3 Best Sights in Regent's Park, London

With an emphasis on education, wildlife conservation, and the breeding of endangered species, London Zoo offers visitors the chance to see tigers, gorillas, meerkats, and more in something resembling a natural environment rather than a cage. Operated by the nonprofit Zoological Society of London, the zoo grew out of the monarch's animals collection, which moved here from the Tower of London in 1828. The zoo itself did not open to the public until 1847. Big attractions include Land of the Lions, a walk-through re-creation of an Indian forest where you can see the two resident Asiatic lions relaxing at close range; Gorilla Kingdom, which provides a similar re-created habitat (in this case an African rain forest) for its troop of six Western Lowland Gorillas (including a youngster born in 2024); and the Attenborough Komodo Dragon House, renamed to honor the renowned naturalist, who led the first film crew to capture Komodo dragons on camera.

The zoo also offers the chance to get up close and personal with 15 ring-tailed lemurs. The Giants of the Galapagos is a lagoon inhabited by the resident giant tortoises while Rainforest Life is an indoor tropical rainforest (complete with humidity) inhabited by the likes of armadillos, monkeys, and sloths. A special nighttime section offers glimpses of nocturnal creatures like slow lorises and bats. The Animal Adventure playground allows kids to observe coatis, as well as interact with llamas, donkeys, small pigs, sheep, and goats. An ever-popular attraction, especially at feeding time (noon in winter and 4:20 pm in other months), is Penguin Beach, an enclosure and pool that hosts a colony of Humboldt penguins.

If you're feeling flush, try to book tickets for VIP experiences (£54) that offer a 20-minute guided close encounter where you can feed and interact with meerkats (2:30 pm), monkeys (2 pm), giraffes (10 am, £115 for 90 minutes), tigers (9 am, £170) and even Komodo dragons (9 am, £110). Other zoo highlights include a Butterfly Paradise and the Tiger Territory, an enclosure for four beautiful endangered Sumatran tigers (including two cubs born at the zoo). There are also 90-minute early evening "relaxed tours" for the neurodiverse from June to August (they're also offered at 8:30 am before the usual opening hours in other months) to ensure a calmer experience. You can also experience the zoo after-hours by booking an overnight stay in one of the cozy cabins near (not in) the Asiatic lion enclosure. Check the website or the information board out front for free events, including creature close encounters and "ask the keeper" sessions. Booking in advance online for all tickets is required.

More conventionally parklike than Hampstead Heath, the rolling lawns of Primrose Hill, the northerly extension of Regent's Park, rise to 213 feet and provide outstanding views over the city to the southeast, encompassing Canary Wharf and the London Eye. Formerly the site of boxing matches and duels but now filled with families and picnickers in nice weather, it has been featured in several books—it was here that Pongo engaged in “twilight barking” in The Hundred and One Dalmatians and the Martians set up an encampment in H. G. Wells’s The War of The Worlds. It's also been mentioned in songs by Blur, Madness, and Paul McCartney, among others, and served as a location for films, including Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Paddington.

The formal cultivated Regent's Park, more country-house grounds than municipal amenity, began life in 1812, when John Nash was commissioned by the Prince Regent (later George IV) to create a master plan for the former royal hunting ground. Nash's original plan included a summer palace for the prince and 56 villas for friends, none of which were realized except for eight villas (only two survive). But the the scope of Nash's ambitions are reflected in the grand neoclassical terraced houses he built on the south, east, and west edges of the park.

Today the 395-acre park, with the largest outdoor sports area in central London, draws the athletically inclined from around the city. At the center of the park is Queen Mary's Gardens, a fragrant 17-acre circle created in the 1930s containing more than 400 varieties of roses that is a favorite spot for weddings. Just to the east of the gardens is the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre and the Boating Lake, which you can explore by renting a pedalo or a rowboat. Heading east from the rose gardens along Chester Road past the Broad Walk will bring you to Nash's renowned white-stucco Cumberland Terrace, with its central Ionic columns surmounted by a triangular Wedgwood-blue pediment. At the north end of the Broad Walk, you'll find London Zoo, while to the northwest of the central circle is The Hub, a state-of-the-art community sports center that has changing rooms, exercise classes, and a café with 360-degree views of the surrounding sports fields, used for soccer, rugby, cricket, field hockey, and softball. There are also tennis courts toward the park's southeast (Baker Street) entrance, and the park is a favorite north–south route for cyclists.

Regent's Park also hosts two annual events: the prestigious Frieze London art fair and Taste of London, a foodie-oriented extravaganza.