Kensington Palace vs Buckingham Palace: Which Should You Visit?
The comparison in one table
| Kensington Palace | Buckingham Palace | |
|---|---|---|
| Open | Wed to Sun, all year | State Rooms, roughly ten weeks each summer |
| Adult admission | About £24.70 | Roughly double |
| Time inside | 90 minutes | 2 to 3 hours |
| Guided tour inside | Not permitted; handset included | Multimedia guide included |
| Photographs inside | Generally allowed | Not allowed in the State Rooms |
| Gardens | Free, open daily, 265 acres | Ticketed, seasonal |
| Changing of the Guard | Not here | At the front railings |
| Crowds | Over 400,000 a year | Considerably heavier |
Kensington figures from Historic Royal Palaces, checked August 2026. Buckingham's opening window and prices are set by the Royal Collection Trust and change each season; check theirs before you plan around them.
The one that decides it: when are you here?
Buckingham Palace's State Rooms open when the King is not in residence, which in practice means a stretch of the summer. Outside that window there is nothing to go inside for, and the visit is the exterior and the Guard. Kensington opens Wednesday to Sunday in every month of the year. If your trip is in November, this is not a comparison at all.
What each one is actually about
Buckingham is the working headquarters of the monarchy and the State Rooms are staged for that: gilding, scale, ceremony, the rooms where people are received. Kensington is domestic. It is a house that became a palace, and its best rooms are about individuals — a king who could not breathe, a painter given his first commission, a girl growing up under supervision in a back bedroom. What you see inside takes them in order.
Photographs
This one surprises people and it comes up repeatedly in traveller feedback. You can generally photograph inside Kensington and you cannot inside Buckingham's State Rooms. If you are the sort of visitor who takes pictures, that is a real difference in how the two hours feel.
The Changing of the Guard question
The Guard changes at Buckingham Palace, not at Kensington. It runs on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and it is free to watch from the railings.
Doing both in a day
It is a genuinely good day and several operators sell it as one booking. The shape is always the same: the Guard mid-morning at Buckingham, a walk through the parks, then Kensington in the afternoon with the ticket already paid for.
- A guided day with tea: starts at the Guards Memorial at ten, takes the Guard, crosses Hyde Park and the gardens, and finishes with tea at the Orangery and the palace on the handset. Palace entry is included as standard.
- A Westminster combination: three hours guided through Westminster with the Guard on the days it runs, then Kensington on your own with the ticket in hand. Your guide does not come with you for the second half.
- A three-palace walk: St James's, Buckingham and Kensington on foot in a small group, finishing with tea. Palace entry is a checkout upgrade on this one.
Getting from one to the other
They are about two and a half miles apart and the walk between them is one of the better ones in London: out of Buckingham Palace along Constitution Hill, through Hyde Park past the Diana Memorial Fountain, across the Serpentine and into Kensington Gardens. Allow fifty minutes at a steady pace, and it is entirely on park paths after the first five minutes.
By tube it is Green Park to Queensway on the Central line via Bond Street, or Victoria to High Street Kensington on the Circle and District, and either is about half an hour door to door. Getting here covers which station suits which booking.
What each costs a family of four
| Kensington Palace | Buckingham Palace | |
|---|---|---|
| Two adults | £49.40 | Roughly double |
| Two children 5–15 | £24.80 | Roughly double |
| Family total | £74.20 | Considerably more |
| Under-5s | Free | Free |
| Time to allow | 90 minutes | 2 to 3 hours |
| Free thing next door | Diana Memorial Playground | St James's Park |
Kensington rates from Historic Royal Palaces without the optional donation, checked August 2026. Buckingham prices are set seasonally by the Royal Collection Trust.
Where the crowds actually are
Buckingham's summer window concentrates everyone who wants the State Rooms into about ten weeks, and the timed slots go early. Kensington spreads over five days a week and twelve months, and takes about 400,000 visitors a year. The practical result is that you can decide on a Wednesday morning to visit Kensington and be inside by ten, which is not a sentence anybody writes about the other one.
If crowds are what you are trying to avoid, a January or February morning at Kensington is the quietest royal interior in central London. The best time to visit takes the year month by month, and the reviews are full of people surprised by how empty the rooms were.
Which should you visit?
- Visiting outside the summer: Kensington. Buckingham's State Rooms will be shut.
- You want ceremony and scale: Buckingham, in season, and book early.
- You have half a morning: Kensington. Ninety minutes and a free park around it.
- You are travelling with children: Kensington, for the playground and the shorter route.
- You want photographs: Kensington.
- You want the Guard: Buckingham, and pick a Wednesday, Friday or Sunday so you can do both.
For hours and prices here, plan your visit; for the journey between the two, getting here. Kensington Palace Tours sets every bookable trip side by side, and Kensington Palace tour is the quickest way to the ones that take in both palaces.
Tours that fit this trip
Chosen for what this post covers rather than for what sells.
