With almost 200 museums in London, many family-friendly and free to visit, the capital is the perfect cultural destination for curious children and adults alike.
Here are just a handful of them:
Natural History Museum
Join your mini explorers on a quest into 4.5 billion years of natural history at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, which houses more than 80 million objects. Brace yourselves for the dinosaur gallery (look out for the T. rex skull), walk beneath the largest animal on Earth, the blue whale skeleton in Hintze Hall, and experience what an earthquake feels like, among other highlights.
Don’t miss the Space: Could Life Exist Beyond Earth? exhibition, where you can hold a piece of the moon and see a meteorite older than our planet.
National Maritime Museum
Journey from outer space to the deep blue sea (or Greenwich!) to see Pirates at the National Maritime Museum. Though stereotyped as swashbuckling scoundrels in fiction and films, the real history of pirates is complex, and they can be traced from the South China Sea to the coast of North Africa.
The exhibition explores the endless allure of pirates in popular culture, real-life figures and piracy issues today. Highlights include Orlando Bloom’s costume from Pirates of the Caribbean and sketches from the television animation Captain Pugwash.
The Postal Museum
From pirates to postcards, learn the history of the postal service and how it revolutionised our lives at The Postal Museum.
When you’re done browsing the displays (spot the Victorian Valentine cards), hop aboard the Mail Rail for a unique experience on a subterranean train originally used to transport mail. Those under the age of eight can play ‘Postie’ in the role-play area, Sorted! The Postal Play Space.
Twist Museum
Finally, stir up your senses at one of London’s immersive illusion experiences. Twist Museum, designed with neuroscientists, artists and philosophers, explores how our brain perceives the world, versus reality, through visual stimuli including colours and mirrors.
Paradox Museum
At Paradox Museum London in South Kensington, enter a topsy-turvy world of trickery, where you can go incognito in the Camouflage Room, fly like an astronaut in the Zero Gravity Room, or wonder at the Infinity Well. It’s far out fun!
And something for the big kids…
Frameless: Bodies Unbound
Digital immersive space Frameless continues its collaboration with the Royal College of Art (RCA) with this year’s artist residency, Bodies Unbound (to 30 Sep).
Created by four digital artists from the RCA – Sai Ma, Kashish Gakhar, Alexis Obue and Yuchen Li – the three-part show explores movement as a language of identity, resistance and joy. Sai Ma’s The Pulse Within blends real and virtual dance to tell the story of a well-known voguing dancer, celebrating self-expression and defiance in the LGBTQ+ community.
Yuchen Li’s Rebuild Ruins – Escape follows dancers in desolate spaces, using motion trails and echoes to explore physical liberation. And Kashish Gakhar and Alexis Obue’s The Veil captures internalised patriarchal shame, with digital projections of contrasting dance styles; one traditional, one empowering. Prepare to be moved…
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