I have a friend that will be making a 3-month trip to Kenya soon. At the end of the trip, she will be coming back to the United States by way of London, and has to stay 5 days there. In attempteing to look up possible accomodations there for her (and her luggage), she discovered that the cheapest she can find is about $400 for the 5 days. My question is this: is that really the lowest price one can pay for a 5-day stay in London, or are those just the only hotels that can be found on the Internet? Hostels are pretty much out, due to the 3 months worth of baggage.
Like all capital cities, London is expensive.
I’m not sure just how much luggage your friend is carrying, but I have stayed at the Civic Guest House, which is just a short way from Heathrow (thus saving on transport).
It is basic, but clean and convenient.
The website:
http://www.civicguesthouse.freeserve.co.uk/accommodation.html#prices
says a single room costs £45-50, which is about $70-80.
I thought this was good value for London.
London isn’t a cheap place but she should be able to get a place for less than $400 for five days.
A good site to find accomodation in London is The Time Out Guide. It has budget catagories and includes information on where else she might look.
I stayed in a hostel most of the time I was in London, but while I was with my tour group we stayed at the Harlingford Hotel in Bloomsbury. It was pretty nice, reasonably priced, and convenient to the Underground and the British Museum. One possible concern, though – it didn’t have an elevator, so all her bags would have to go up and down the stairs.
Thanks for the replies 
The Time Out Guide was particularly useful.
One more question: We were under the impression that staying in a hostel would require her to carry all of her baggage around all the time, but is this not the true? She’s going to have, I think, 2 suitcases and a carry-on type bag. Would she be able to leave them safely in the hostel?
Hostels often have locked luggage rooms (because backpackers often leave large pieces of luggage behind while on day trips elsewhere). It’s not guaranteed protection, but usually reliable.
The hostel I stayed in had rooms with automatically locking doors (although everyone you were sharing the room with naturally had a key), a locker for each bed (bring your own padlock or buy one at the hostel), and a room with some bigger lockers (I believe they cost extra to rent). I put my food and valuables in my locker and just left the rest of my stuff on my bed when I went out during the day. No problems.