Last Updated on 5 December 2025 by Colette
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Christmas at Kew is “a magical light trail across Kew Gardens” running from mid November to early January. My very lovely friend Cesca knows her stuff when it comes to festive events in London so when she visited last year and offered to share her thoughts and tips with us, I bit her hand off!
You can book tickets for Christmas at Kew 2025 now.
Christmas at Kew – 2022
Hello, it’s me again! After going to Lightopia London the other week, I mentioned to Colette that I was going to Christmas at Kew, and that I would report back with what I thought of this year’s event so people could compare the two offerings.
Christmas at Kew celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, and I think I have been going for 8 of those. I think you can tell from that, that it has become a firm fixture on my Christmas event list – in fact it is now our family tradition to go there in the last week of November as the “official” start of our festive activities.
Here’s what we thought of this year’s Christmas at Kew offering:
If I haven’t got tickets for Christmas at Kew yet, is it too late?
Yes, you can pretty much forget getting Christmas at Kew tickets for 2022, sadly. We booked in August and there were only November and January dates available then.
Is Christmas at Kew easy to get to?
As you’d expect, Kew Gardens is well sign posted and there’s good directions online for most transport types. Parking round there is pretty much non existent, but we parked in the Old Deer Car Park in Richmond then took a bus to the entrance (or you can walk it if feeling energetic – it’s about 15 mins at a brisk pace). But see top tips, below.
How big is the Christmas at Kew trail?
Christmas at Kew is colossal. It’s grown steadily bigger each year and this year it took us 2.5hrs to go round including stopping for food and fairground rides. There were lots of tired legs at the end, mine included! However, it is completely flat and they use the established paths from Kew Gardens meaning it’s concrete all the way round, so distance aside it’s not a taxing walk.
What will I see on the trail?
Around the route are lots of light displays, created by individual artists. This makes the displays very unique but the team curate them so they do all seem to work together! Most are also set to music – some carols, some pop songs and some film soundtracks which really adds to the atmosphere! It changes every year – we love going back to see how they’ve done things differently each year. There’s also lots of info on the route – e.g. website details if you want to find out more about the artists which I think is a nice touch.
Favourite display at Christmas at Kew this year?
Well, the bit we were most excited about was the owl we saw in the tree, but that came of its own accord! Stupidly I didn’t write down any of the names of the displays or the artists (whoops) but the ones I liked most are the ones I’ve shared photos of in the post.
What’s the food like?
I think one of the best things Christmas at Kew have done over the years is get street food guys KERB in to do the food. KERB have a selection of street food stalls in two main food areas – then loads lining the trail route too. There’s the usual street food stalwarts such as burgers, waffles etc along with more unusual choices. Shout out to Cluck chicken for the Cluckmas chicken and fries – they were amazing!
Is Christmas at Kew environmentally friendly?
Now, I’d never include something about this normally but Kew made a real effort this year to explain how it’s trying to make Christmas at Kew more energy friendly and efficient – for example using vegetable oil to power the lights and 75% of the bulbs are LED bulbs. Every little helps, right?
Is Christmas at Kew expensive?
What isn’t expensive in London at the minute? I seem to leave the house and spend £50 every time I breathe these days. Anyway, it’s not cheap but it is standard prices for these sorts of places – we spent about £100 on food and drink for the 5 of us. The rides are £3.50 each which isn’t too bad given they’re old Victorian style funfair rides.
Lightopia London or Christmas at Kew – If I could only go to one which should I go to?
For me it would always be Kew – I really love it and think they try really hard to make it different and better each year. However, I live very close to Kew. When you’re deciding you’ll want to think about how easy it will be to schlep across London with your group etc. If you decide to go to Lightopia you’ll have a lovely evening so there’s no bad choice here!
Top tips for visiting Christmas at Kew
- Sign up for the newsletter and when the early bird tickets come out for Christmas 2023 book as quickly as you can.
- Get the tube or bus. Don’t make your family walk at a brisk pace or your name will be mud, as mine was.
- Book an early slot time so you can go round at a leisurely pace and round more than once if you want to. We could only get 18:30 tickets which I felt was too late.
- The route is circular and they direct you round in one direction to help with crowd flow. It’s so big this year that it’s a good idea to at least look at the route and the food and drink before you go and make a rough plan of attack.
- Similarly, Victoria Gate entrance gets really busy so unless you want a specific food option that’s only located there I’d choose one of the other areas where queues were negligible.
- Buy a mulled wine immediately on arrival. It’s the law at these sort of places, right?
- Expect it to be busy – if crowds aren’t your thing try avoiding weekends or go in January.
- Take a billion photos and use the #ChristmasatKew hashtag when posting them so others can see just how beautiful it is too!
So that’s another year in the bag. As we left we agreed the date we want to attend next year, so I’d call that another successful visit!
Check out these posts next:
Cesca’s review of Lightopia London
Our ultimate guide to Christmas
Festive light trails near Manchester
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