Where to Go in 2026: East London’s Olympic Park Has Transformed Into a Cultural Powerhouse

It’s a shiny new year, so this month on Unpacked, we’re diving into Afar’s ⁠⁠⁠⁠Where to Go list⁠⁠⁠⁠: 24 emerging regions and overlooked locales to explore this year.

Like East London, where a billion-pound investment has transformed the 2012 Olympic Park into a creative powerhouse.

In this episode, host Aislyn Greene talks with ⁠Nick DeRenzo⁠, Afar’s editorial director of newsletters (sign up here!) and a self-described Londoner at heart. Nick makes the case for hopping on the Elizabeth line and devoting time to the East Bank cultural quarter, where you can order a David Bowie costume at the V&A East Storehouse, dine on Chinese-Texas barbecue on a canal barge, and sweat it out in a community sauna.

Transcript

Aislyn: I’m Aislyn Greene, and this is Unpacked, the podcast that unpacks the world’s most interesting destinations and the deeper stories behind travel. Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome back. I don’t know about you, but I’m deep in calendaring and planning for 2026, so it makes sense this week that we’re talking about Afar’s Where to Go in 2026 list. If you’ve been listening, you’ve heard all about it. We released our full list of 24 emerging regions and overlooked Cities in December, as well as 8 Unpacked episodes featuring the writers who traveled to and shared our favorite new places.

In this first month of the new year, we have seven final episodes for you, and today I’m talking with my fellow Afarian Nick DeRenzo, our editorial director of newsletters. So before we go any further, of course I have to plug our many newsletters from our podcast newsletter Behind the Mic to our daily Wander newsletter, which offers travel, inspiration, news, everything you need to know to get out into the world and travel well. There’s a link in the show notes to sign up. Okay. And now on to the episode.

Nick is based in New York, but as you’ll soon hear, he’s kind of a Londoner at heart and I like to think of him as a Afar’s cultural cognoscente. He’s the one you go to to talk about TV shows, theatre and even dance. His sister is a dancer, so it made sense that he wrote about East London for our where to go list, because East London is where the 2012 Olympic Games were held and post‑Olympics. Nothing much happened here for years, but thanks to a billion‑pound investment plan from London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the city has transformed the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park into the East Bank Cultural Quarter. In this episode, Nick convincingly makes a case for hopping on the tube and devoting time to this creative powerhouse where you can do everything from order an object like an Elton John costume at the V&A East Storehouse, dine on Chinese‑Texas‑style barbecue, sweat it out in a not‑for‑profit community sauna and dance the night away at a Black‑owned queer venue. It’s very cool. Plus, Nick fills us in on what’s coming in 2026, aka his 2026 London checklist.

Nick, welcome to Unpacked. So lovely to see you.

Nick: Thanks so much. It’s so good to be here.

Aislyn: And you’re wearing an Afar sweatshirt today, which I appreciate. So you’re in New York, but we’re here to talk about London, which is a city I love but have not spent enough time in. So can you first tell me about your relationship with it? Like, are you a Londoner at heart, would you say?

Nick: I am a big‑time Londoner at heart, and I think it has to do a lot with the fact that I am a New Yorker. I feel like when I’m traveling, half of my trips are trying to escape New York and half of them are trying to, like, recreate what I love about New York. And so when I go to London, I’m essentially doing my New York life with a different accent, you know?

And so I try to go to London probably once or twice a year, usually centered around some kind of theater show or a museum exhibit or something. And I think as a result of that, I’ve tried to live more like a local when I’m there, so I spend a lot of my time out in the neighborhoods as opposed to in the tourist corridor. And that’s kind of how I stumbled upon these neighborhoods that I was excited to write about for the Where to Go package.

Very broadly speaking, I will say that I keep getting drawn eastward in London. So I worked for a company that was based in Shoreditch a bunch of years ago, and so I had to be in Shoreditch quite a bit. And as that kind of gets more and more commercialized, I’m drawn to places like Bethnal Green and Dalston and Hackney and now Stratford and the surrounding areas.

Aislyn: Okay, so we are talking about East London and I know that before we started this conversation, you were like, I really don’t want to be skewered by Londoners for any geographical mistakes. But if you had to very, very roughly orient us in terms of this East London part that we’re talking about today, what would you say?

Nick: I can do that. Yeah. I will preface it by saying that London geography, like New York geography, is very complicated. And there are places that are called boroughs and districts and neighborhoods and towns and hamlets. And so I’ll probably get something wrong that a Londoner will complain about later. But broadly speaking, we’re centered around this area called Stratford. So that’s Stratford within London, not Stratford upon Avon. You know, Shakespeare’s hood. It’s about 3 miles east‑northeast of Shoreditch. If you know that area, and if you look on a map, it looks a bit far out of the center. But because of the Elizabeth line that opened a couple of years ago, it’s only about like a 19‑minute direct shot from Paddington station. So it’s actually like pretty close to the heart of it. Yeah. And it’s centered around Stratford International, which when you get out of the Elizabeth line, you’re presented with this giant and not particularly beautiful train station next to a giant and not particularly beautiful bus station, next to a giant and not particularly beautiful shopping center. And so you might see it and go like, why is Afar sending me here?

Aislyn: Yes. Good to preface.

Nick: You have to just wander a bit beyond that. And so one of the main hubs is the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. So that was built for the 2012 Summer Olympics, purpose built area on a brownfield site that had a lot of the venues for the Olympics. And that’s kind of the center of what’s being reborn as a new cultural corridor called the East Bank right now. And then beyond that, there are I would call like these micro neighborhoods. So there’s an area called Fish Island, which I believe is not an island, but it’s this post‑industrial warehouse district that sits along a canal towpath. And then beyond that, there’s Hackney Wick, which is not to be confused with traditional Hackney, also on the canal, filled with very cool community initiatives. But yeah, it’s an area that rewards wandering and rewards a little bit of an adventurous spirit, I would say.

Aislyn: I love that, I love that you’d have to push past that maybe initial, like, what am I doing here? Why? Why did this?

Nick: I mean.

Aislyn: Because.

Nick: Exactly. Like you’ll see Costa Coffee and H&M and Zara and you’ll be like, this is not very Afar-ish feeling, but there’s quite a bit cool going on within a 15 minute walk, say from that main hub.

Aislyn: Yeah. Well, so you in your story, you wrote that Mayor Sadiq Khan invested more than a billion pounds to create that new cultural quarter that you called the East Bank. So can you tell us a little bit more about what that is and the kind of the entities that came together to create it? Because it sounds amazing.

Nick: Yeah, it’s so impressive. I mean, it’s essentially building a cultural corridor from scratch. I think if you think about this in the context of other Olympic host cities, you will often be a city, will spend millions of dollars on infrastructure and then be left with all these buildings that are just unwieldy and unused. And I think that London, rightfully so, wanted to make a neighborhood that is both appealing to locals who live in London, but then also draw people out away from the overtouristed center. And so I think a big part of that is making these marquee must visit cultural institutions out in this eastern part.

So it started last January. I would say one of the first big openings was the Sadler’s Wells East, which is Sadler’s Wells. If you’re not a dance fan, my sister’s a dancer, so I always end up looking at dance when I’m in different cities. It’s this the main non‑ballet dance theatre in London, closer to the centre, and the idea is to democratize what we think of as dance worth seeing. So you might see Sri Lankan folk dance or krumping or breakdancing. I saw actually Mel C, Sporty Spice from the Spice Girls, do a contemporary dance show there. So that’s kind of what we’re dealing with. Um, so they in January 2025, opened, Sadler’s Wells East outpost.

Next up came the V&A East Storehouse. So the Victoria and Albert Museum is on the west side of London, very posh quarters dedicated to decorative arts. And they’ve been opening these satellite museums around the UK, The V&A Storehouse came first. It is wildly untraditional, so you walk into it and it kind of looks like a architecture. Critics have compared it to an IKEA. It looks like just behind glass, endless rows of disorganized chaos in a beautiful way. So there’s 250,000 objects there, and they range from 16th century porcelain to like samurai swords to hunting rifles, to David Bowie costumes to Elton John’s glasses. It’s truly everything that you can imagine all in one spot. One of the coolest things that’s there is, uh, I think it’s the largest piece ever painted by Picasso. It’s the backdrop of a or the curtain of a theater or something. Very cool. But their approach to the museum going experience is also very cool. So they have this project called Order an Object, which is before you go to the museum, you sign on to their catalogue. Similar to looking through the public library catalog, find items that you want to experience and put them in your cart, and then set up a time schedule a time with a curator or someone who works at the museum. And then when you show up, they just have them ready to look at.

Aislyn: That’s wild. And is there like.

Nick: Super cool.

Aislyn: A curator explaining it or is and do you get you don’t get to touch them. Right.

Nick: I don’t know honestly. Yeah I know. I’m not sure because it’s the program started after I was there. I think if you do, hopefully you get put in gloves. I think I’ve seen pictures of people with gloves. But yeah, it’s very much like to me it’s comparable to if you’ve ever been to like a zoo, where they have kind of a hands on experience and they bring out like a hedgehog or something, it feels like that you’re like in this little side room with objects that are hundreds of years old being taken out exclusively for you. It’s so, so cool. I think it’s like one of the most customizable, nerdy, personalized museum experiences you could have anywhere in the world at the moment. They’re also opening the V&A East, which will be a more traditional museum experience dedicated to East London design and culture in April 2026, and then in 2027, the BBC Music Studios will be moving to the area, and they’re also joining a couple of college campuses that have moved in. So there’s like it’s the new home of the London College of Fashion, for example. So a lot of really smart, creative people are kind of flooding into this area now.

Aislyn: So with all these new openings, then I would expect that you’re also starting to see more people move there, and then coffee shops and restaurants and all the things that tend to pop up as neighborhoods evolve.

Nick: Yeah, I think, and that’s worth talking about. I think obviously when you’re talking about the changing face of a neighborhood in a city of this size, gentrification is going to be an important topic to consider. And I don’t think we should shy away from thinking about that because it’s not quite the same as some other neighborhoods, because we’re dealing with disused Olympic buildings and brownfield sites. But there is, of course going to have an impact on things like rent and accessibility. So I think it’s worth keeping in mind when you’re considering which businesses to go to while you’re visiting. But there is quite a bit of locally owned businesses in this area. So, for example, I went to a place called ⁠Badu Café when I was there, a Black‑owned coffee shop that’s run by a community non‑profit that uses athletics to inspire youth, which is pretty cool.

There’s also this venue that just opened called Coven, so it’s a Black‑owned queer venue that has like club nights, live music performances, and it’s I’ve seen it referred to as the first of its kind. The first permanent queer, Black‑owned space in London opened since the 1970s, which is wildly impressive. Um, and then there’s also color. It’s it’s sad. I’m glad that it exists, though, and in an area with a changing face. It’s great to know that there. Yeah, that there’s just like this groundswell of local neighborhood involvement in the cool venues there, too. I think it’s important to remember what the neighborhood or with an area like this, there’s kind of institutional level change where you’re seeing places like the V&A open up an outpost, but there’s also just on the ground, cool people who live and work in the area who want to just make it better for the people who live and work in the area. And so if you can tap into that energy, I think that’s where the magic kind of happens.

Aislyn: Yeah. Are there any other restaurants that you felt like allow you to tap into that, or tap into the people who are kind of trying to craft that?

Nick: I think, yeah, there’s definitely along the canal in Hackney Bridge which is like an incubator space on the site of an old candy factory. And then across the canal from that, there are a couple of really cool restaurants. There’s a place called Silo, which is a zero waste restaurant. So everything all the scraps get fermented and used in different quirky ways. There is a really cool cocktail bar on a barge there. There’s another place called Barge East that sits on a barge, so it’s really all centered around the canal. There’s a barbecue joint that is East Asian flavors meets Texas barbecue. Quite a few places where you could spend an afternoon there, almost doing a little bit of a progressive dining tour and getting snacks as you go along the canal.

Aislyn: I love that. Did you stay there? Could you stay there? Are there hotels?

Nick: I did stay there. Yeah. So I actually stumbled upon this area first while reporting in an affordable London hotel piece for Afar. And there is a Moxy London Stratford out by that train station that I was mentioning is kind of nondescript and boring and the Moxy is, you know, the Moxy is a brand that I come back to a lot when I’m traveling internationally because it’s so it’s always so affordable. I think I stayed there for something like $85 a night, which in London feels like a complete steal. And, you know, it’s not like filled with frills or amenities, but it’s a perfect place to sit. I was a freelance writer at the time when I was traveling, so to sit with my laptop and get work done around other people. But there’s also the Stratford, which is a part of the Autograph Collection, and then the Gantry, which is a part of the Curio Collection by Hilton. So you have some options for sure. And those would all be within, you know, fifteen, twenty minute walk of all these places that I’m talking about.

Aislyn: Amazing. Yeah, I like that idea of being able to base yourself there and really spend a couple of days, I mean, maybe more than a couple of days. Are there other things that you’re excited about in 2026, or that you want to do on your next trip that you didn’t get to do on the first one?

Nick: So I love London in the winter time. It feels so untapped and empty, but you kind of have to have an appetite for like the risk, because I’ve had times when I’ve gone to London in the winter and I’ve been sitting outside with my laptop, drinking iced tea, working in the shade of a tree, and then other times it’s just like misty and rainy and horrible. You go into it knowing that, but also having these kinds of areas all to yourself with no tourists around is really appealing to me.

Um, but all of which is to say that in 2026, when I go back, I would like to go when it’s beautiful out so that I could be, you know, strolling along the canal under blossoming trees and not worrying about it snowing, potentially. Um. There is. Yeah. But beyond what I’ve already talked about, there’s like a community sauna bath, which is really cool, that has a couple of outposts out there and people go soak, like, almost feels like a Scandinavian sauna vibe. I want to go to some of these restaurants that I missed in and around the barges. And definitely I need to do this Order an Object program. I should mention V&A East Storehouse is also home to the David Bowie Centre, which is like Bowie’s archives, and I’ve heard that those objects will also be incorporated into the Order an Object program, which is so cool. Yeah. So all things to do the next time I’m there. And yeah, I mean, I didn’t stay at the Gantry or the Stratford, but they’re beautiful and I think that they would make a really great home base.

Aislyn: Well you incorporated a lot of advice for travelers there. And I know you love London, for example, in the winter, but are there any other times of the year you recommend or any other advice you’d share with wannabe Londoners?

Nick: The seasonality is always interesting to me. I think people who go to London have very different experiences based on where they situate themselves, and so I’ve had friends who have gone and stayed in some of the more royal adjacent areas and have felt that it’s a little bit impenetrable or that it’s a little overly posh or polished. And I think you have to kind of know what kind of traveler you are before you make the decision of which neighborhoods you want to spend your time in, because it’s a country’s worth of coolness, you know, it’s squeezed into a very tight space. And if you go and you’re not a Hyde Park kind of person, and that’s where you’re staying, you’re kind of missing the point. Like you’re missing all the contemporary culture that you could be engaging in. So I think just do your research. I’m sure we have lots of neighborhood guides on Afar.com that could lead you in the right direction.

Aislyn: We’ll link out to all of them.

Nick: Yes, exactly, exactly. But yeah, I would say also, if there’s a concern about overtourism or or crowds, you have one of two choices, which is come when people aren’t there, which would be the winter, or just go to the places where tourists are not venturing. And as I said, the tube makes it so easy and the buses make it so easy that you kind of have no excuse to not be finding a corner of London that’s right for you, because there are so many different entry points.

Aislyn: I love it. Well, thank you so much, Nick. I really appreciate your time and your Londoner at heart expertise.

Nick: Thanks so much for having me.

Aislyn: Thank you so much for joining this special Where to Go episode. In the show notes, we’ve included all the links to places that Nick recommended, as well as his social handles, and we’ve included links to all past Where to Go episodes. So happy listening, happy planning and happy travels. We’ll see you tomorrow for our last episode of the series.