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For many years, London has claimed the title of Europe’s smartest city. That means it leads in metrics like internet availability, 5G proliferation and other techie features that result in a more efficient and more inviting place. As of 2024, Paris is looking to contend with London as Europe’s smartest city, but there are still plenty of attractions in the capital that will appeal to travellers.
Source: Unsplash
Experience Smart City Internet
Let’s start with the most varied, most ubiquitous entertainment platform that’s available to those in London – the internet. Whether it’s through your own data plan or a public hotspot, London has some of the best internet speeds in the country. This is especially the case for handheld devices that rely on 5G.
As for what you should do with the internet, take your pick. You can use it to plan your travels during downtime, stream a movie or a TV show, or find a game to play online. Britain is home to the HQ of many prominent iGaming companies, who offer bingo and other games through their sites. They often have suitably British themes, like the Slingo games at Paddy Power inspired by horse racing or classic game shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire or Deal Or No Deal. It’s one option that allows you to play an online game with unique cultural visuals. Otherwise, you can do whatever you please with the fast internet once you have access to it. Many hotels and cafés in the city offer speedy Wi-Fi if you spend time at them.
See Digital Art & History
Of course, you shouldn’t spend your whole London trip stuck to a screen. That’s why you should find places that scratch a techie itch. While they may not be the first places that come to mind, two of London’s most popular museums have a lot of tech-oriented exhibitions you could check out.
When looking for science, most tourists surge toward the Science Museum in South Kensington. It’s easy to see why – it’s government-owned, free, and home to three levels of technological history. Those exhibitions span from energy tech to flight, and from medicine to clock making. The museum does more than look backward, however, as they host exhibitions about the ongoing information age, future green energy, and our prospects for space travel.
While the Science Museum is an obvious choice, the V&A Museum is better for those who want a more artistic experience. It spans more than 5,000 years of artistic progression, from ancient ceramics to modern digital art. If you’re interested in tech, it’ll be the more modern exhibitions that will interest you. That’s why the V&A has a digital art & design exhibition that tracks 3,000 pieces of art from the 1950s to now.
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Explore Virtual Worlds
Besides digital art and history, London is also home to more VR experiences than any other city in the UK. While VR never really took off as a mainstream consumer product, certain venues discovered that they could use it to provide unique experiences to their clientele. Services like NAVRTAR and Sandbox VR welcome parties of up to six people, so they’re ideal if you’re travelling in a pack.
Experiences like this can offer fascinating tours, escape rooms, immersive storytelling, and indoor skydiving, all facilitated by digital simulations. Through VR, you can see the aquarium at Sea Life London closer than ever before, tour eight Vincent van Gogh works with a guide or VR-augmented retellings of War of the Worlds or Guy Fawkes’ Gunpowder Plot. If you have an interest in VR, you can shop around for even more unique applications that may appeal to you.
Between these three ideas, you should find a lot of inspiration for your next techie trip to London. Through its museums, you can appreciate the past while also enjoying forward-facing exhibitions about the technology of the future. Then, with VR, you can interface with old and new entertainment in a way that wasn’t possible a few short decades ago.
