Buckingham Palace

The most important fact and the one that catches people out.

The State Rooms open to visitors for a limited period each year, broadly through the summer and into early autumn, while the royal household is elsewhere. Outside that window the palace is closed to the public entirely.

The visitor pattern confirms it: well over half of all visits fall in August and September alone, with July making up most of the remainder.

If your London dates fall outside the season, you cannot go inside. What you can still do is covered further down.

Dates shift slightly from year to year and additional openings are sometimes added, so check the official site rather than assuming any particular month.

Entry is by timed slot and the season is short, so tickets go quickly — particularly weekends and the middle of the day.

Book on the Royal Collection Trust’s own site, which is the official seller and the cheapest.

One thing worth doing at the point of booking: ask about converting your ticket into a pass allowing repeat visits for a year. This is a long-standing arrangement at royal sites and it costs little or nothing extra, though it is only useful if you will be back.

Arrive around fifteen minutes before your slot. There is a security check.

Late afternoon slots are generally quieter than late morning ones.

Around nineteen rooms on the principal floor, used for official entertaining and state occasions.

The Grand Staircase, the Throne Room, the Picture Gallery hung with Rembrandt, Rubens, Canaletto and Vermeer from the Royal Collection, the Ballroom where investitures are held, and the State Dining Room.

The route is one way and takes you through in sequence.

What you do not see: any private apartments, any working offices, or the vast majority of the building’s seven hundred-odd rooms. This is the ceremonial face of the palace and nothing else.

Each year’s opening usually features a special display built around a theme or an anniversary, which changes what is in the rooms.

Allow two to two and a half hours for the full route including the garden.

Included in the ticket, available in several languages, and generally well regarded — informative without being exhausting, and with a family version for children.

It is a multimedia handset rather than a phone app, so there is nothing to download.

The rooms carry very little written interpretation, so going round without it means looking at gilded furniture with no idea what any of it is for.

There are also occasional guided tours and specialist talks during the season, bookable separately and worth checking.

Collect the handset as you enter and take your time. The route is not rushed and there is no pressure to keep moving.

The visit ends through the palace garden, which is a substantial part of what you are paying for and is frequently the bit people remember.

It covers around forty acres in the middle of London — a lake, a rose garden, enormous plane trees, and the terrace where garden parties are held.

In some seasons a longer garden route or separate garden tours have been offered, so check what is included in your ticket.

The exit path takes you along the lake and out onto Grosvenor Place, which is a long walk from where you came in — worth knowing if you left someone waiting at the front.

There is a café on the garden route.

Most of the year it is, and there is still plenty here.

Changing the Guard takes place outside the railings and is free — it has its own guide, since the timing and the standing positions need explaining.

The Royal Mews, the working stables housing the state coaches including the Gold State Coach, is open for a longer season than the palace itself.

The King’s Gallery beside the palace shows rotating exhibitions from the Royal Collection and is open year round.

St James’s Park in front is one of the finest parks in London and the view of the palace from the bridge over the lake is the best there is.

And the facade, the railings and the Victoria Memorial cost nothing to stand in front of at any hour.

Two separate attractions on the same site, each with its own ticket.

The Royal Mews holds the state coaches, the carriage horses and the vehicles used for coronations and state visits. The Gold State Coach is the centrepiece. It is open across a longer season than the State Rooms and is far quieter.

The King’s Gallery shows changing exhibitions drawn from the Royal Collection — paintings, drawings, decorative arts — and is open through the year.

Joint tickets covering more than one of the three exist and are better value than buying separately.

Both are considerably less crowded than the palace and are the answer for anyone visiting outside the summer opening.

Two to two and a half hours for the State Rooms and garden with the audio guide.

An hour for the Royal Mews.

An hour for the King’s Gallery.

Add the security check and the walk from the exit back round to the front.

A half day covers the palace and one of the others comfortably.

If you are combining with Changing the Guard, note that the ceremony happens in the late morning and access paths around the palace close beforehand — doing both on the same day needs the ceremony first and a palace slot in the afternoon.

Late afternoon slots are the quietest. Late morning is the busiest, partly because people combine the visit with Changing the Guard.

The last slots of the day give you the rooms with noticeably fewer people, and the garden in better light.

The route is one way and does not hurry you, so a later slot does not mean a rushed visit — but check the final admission time.

Within the season, the very beginning and the very end of the opening period are quieter than the middle of August.

Weekdays are calmer than weekends throughout.

Photography is not permitted inside the State Rooms. This is enforced and it is one of the more common complaints, though it is standard practice at royal residences.

You may photograph in the garden and outside.

There is a security check with bag scanning at the entrance, and large bags are not permitted — there is limited cloakroom provision, so travel light.

The route involves a fair amount of standing and walking with limited seating.

The exit is some distance from the entrance, so do not leave anything you will need at the start.

Step-free access is available to the State Rooms by lift, and wheelchairs can be borrowed.

A free companion ticket is generally available for visitors with disabilities.

The garden route is long and largely on gravel and grass, which is hard work for wheels — there is an alternative exit for anyone who would rather not take it.

Accessible toilets are provided.

Arrangements should be made when booking rather than on arrival, since the palace manages access individually.

The area outside, including the Victoria Memorial steps where people gather for the Guard, is uneven and crowded at ceremony times.

Green Park, Victoria, St James’s Park and Hyde Park Corner are all within a ten-minute walk.

Green Park is the most pleasant approach, through the park to the front of the palace.

Walking from Westminster Abbey through St James’s Park takes about fifteen minutes and is one of the better short walks in central London.

The palace exit from the garden comes out on Grosvenor Place, nearest Hyde Park Corner and Victoria.

Roads around the palace close for ceremonial events, sometimes at short notice, so allow extra time if you have a timed slot.

The reviews divide between people who found it magnificent and people who found nineteen rooms expensive for the time spent.

The disappointing version: book a busy midday slot in August, shuffle the one-way route among a full house, take no photographs because you cannot, and come out through the garden already tired from Changing the Guard that morning.

The good version: book a late-afternoon slot early in the season, take the audio guide slowly through the Picture Gallery and the Ballroom, walk the garden route properly, and add the Royal Mews on a different day when the palace crowd has gone.

And if you are in London outside the season, do not treat it as a loss. The Mews, the gallery, the park and the ceremony are all still there.