London, day trips and York
 

I plan on going to London for two weeks in mid-May. (This is my first time going abroad alone.)

My plan is to stay in London and make several day trips to fairly close sites.

I have two questions:

1. Are all of these places do-able as day trips from London: Canterbury, Jarrow, Bath?
Please suggest other day-trip possibilities.

2. I want to go to York, but I think that would require an overnight. I need help with this: should I check out of the London hotel and lug all my stuff up to York for one night, or just pay for the London hotel that night even though I won't be there?

Thank you so so much,

Christine in Baltimore, MD

I'm curious why Jarrow

But to answer your questions: Bath, Canterbury and York are all easy day trips from London. Bath is about 90 minuts away by train and York a little over 2 hours.

Bath and Canterbury are very common day trips from London - but York is just as easy since it is a very small, walkable town. All the tourist attractions are within short walks of each other and the train station is right outside the city walls. You could of course do York as an overnighter - but there isn't any reason you couldn't do it as a day trip.

Jarrow is all the way up north near Newcastle.

1a. Canterbury is 90 minutes by train from London Victoria station.

1b. Not sure where exactly Jarrow is, but from some search it should be near Newcastle. If that's the case, it's actually further North than York. And Newcastle is 3 hours by train from London King's Cross station.

1c. Bath is 90 minutes by train from London Paddington station.

2. York is 2 hours by train from King's Cross. So, it's possible to do a daytrip, though I recommend staying overnight. You can pack your stuff, check out of your London hotel, but have them store your stuff for you. Save you the cost of that night of hotel in London, and you don't need to haul it up to York.

If your interest in Jarrow is Bede-related, you really need to base yourself in Durham, and you should try to include Monkwearmouth, Whitby and Lindisfarne in the trip. There's very little medieval at Jarrow any more. The British Library in London has some manuscripts from the monastic complexes on permanent display.

If your interest is in the complexities of English social unrest during the Depression, again there's little to see. The Beamish museum in the area contains some accounts of industrial life.

You can see Durham and get back to London in a day. You can see the outlying places only if you hire a car. The London-Durham train is about the best in the country, but same-day return fares leaving early enough to do what you want to do are very likely to be well over £100. It's almost certtainly cheaper to stay overnight.

One of the most popular day trips is probably Windsor (and Eton). This is closer to London that the ones you already have in mind (40 minutes or so from Waterloo station on the overground train). It probably wouldn't take a full day of your time.

If you are travelling alone maybe you'd like to look into day-trips run by London Walks - look at their Explorer Days - they are a good outfit. When I travel alone I like the occasional coach tour or guided walk, for both the convenience and the company.