front of Liberty is ahead of you, garlanded for the season. The Christmas shop is on the fourth floor, under beamed ceilings strung with fairy lights, and it is where we buy our decorations every year; there is a lift, and the loos are on the same floor.

Carnaby Street starts at the far corner of Liberty and is the only West End display with a new theme every year, from the planets and shooting stars of Carnaby Universe to the multicoloured stars of Into the Light.

Wander the side streets too, and duck into Kingly Court, the courtyard of restaurants halfway down, which is the best place on the whole route for a warm drink and a sit-down. The courtyard itself is level with the street. Walk on to the bottom of Carnaby Street, where it meets Beak Street.

Stop 9: The Chinatown lanterns

• Walk: East along Beak Street and Brewer Street, right down Wardour Street, across Shaftesbury Avenue and left into Gerrard Street, 550 m
• Allow: 10 minutes

Turn left at the bottom of Carnaby Street and follow Beak Street east through Soho; it becomes Brewer Street at the Lexington Street junction and carries straight on. Turn right down Wardour Street to Shaftesbury Avenue. Cross it, and the Chinatown gate is ahead of you on Wardour Street, with Gerrard Street opening off to the left. Our Soho and Leicester Square area guide covers both in daylight.

Gerrard Street’s red lanterns hang all year, thousands of them, and on a December evening with the restaurant windows steamed up and the lanterns glowing overhead it is one of our favourite London sights, Christmas or not. It is also the best-value dinner on the route if you are hungry by now.

Walk east along Gerrard Street to the end, then right down Leicester Place into Leicester Square.

Stop 10: Leicester Square Christmas market

• Walk: Leicester Place into the square, 150 m
• Allow: 20 minutes

The Christmas market fills the square with wooden chalets, a bar, festive food and the Spiegeltent, all under the lights of the big cinemas. It is a good place to warm up, the mulled wine is decent, and the public toilets are on the square. Leave by the south-east corner, down Irving Street.

Stop 11: The Trafalgar Square Christmas tree

• Walk: Down Irving Street and across Charing Cross Road, 300 m
• Allow: 15 minutes; from 3 December only

Irving Street brings you out at the top of Trafalgar Square, beside the National Gallery, with the Norwegian tree below you.

It is lit on the first Thursday of December, which in 2026 is the 3rd, with vertical strings of white lights in the Norwegian style, so it looks nothing like the rest of the West End, and choirs sing carols beneath it most evenings in the run-up to Christmas.

If you are walking in November, skip this stop and go straight from Leicester Square up Cranbourn Street to Seven Dials.

The Café in the Crypt under St Martin-in-the-Fields, on the north-east corner of the square, has loos, soup and a lift down to the crypt, and is our pick for a sit-down on a cold evening.

Stop 12: Seven Dials and Covent Garden

• Walk: North up St Martin’s Lane and Monmouth Street to Seven Dials, then down Earlham Street and Neal Street, across Long Acre and down James Street into the piazza, 800 m
• Allow: As long as you like; finish here

St Martin’s Lane is Theatreland (our London theatre guide has the pantomimes and Christmas shows), with the Coliseum and the Duke of York’s lit up and the pre-show crowds spilling onto the pavement, and it climbs so gently you will not notice. It leads into Monmouth Street and then Seven Dials, the star of seven little streets where the lights are strung out from the central column along every one of them.

Most visitors walk straight past it on the way to Covent Garden, which is a large part of its appeal. Neal’s Yard, through the alley off Monmouth Street, is lit in every colour and is the best-hidden photo on the route.

Then the ending, and the reason the route runs this way round. From Seven Dials, go down Earlham Street and Neal Street, cross Long Acre and follow James Street into the piazza. The 55-foot tree stands at the west end of the Covent Garden piazza; the market hall behind it is hung with giant gold bells, red baubles and mistletoe; there are more than 100,000 lights, and the carol singers and street performers give it a fantastic atmosphere.

Go into the market for the bells overhead and the Apple Market stalls, then out onto the piazza for the tree. The queue for a photo in front of it moves quickly.

There are toilets on the lower level of the market building, and every restaurant around the piazza is open late; Balthazar and the pubs on Rose Street and Floral Street are where we tend to end up. Our Covent Garden area guide has more places to eat within a few minutes of the tree.

If you would like a sit-down dinner to end the evening without paying full price, First Table offers 50% off the food bill (drinks are full price) for the first table of a sitting at restaurants across London, for a small booking fee. December evenings go early, so it is one to book a few days ahead rather than on the night. We earn a small commission if you book through our link.

Getting home: Covent Garden station is lifts-only and closes its entrance when the crowds get too heavy after dark, so walk five minutes to Leicester Square or Charing Cross instead. Neither is step-free; the nearest step-free station is Tottenham Court Road, ten minutes north up Neal Street and Charing Cross Road.

If you would rather ride than walk

You can see the same lights, and the ones this route cannot reach, from a seat. The vintage Routemaster lights tour covers Oxford Street, Regent Street and Knightsbridge in 75 minutes from Northumberland Avenue.

A private black cab tour is the step-free option and is priced per cab for up to six, and the City Cruises evening cruise from Westminster Pier shows you the riverside lights that no walk or bus reaches, which makes it a lovely second evening after this one.

Our guide to the best Christmas tours in London compares them all, and more.

Enjoy the walk

Twelve stops, one evening or two, and the best free thing London offers in winter. If you do it, tag @uktravelplanning in your photos; we would love to see which stop you liked best. And if you are in the first half of November, check the switch-on dates in our lights guide before you set out, because a street that is lit on the 6th is dark on the 5th.

Planning the rest of a festive trip? These guides cover it:

• Best Christmas lights in London: all 19 displays, with switch-on dates
• 18 best Christmas tours in London
• 20 Christmas things to do in London
• Christmas cruises in London: lunch, dinner and Christmas Day sailings compared
• What’s open in London on Christmas Day (and what isn’t)
• Events in London in December
• Visiting London in December
• New Year’s Eve in London