Just booked a sort-of last-minute trip to London for late February. The hubs has to go on business, so I'm going, too, on FF miles. We'll arrive early on a Friday morning. He has to work on Saturday. We'll return home on Tuesday.

We've been to London together three other times since summer 2011 and have seen many of the standard sites in the city, but we're open to anything. We've visited Salisbury/Stonehenge three times (mainly because we kept returning to London with folks who hadn't been, and they all wanted to visit Stonehenge.) We've been to Hampton Court Palace. Last February, we had planned to visit Oxford while we were there, but then the rains prevented that.

I think we'll take a day trip outside London on Sunday this time. What would you suggest? Oxford? Bath? Cambridge? Anywhere farther away?

What is your favorite day trip out of London and why?

>> but then the rains prevented that<< Not quite sure why rain would preclude a day trip, but never mind. Oxford would be the easiest - quick express coach from several places in central London or train from Paddington.

we did a day trip by train to Bath which we loved-the beautiful Georgian buildings and history , lovely cafes and the Roman baths . BTW it rained all day but didn't deter us.

Another option would be Windsor. The castle is in the town, which is also very nice to see. Roundtrip is easily done by train.

Well I enjoyed my daytrips to Bath.. both times it was rainy however. There are however a lot of things to see indoors.
At the Baths themselves you are under cover and inside for the visit so rain no big deal. and the museum was very interesting to me.
I also went to the Fashion Museum.. really enjoyed that.. and its indoors.
And finally spent time in the Abbey, I find reading the memorial stones on the inside walls very interesting.

I went to Jane Austen Museum but was too cheap to pay to enter.. not sure why , I blow money pretty easy on vacation but think I only have a very short time before I had to return to my train so I think I felt it wasn't worth paying for a quick run thru.. next time!

Anyways.. Bath is a cute town to wander in.. a stop in a tea house is lovely in bad weather..

"Not quite sure why rain would preclude a day trip"

In early spring 2014, parts of the London-Oxford railway line flooded. More to do with what happened to rain falling on land by Thames tributaries much further upstream than to particularly heavy rain in the area itself.

Services were massively disrupted for a couple of days.

We're still squabbling over how many hundreds of millions to spend on what kind of flood management programme. Nature intended the Thames Valley to be hundreds of islets, getting flooded each spring. That doesn't suit the amount of economic activity that's poured into the area since we drained the islands, Global Weirding has made rainfall more erratic over the past couple of decades, so the Thames Valley seems to get disrupted by floods - in quite unpredictable ways - more often than it used to.

The inter-city road system is further away from the Thames and so less vulnerable: buses kept more reliable services than trains in both the 2008 and 2014 floods.

I vote for Oxford, too!

(Few of my fave choices, sorta in order of preference: Dover, Winchester, Bath (although I've not done that as a "day trip") I've not been to Cambridge or Windsor.)

How about York? Sometimes people say it is 'too far' for a day, but then go on to suggest somewhere that would take even longer! There are very regular trains up the East Coast route to Edinburgh, and some are faster than others. I think the current fastest time from Kings Cross to York is an hour and three quarters.
York is compact, and you can be out of the station and into the heart of the city in minutes.
http://www.visityork.org/
Many people think the trip worth it for the Minster alone, one of the largest and most beautiful Gothic cathedrals in Northern Europe.
However, there's loads of other things to see and do - walking the walls, visiting the Shambles, several excellent museums etc.
There are also two branches of the famous Yorkshire tearooms Bettys in the city where you can get brunch, lunch or afternoon tea and cakes.
http://www.bettys.co.uk/

Cambridge is also a fairly easy day trip from London. However, I could probably never exhaust all the things that there are in London itself.

I reccomend Bath. It is a beautiful city and very small so you can easily see everything in a day. Enjoy!

Thanks, flanneruk, for correctly explaining what I meant.

I always marvel at the way some on these forums nitpick. It really is off-putting.

Yes, it was more than just rain. The rail lines were flooded. We were in London the week of Feb. 10-14 or so, and there were terrible storms. Flooding everywhere. So, if it matters to anyone, we were not able to get to Oxford.

Thank you for the suggestions.

We found Cambridge more interesting than Oxford. Take the Hop On/Hop Off bus tour for orientation and to visit Madingley, the American cemetery for World War II casualties. It's an incredibly moving experience.

On a Sunday, there should also be tours of some of the colleges and maybe even evensong at King's College. There are plenty of places to eat on the high street.

The city is about an hour by train from Kings Cross.

In February I prefer Oxford over Cambridge. More to see indoors. There's the covered market and the Ashmolean Museum in particular. Now if you were traveling on a beautiful spring or summer day, I might opt for Cambridge.

Bath is nice and has a number of good indoor sites, as justineparis points out. Windsor would work too. And York, if you're willing to go that far. Most of the many other options are better seen in better weather.

The more I think about it, the more I favor Bath.

>>I always marvel at the way some on these forums nitpick. It really is off-putting.

Yes, it was more than just rain. The rail lines were flooded. We were in London the week of Feb. 10-14 or so, and there were terrible storms. Flooding everywhere. So, if it matters to anyone, we were not able to get to Oxford. <<

I wasn't nit picking. You only mentioned rain, which IMO wouldn't stop a day trip (you'd be surprised that how many post "Oh no . . . it is supposed to rain next week! What can we possibly do???). I didn't go back in the archives to check the dates of last year's flooding. If You had mentioned the floods or rail disruption, it would have been different -- I simply thought you were put off by some rain. Didn't mean to be snarky -- honest.

Go to Oxford -- it is the easiest and fastest (other than Windsor) and has more than enough great 'stuff' to fill a day trip.

Bath is good -- but it takes twice as long to get there (same w/ York)

I went in 2007, so things may have changed, but I would recommend Oxford as well. One thing you might want to consider is taking the bus rather than the train--if you want cheap train fares, you can't depart until after 09:30, but you can take an earlier bus (like around 7 a.m.) and actually get to Oxford before the first low fare train would depart.

I'm a big Churchill buff, so we wanted to go to Blenheim in the morning, then do Oxford in the afternoon. By taking the bus, we were able to get to Oxford early enough to do this, but it would also be useful if you just want to see Oxford, as there is more than enough there to fill a day.

Not sure if you saw Greenwich during your previous London trips (maybe that's considered "London") but we really enjoyed our visit. It's easy to get there too.

Rain or not.

ukfrey.blogspot.com (look for London under big trips to find the Greenwich photos if interested)

Windsor is an easy day trip from London. I adore Oxford and if you stat early you can see quite a bit but not everything by any means.

Hi KSBEEM,

If you do choose to go to Bath, I would highly recommend the newly renovated HOLBURNE MUSEUM, a short walk along elegant GREAT PULTENEY STREET from the center of town.

Tons of Gainsborough paintings, lovely dinnerware, and artifacts from the Jane Austen period. Cafe and "pleasure gardens" in the rear. Also, the museum is small and "doable" for those on a day trip....