It’s 12:30am and the Tube is closed…Night bus time!

London’s Tube closes nightly around 12:30am. Just after midnight you’ll hear all of the Last Tubers saying their goodbyes and referencing their need to catch the last train. But if you aren’t ready to leave yet, and don’t want to spring for London’s pricey black cabs, fret not. Just walk over to Trafalgar Square, and chances are that there’s a night bus going your direction.

As to be expected with one of the most develop public transportation systems in the world, London’s works around the clock, with about 100 lines operating overnight. And I’d argue that you haven’t really experienced a night out in London without sitting upstairs on a double-decker bus with all of the characters heading out of Central in the wee hours of the morning. If a university near you ever offered a “drunk bus” to take you home from a night at campus parties (at my university it was known as “P2P Shuttle”), then this is akin to the grown-up version of that.

Night bus memories tend to be blurry

Of course, you can experience it the other way as well, if you’re an early riser. As most Tube services don’t start until 5:30 or 6, if you have an early call time at work or an early flight out of Heathrow, you may be able to enjoy the last of the previous night’s entertainers on the way to start your day…