Day trips from London
 

My husband & I will be in London for 8 days and would like to do one or two daytrips. Where should we go and should we rent a car or join a bus tour? One daytrip we are considering is to Stonehenge & Bath. Any ideas or advice would be very appreciated!

Hello Annie,<BR><BR>Several bus companies offer a Stonehenge/Bath tour. The going rate is about &pound;50.00 pp.<BR> <BR>www.evanevans.co.uk<BR>www.goldentours.co.uk<B R>www.straytravel.com (small group tours)<BR>www.grayline.com<BR>www.visitorsightseei ng.co.uk<BR><BR>You could probably do this cheaper by car.<BR><BR>Hope this helps ...<BR><BR>Steve<BR>

If you do a search at the top of the page on Bath & Stonehenge or Day Trips from London and select United Kingdom you will get a long detailed discussion on day trips and how to get there.<BR><BR>To answer your question though I would choose Bath as a nice day trip and go by train. There's lots to see and do there and you won't need to hire a car or be rushed on a tour.

I agree with the above poster. Do the search and you'll find lots of great suggestions and plenty of sometimes heated debate about the best mode of transport.<BR><BR>My choice would be daytrips from London by train. Plenty of options there. I don't like bus tours and time involved to pick up/drop off a car for only one day would eat heavily into your touring time.<BR><BR>Have fun

Besides the obvious short day trips to Hampton Court Palace or Windsor Castle, some of the best are: Bath, Oxford/the Cotswolds, Canterbury, Salisbury/Stonehenge. Each (except the Cotswolds) is easy by train from London.<BR><BR>Oxford is a good day trip but to really see much in the Cotswolds you would need to rent a car. All the others can be done with cheap day return train tickets and not have to stick to the rushed tour schedules. <BR><BR>York is another possibility - get an early start and you could be there before 10AM, have 8 or 9 hours in York and be back in London by 9PM

Since this question is asked almost daily on this board you can get plenty of suggestions by doing a search. I would not even think about renting a car in London, take the train for day trips, it's easy, inexpensive and efficient (usually). Driving in London is not that simple, parking is not easy to find, streets are narrow, one way in many places etc. Plus you would be driving on the left, if you are not used to it don't try and learn in one of the largest cities in the world. You can go to Bath, Cambridge, Canterbury, Oxford, Warwick Castle, etc. etc. etc. The possibilities are endless. Stonehenge is not so easy to get to yourself however, so I'd recommend a tour for that (and I'm not a tour person myself). A friend went last year and used EvansEvans tours and it was fine. It's really very simple to put together a day trip for yourself to any of the major sites however with only 8 days I'd concentrate more on London. There is so much to see there that you can fill up your time very easily and still not have scratched the surface. We go every year and still find new and different things to do/see. Without too much advance planning you could go out to Hampton Court via train too - it's only 30 min. via train from Waterloo Station and well worth it.

Depending upon how far you want to go for a daytrip, all the following are accessible by train. About 2 hours away is Cardiff & Caerphilly Wales. Dover on the east coast. Portsmouth on the south is about an hour to 1 1/2 hrs away. Warwick is doable. Closer in to London is Windsor & Greenwich (can do this by boat). If you make it out by Stonehenge - the Salisbury cathedral is also worth a visit, as is Old Sarum. Even though it is farther away & you can't really do it justice in a day, I have done Edinburgh as a daytrip(sort of) from London -- do Greenwich or Windsor during the day -- then catch an overnight train to Edinburgh, walk around & visit the sites & catch a train back to London about 3pm or 4pm, & get back to London sometime that evening. Other posters may have more places to suggest.

We took a bus trip to Bath & Stonehenge. Bath is a wonderful city, but the next time I go I will travel by train from London. The bus trip did not allow you enough time to explore the city.

Hi Annie,<BR><BR>Just got back from London a couple weeks ago and took several day trips. Took the train (cheap day return ticket) to Bath, Windsor, Canterbury (not all on the same day, of course :)),<BR>the Dockland Light Railway to Greenwich (like the tube but above ground), and took a tour of Stonehenge/Avebury with Astral Travels (www.astraltravels.co.uk.) You can also take a boat to Greenwich or Hampton Court (wanted to get there but didn't have the time!)<BR><BR>Patti

My wife and I spent 9 days in London about 2 years ago. We booked a one day trip to Paris on www.visitorsightseeing.com. The trip uses the "Chunnel" high speed train. You get to Paris about 10:00 am and leave about 6:00pm. The trip is a bit pricey but we may never get another chance to go to Paris. We also did the Leeds, Cantebury, Dover daytrip which was very nice. We then did Warwick on our own. I tried to do a trip with Astral Travels but had some major problems with them. I hope this helped.

Sooooo easy to do a daytrip to Bath from Paddinton. Then there is a Guide Friday, hop on,hop off bus. It's a no brainer. To go to Stonehenge do a daytrip to Salisbury and then that a public bus out to the site, but I really think it's a great disappointment.

I was in London last month and did following day trips:<BR>1) Stonehedge//Salisbury with astral travels - Salisbury Cathedral amazing and worth a visit.<BR>2) Bath by myself, easy to reach from Paddington<BR>3)Leeds/Canterbury with Golden tours. Loved Leeds, but felt like they did not give us enough time<BR>4) Oxford/Stratfor with Astral tours. Felt like I should have go for a whole day in Oxford, but with the guide. I believe, that London Walks have an explorer day for that.<BR>5) Windsor/Hampton Court - with Golden Tours. Guide was really good, but still would rather spend the whole day in Hampton Court.<BR>Tour <BR>Astral tours were better, but very unreliable. They did give me 50% discount, after they failed to pick me up.<BR>It was my first time in London,

I took a tour to Bath, Salisbury, and Stonehenge in one day. I very much enjoyed Bath and Salisbury cathedral. Stonehenge didn't make an impression on me frankly. I would just go to Bath for the whole day so you get enough time there. It's a loverly city with lots of things to see. You can easily get there by rail.

Thank you all for the excellent suggestions, links and valuable information! We will definitely take a train trip to Bath on one of our days.

Annie,I like seeing Oxford, an easy coach trip from London. It's a small town with lovely old schools and easy access to the river.There are two 24-hour coach services that go there. You can board at Marble Arch. http://www.stagecoach-oxford.co.uk