What is the London outdoor escape game?
The London outdoor escape game is an escape room moved outdoors: the puzzles are built into Westminster's landmarks and you work on them from your phone, with observation and reasoning instead of specialist knowledge. Set aside about 2 hours, 58 minutes of which is walking, covering 4.4 km across 10 stops, on whichever day you pick.
The puzzles sit at Big Ben and the Thames, among the statues of Parliament Square, at the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the columns and memorials of Waterloo Place, Admiralty Arch and Trafalgar Square. Each one stands alone rather than feeding into a plot, and three levels of hints are on hand. Westminster packs parliament, abbey, palace and park into a short, level walk, which is exactly what this format needs.
- Durationabout 2 hours
- Walkingabout 58 min · 4.4 km
- Stops10
- LanguagesEnglish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch
What you do on the escape game
Solve
One puzzle per landmark, cracked by reading the place itself and thinking it through. No homework required.
Look closer
Clues hide in inscriptions, bronze statues, coats of arms and the stonework above your head.
Walk
Google Maps points the way between stops: 58 minutes on foot altogether, over roughly 4.4 km.
Take your time
No timer is ticking. Take a hint if a puzzle digs in, stop in St James's Park and carry on later or another day.
See the route and attractions →
How it works
- Book online Choose the number of players. Your booking reference arrives by email straight away.
- Get the app Download the World City Trail app from the App Store or Google Play and enter your booking reference.
- Play when you like Start whenever you are ready, walk at your own pace and pause any time. No guide, no fixed schedule.
Who it suits
Friends on a day out
Something to solve at each landmark, so the group looks at Westminster properly instead of filing past it.
Couples
A puzzle apiece between the river, the park and the squares, at exactly the pace you want.
Team building
Teams of up to 5 each play on their own phone, which makes the logistics simple for colleagues.
Good to know
- Bring a charged smartphone with mobile data; a power bank helps.
- Best started in daylight, so you can see the details the puzzles ask about.
- No entry tickets needed: everything happens outside the buildings. Going inside is optional and paid separately.
- Family friendly; children must be accompanied by an adult.
- Not suitable for wheelchair users and difficult with strollers.
- Teams of up to 5 work best; bigger groups split into several teams, one ticket per player.
- Every purchase helps support stray cats and dogs in Greece.
Puzzle route: from Westminster to Trafalgar Square
10 stops · about 58 min walking · start: Westminster Station · finish: Trafalgar Square
Westminster Station holds the first puzzle, with Big Ben and the Thames in view from the pavement. Parliament Square Garden comes next, then the Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey. St James's Park leads on to Buckingham Palace, from where the route returns past Waterloo Place and through Admiralty Arch to the last puzzle in Trafalgar Square. Set out in daylight, since the answers come from what is in front of you and British weather can make the walking slow. Google Maps handles the navigation, the order of the stops is yours to change in the app, and not one puzzle calls for an entry ticket.
Open the route map ↗
1Westminster StationStart
Westminster Station opened in 1868 as Westminster Bridge on the District Railway and took its present name in 1907. The Jubilee line platforms, opened in 1999 and designed by Michael Hopkins, sit in a 39-metre-deep box of concrete and steel beneath Portcullis House, the parliamentary office building above.
2Big Ben and the Thames
Big Ben is the nickname of the Great Bell inside the 96-metre clock tower designed by Augustus Pugin and completed in 1859. The tower was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012 for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee, and the classic view across the Thames is from Westminster Bridge.
3Parliament Square Garden
Parliament Square was laid out in 1868 to open up the space in front of the new Houses of Parliament, and its lawn is lined with statues of statesmen. Winston Churchill has faced Parliament since 1973, and Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Millicent Fawcett, in 2018 the first woman honoured with a statue here, joined him later.
4Palace of Westminster
The seat of the UK Parliament was rebuilt in Gothic Revival style by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin after a fire destroyed most of the old palace in 1834. Westminster Hall, built in 1097 for William II, survived the blaze, and today the palace has more than 1,100 rooms.
5Westminster Abbey
Almost every English and British monarch since William the Conqueror in 1066 has been crowned here, and the present Gothic church was begun by Henry III in 1245. Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin are buried inside, and the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior lies just inside the Great West Door.
6St James's Park
Henry VIII bought this marshy land in 1532 and turned it into a deer park, and Charles II later had it redesigned with a long ornamental canal, today's lake. The park's pelicans go back to a gift from a Russian ambassador in 1664, and from the Blue Bridge you see Buckingham Palace through the trees.
7Buckingham Palace
The palace began as Buckingham House, built in 1703 for the Duke of Buckingham, and George III bought it in 1761. Queen Victoria was the first monarch to live here, from 1837, and the east front with the famous balcony was refaced by Aston Webb in 1913, behind the Victoria Memorial.
8Waterloo Place
Named after the 1815 victory over Napoleon, Waterloo Place is lined with memorials. The Duke of York Column, topped in 1834 by Richard Westmacott's statue of George III's second son, rises above the steps, and the Guards Crimean War Memorial of 1861 was cast partly from cannon captured at Sevastopol, with statues of Florence Nightingale and Sidney Herbert beside it.
Read the full story →
9Admiralty Arch
Aston Webb designed this triple arch as a memorial to Queen Victoria, commissioned by her son Edward VII and completed in 1912, and it frames the ceremonial route along The Mall to Buckingham Palace. It takes its name from the neighbouring Admiralty, and according to a popular legend the small nose on the inside wall of one arch is a tribute to the Duke of Wellington.
Read the full story →
10Trafalgar SquareFinish
Named after Nelson's naval victory of 1805, the square was laid out by Charles Barry from 1840, with Nelson's Column completed in 1843 and Edwin Landseer's four bronze lions added in 1867. The National Gallery fills the north side, and since 1999 the Fourth Plinth has shown changing works of contemporary art.
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Switzerland –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Hat Spass gemacht und man sieht einiges.
Elisabeth– Germany –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Superbe concert dans un endroit agréable
Elisabeth– Germany –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Superbe concert dans un endroit agr?able
Elvira– Russia –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Good route but questions were a bit easy. They are more for people who like to find stuff visually rather than using their brain.
United Kingdom –
Collected on GetYourGuide
Really enjoyed this with my boyfriend. We’ve been to London lots of times but this activity taught us things we didn’t know. Would highly recommend