This week we did what we ended up calling 'the mad dash'; three days of virtually continuous tourism in London from morning til night, all using the London Pass. Lots of major cities have these schemes; pay a flat fee and get access to some of the major attractions at a reduced rate. If you visit enough places within the time limit, you should (theoretically) save money. Paris has the Carte Paris Visite, for example. And London has the London Pass.

So, we paid £188 for 2 adults and 1 child for three days (which included travel in all transport zones by tube, bus, and rail for the entire period), and set off on our Odyssey. The first thing you need to do is collect the pass; you can have it sent to you but we bought them at short notice and decided to collect. This posed a minor problem, as we wanted to get to the office to pick up our passes (they come as smartcards with a chip that you have to sign, like your bank card), but our free travel didn't start til after we collected them, and we were faced with travelling into the city at peak time; no small matter as it's about £10 for a travelcard from zone 3 if you go before 9.30.

Thankfully, you can choose when to start your three day's travel from, though the London Pass itself starts from the moment you first use it. So we waited til 9.30, bought our own off-peak travelcards for the first day, and ended up with a day's free travel after the London passes themselves had expired. In the meantime, we covered large chunks of the city.

Here's a list of the major places we visited: the London Aquarium, Little Venice for a canal trip down to Camden, London Zoo, the Royal Mews (the part of Buckingham Palace where they keep the state coaches), HMS Belfast, St. Paul's Cathedral (access all areas, including the crypt and the dome), Tower Bridge exhibition (which allows you into the towers), Chelsea Physic Garden (founded by Hans Sloane), and Chelsea FC.

We worked out that if we'd paid full price for all that it would have been around £300, so we definitely saved cash. That said, planning is a must; if you are going to get the most out of it you really need to work out an itinerary so you don't have to travel vast distances between the various sights you want to see. Also, in hindsight, it's important to try and do the most expensive stuff first (and of course the stuff you most want to see; we left Kensington Palace til right at the end and they closed early when we turned up so we missed it and my wife was very disappointed).

The scheme has some flaws; it doesn't include all the major sights (like Madame Tussauds, the London Dungeon, and the London Eye; those three operate their own cosy little triumvirate of a scheme). Plus some of the best stuff is just free - you don't have to pay a penny for the National Gallery, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum, or the Natural History Museum, for example. And you'll never pack it all into three days; a six-day pass would have been even more worthwhile as the cost goes down the longer the period you are covered for, and a three-day pass is definitely much better value than just a one-day one.

Moreover, you end up spending more on eating out and entertainments; we probably spent more than we would have otherwise because we took 'advantage', if that's the right word, of money off offers at Wagamama and Queen's Ice and Bowl. Not to mention the Medieval Banquet which is a sub-Monty Python tourist trap with some fairly ropey production values; you get 15% off but it was still over £100 for the three of us. To be fair, the youngest member of the party (aged 10) thought it was brilliant; but the two adults only enjoyed it in an ironic kitsch sort of way, and neither of us left wishing we could go back.

Nevertheless, having road-tested the London Pass for myself, overall it's a great scheme. If you're visiting London for some sightseeing, or know anyone who is, getting one of these is a must. See http://www.londonpass.com/ if you're interested.