The Jetpacker

What’s the best way to see London?  From the London Eye.  At its 443-foot peak, the largest Ferris wheel in Europe provides an unsurpassed view of the heart of London.

Of course, getting there will put a dent in your schedule and your wallet.  The cheapest tickets are £17, but for another £10 you can buy a fast pass that rushes you to the front of the line.  You get a 10% discount if you book online which we highly recommend because the wait to buy tickets took over half an hour.

Once we booked our “flight,” we had to wait around for about an hour before we could even access the official wait line, which you need to enter 30 minutes before your designated boarding time.  All in all, it took 2 hours from the time we got to Jubilee Gardens to the time we finally entered our “eye pod” (I’m not making that up).

The 32 pods are surprisingly roomy with 25 people packed inside, and the location right on the South Bank of the River Thames gives you a bird’s eye view of Big Ben and The Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and London’s West End.

Remarkably, the capsules always remain on the outside of the wheel so the view is never obstructed.  And when you reach the peak, you’ll have a full 360-degree view of the city.  The pods are air conditioned and there’s a large bench to sit on in the center.

For the entire 30-minute ride, we felt like we were hovering above the city.  The wheel crept along so slowly that we barely felt like we were moving.  In fact, the wheel doesn’t stop moving, not even when you’re entering and exiting the cabin.

If you have a fear of heights or small spaces, the London Eye might not be the place to attempt to conquer your fear.  This thing is high — it’s one-and-a-half times taller than the Statue of Liberty and is much higher than you’d expect from looking at it on the ground.  And you’re going to be stuck in the enclosed pod with 20 of your new best friends for half an hour.

Despite the wait, the price, and the constant threat that your pod could snap off and go plummeting into the river below (kidding), the London Eye is certainly a sight worth checking out.