FROM THE AIRPORTS:  The best way to travel between London and its airports -- Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted --  is by surface train.  For £13.00, you can get on a comfortable train that runs between Heathrow and Paddington Station every 15 minutes, which happens to be the length of the ride.  There is train service between Gatwick and Victoria Station, and between Stansted and Liverpool Street.

London Underground (see below) also runs to Heathrow and Gatwick, but the wait and the ride are significantly longer, and it’s sardine-packed during weekday rush hour.  If you must watch your bottom line, however, it is the cheapest way to get to town: £4.50 from Heathrow to any Zone 1 stop, between Olympia Station and East End.

The Tube has convenient stations at every tourist attraction, surface rail station, and the two busiest airports. In central London, the distance between two stops is so short that leisurely travelers need not worry about skipping one. Transfer from one line to another is always a short distance down a corridor or up an escalator.  Street musicians (buskers) create an uplifting ambience throughout the West End stops, especially at night.

The only caveat is the frequency of shutdowns along certain sections for maintenance and security alerts, as well as the intermittent strikes by Tube operators trying to improve their lot whilst more bits and pieces of the Underground become privatised. During these lapses of efficiency, the remaining trains are as sausage-stuffed as any Shinkensen in downtown Tokyo. Regardless, more Londoners still gather along the Tube than at any other public venue, a fact well known to prospective terrorists. Should you be paranoid about that and a claustrophobe to boot, perhaps the Tube is not for you.

BUSES: The beloved red double-deckers are a fun way to catch the sights as you get from points A to B. You'd think these lumbering hulks are as good as beached whales during rush hour, but they do still get by, thanks to the many special lanes reserved for them and the taxis. That said, they tend to get very packed in the evening, and getting on and (especially) off can be quite a test of daring. Amongst the older buses with rear access, it's common to see people leaping off even as the bus is already moving.

Buses become much more important as you leave the city centres, where Tube stations are fewer and farther in between. If you’re heading for the weekend street markets at Portebello or Camden Town, chances are you will drop a modest £1 into a box near the bus driver, or simply flash your Underground day pass.

YOUR FEET: Barring intolerable weather, you’ll be surprised by how far you can walk.  On a sunny summer day, a leisurely (albeit sweaty) one-way walk from the Tower of London to Royal Albert Hall is very feasible.

For pub hopping, after-theatre dining and clubbing, there is no other way to take in the full spectacle of London nightlife than being a pedestrian. It’s only ten minutes on foot between the hubs of hubbub: Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Oxford Circus and Covent Garden.