Well, onodrim and I can be pretty diverse in our interests, so I figure if a handful of people list
their top 5 things, we can then look at those lists and decide what actually sounds interesting to us.
It's hard to say what my main interests would be. I can be quite interested in art and architecture for one thing. Museums...bits of history...these are interesting too. Natural sights are also compelling. One of my favorite pictures from a previous trip to Europe is a shot looking down a street in Innsbruck, with the buildings framing a mountain in the Alps. I guess it'd be fair to say that I'd like a mixture of three things: an appreciation for the history of the place I'm visiting, experiencing the culture of the place I'm visiting, and seeing the sights of the place I'm visiting. These things can be achieved through simple means, like shopping in a Tesco (
), or through more touristy means, such as taking a guided tour of Buckingham Palace.
This would be the first time I've been to another country on my own as a tourist. Both other times I've been to Europe (mainly Austria), it involved staying with someone else around my age (I was in HS at the time) and hanging out with them. Sometimes we did things like take a tour of a palace, but then other times we'd hang out at the bar at night with the other Austrian students. I think both experiences were equally interesting in their own ways.
One thing that just occurred to me, I'm interested in hearing what crime is like in London, if there are any areas to stay away from, etc. In Austria, my friends and I made a habit of getting semi-lost and wandering around, and we found some really interesting things that way, even at 3am. Is it safe enough to do that in London, or are there areas we'd need to be more careful of?