Regent's Park - October 5, 2025
I've been itching for some outside time, surrounded by trees and flowers, especially now that fall is gradually covering everything here in London. We have two beautiful parks near us, and I am grateful for that but it's still really fun to explore.
We don't know how long we will be here in London. Maybe a couple years, maybe 15 years, maybe forever. Who knows, but we definitely want to embrace the full experience while we are here. For us, that means balancing settling in to normal, day-to-day life, really sinking in to the little details of the culture in our pocket of London with taking advantage of all the adventures at our doorstep.
This weekend, we were all still getting over our first cold since being here (5 weeks into school, not bad) so we wanted to get fresh air, but not overdo it. Regent's Park was a good compromise. About 45 minutes by bus/tube from our house.
Can I just pause and be thankful we don't live where the Picadilly line is our go-to transport? Trust me. It's the line that will take you to a lot of tourist spots, but my goodness, who likes to feel like a sardine every time you get on. I mean, we got on at 11 AM on a random, non-holiday Sunday morning and I had someone's backpack in my face for 30 minutes.
Anyway.
We had to switch to the Metropolitan line at Kings Cross, and we were one of 6 people in our car. Much better.
Regent's Park. Quick walk from the tube at the Great Portland Street stop. We entered the park at the southeast corner near the English Gardens so we could go to the Marylebone Green Playground first. It's a beautiful park. Full of fountains, flowers, a huge tree-lined walkway, and plenty of green space that was overflowing with soccer games. They were setting up for Frieze in mid-October, so a couple of the paths we were wanting to take were closed off.
Marylebone Playground: Kids really liked it. Probably because it was a huge sandbox with a big slide and a log/rope obstacle course. London parks love sand and water, so I would highly recommend an extra change of clothes for the kids whenever you go anywhere.
We walked through the east side of the park next, stopping at the cafe for lunch. They had an outdoor food truck that sold hot dogs, so that's what we went for, and I will say they were high quality.
Regent's Park has three playgrounds, so we snuck in one more before going home. We swung by the Gloucester Gate Playground after walking all the way up the Broad Walk. Let me pause to say, this walk will be GLORIOUS in a couple weeks. The trees were about 25% changed, but when they are in their full fall glory it will be like walking through a tunnel of the most beautiful yellow color in the world. I might have to request an outing back here on my birthday.
Gloucester Gate Playground: Slightly better than Marylebone Green (in my opinion and I think my kids agreed). Great slide, great sandbox, but smaller. There was a nice obstacle course, but it was outside the gates of the park which is annoying as a parent because then you have to divide and conquer. The kicker and what threw it past Marylebone was the Zipline. My kids love a good Zipline, and this one was very long. The line to ride it was pretty long so they only did it once, but that was enough for them.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention, what made this one the best for G was him making a friend named Phoebe and the two of them running around the playground trying to feed a mouse they saw. It was sweet. And better to have seen a mouse here than in my house.
Once we were done at the park, we exited through the Gloucester Gate in the northeast corner, making our way along the Camden Town high street to the Camden tube station and although it was about a 15 minute walk (about our limit for 3 kids after a long day), the Camden station is on the Northern line which is the line we live nearest so it was convenient not having to change lines before we got home.
And that's a wrap on our Sunday. We kicked back, relaxed, and then Sundays are our family video game night so we played the new Lego Party game. G won, in case you were wondering.
