London Christmas Lights 2026: My Favourite Walking Route

If Regent Street is about the lights above you, Bond Street at Christmas is about remembering to look at the buildings themselves.

This is one of my favourite parts of Christmas in London because the fashion houses do not seem particularly interested in subtlety. And I mean that as a compliment.

During our 2024 visit I photographed huge festive installations from Cartier, Dior and Chanel, alongside decorated stores including Ralph Lauren. They turn an ordinary shopping street into something much closer to an outdoor Christmas exhibition.

You do not need to be shopping for Chanel or Dior to enjoy it. I genuinely think walking along Bond Street and looking at what the brands have created is part of the London Christmas experience.

From Bond Street, make your way south towards Piccadilly. Part of what I like about this route is that the Christmas experience is not limited to one official set of lights. At this time of year, the entire area starts joining in: shop windows, wreaths, enormous bows, Christmas trees and decorated façades appear between the main displays.

Do not walk this section too quickly. Some of my favourite Christmas photographs in London have been the things we found between the places we were supposedly walking to.

This is the stop I would not skip.

Fortnum & Mason is my favourite London department store at Christmas. We visit London regularly, but I still want to go inside when we are there during the festive season.

Christmas at Fortnum’s feels like an event rather than simply Christmas merchandise appearing in a department store. There are beautiful decorations, unusual gifts, food you suddenly become convinced you absolutely need for Christmas, hampers, biscuits, tea, chocolates and the sort of gloriously unnecessary festive things that make browsing half the fun.

During our 2024 visit, enormous Christmas puddings were suspended through the atrium. I filmed them because a photograph did not really capture the scale of it.

If you want to turn the Christmas lights into a proper London Christmas day, this is where I would add something special.

Book Afternoon Tea at The Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon at Fortnum & Mason. I have done the Christmas Afternoon Tea here and it genuinely feels like an occasion. It is exactly the sort of thing I love about London at Christmas: a little extravagant, very traditional and completely removed from whatever is happening outside on Piccadilly.

Booking ahead is wise at Christmas, and I have deliberately not quoted opening hours or prices here because they change.

And then there are the angels.

The Spirit of Christmas lights over Regent Street are probably the image I associate most strongly with Christmas in London. Huge illuminated figures stretch their wings above the street, following the curve of Regent Street towards Piccadilly Circus. You can see them in photographs, but the scale makes much more sense when you are standing underneath them with buses and taxis moving below.

This is the part of the route I would deliberately save until it is properly dark.

Go after dark. Starting around dusk gives you Bond Street at blue hour and Regent Street once the lights are properly glowing. Weekday evenings can be preferable to the busiest weekends.

For 2026, the lights on this route are not all on from the start of the season, so I would aim for mid-November onwards — see the dates above.

Allow 1½–2½ hours for the self-guided route. Allow longer if you are going into Fortnum & Mason, shopping or booking tea.

Yes. The street displays on this route are free to see. Food, shopping, tea and tours are optional extras.

If you have more time, Carnaby Street is a lovely optional extension just off Regent Street. I have not included it in my 2024 photographs, so treat this as a suggestion rather than something I am showing you here.

Because we come back to London regularly, I always end up mentally bookmarking hotels for the next trip. If I were building a properly indulgent Christmas weekend around this route, these are the three I would look at first — all beautifully placed for the West End lights, but each with a very different kind of London luxury.

To be clear: I have not stayed at these three hotels, which is why this section is called “where I’d stay next time”. The links below are Stay22 affiliate links, so if you book through one, Essy’s Essentials may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

I love seeing the lights on foot because you can stop whenever something catches your eye, but there is another option I genuinely recommend: an open-top Christmas lights bus tour. You get a completely different view from the upper deck, particularly when you drive underneath the Regent Street angels, and it is an easy way to see a lot of central London’s decorations without navigating the Christmas crowds on foot.

If you are only in London for a short time — or simply want to sit down, wrap up warm and let someone else work out the route — this is a lovely addition to a Christmas weekend.

I have been to London enough times that I no longer feel the need to race around trying to see everything.

At Christmas, that makes the city even better.

Give me the shopfronts on Bond Street, a completely unnecessary amount of time inside Fortnum & Mason, something warm to drink and Regent Street once the angels are glowing overhead, and I am happy.

If it is your first Christmas trip to London, this route gives you many of the classic lights without turning the evening into a logistical exercise.

And if you have been before?

Go again.

We do.