London Weekend Trips
 

Hi,
Am based in London and was wondering if I could get suggestions on weekend trips from London. Preference is to go within a few hours driving distance (3-4 hours). No specific preferences though have been to Bath and the Cotswolds. Any recommendations on places to visit and stay one night at are greatly appreciated. Budget for stay would be upto £75-100/night.
Thanks,
Alok

Apart from the usual English subjects - don't for get the eurostar to Paris Lille and Brussells all of which are well worth the trip for a weekend.

Oxford, Cambridge, Salisbury, Winchester, Portsmouth, Southampton, Stratford upon Avon, Stamford, the list goes on....what are your interests? Galleries/museums/restaurants???

Where's Stamford? (I'm not being smart, but the only "stamford" i know is where chelski play football)

Thanks for the quick replies. Have done bits already including Oxford, Cambridge, Stratford upon Avon etc. Pretty countryside would be nice...but am sure that doesn't really narrow it down. What would be your personal favourites. Someone mentioned the New Forest. Would you recommend that part of the country and if so any places to stay and things to do.
Thanks again,
Alok

We are also based in London and day-trip a lot on the weekends. I suggest the book Best Day Trips from London - a Frommers guide. It has 25 places to go - some are worthy of overnights and many are fantastic places to go for the day. Very few are as far as 3-4 hours. Our day-trip favorites include Bath and Cotswolds as you have already visited but also Salisbury/Stonehenge, Windsor, Dover Castle and White Cliffs, Leeds and Hever Castles, Warwick Castle.

The new forest is lovely. beaulieu (apart from being a bugger to spell) is a great place to stay. There's a motor museum there, but don't let that put you off.

York, one of finest English cities and reeks of history - the Minster is one of Europe's great churches.

Whitstable, Southwold, Bournemouth, Weymouth, Penge*, Broadstairs and Rye are all worth a trip.

*possibly not Penge.

AeF: Stamford is a very pretty town just off the A1 in Lincolnshire (used as the location for the TV adaptation of Middlemarch - no doubt they speak of little else over the Bovril at the Lane).

Audere: I am shocked - SHOCKED - that you don't know Stamford :)

Stamford is great - near Rutland Water and w/ a terrific open air Shakespearean theatre company.

AlokG: All off the places mentioned so far are good suggestions. Asking which is a personal favorite is sort of like asking which child is your favorite. I have been to all those and which is my fav would depends on lots of things -- time of year, weather, what I was in the mood for at that time, etc.

But some biggies for me would include:
- Kent/East Sussex (TONS of gardens, Castles, seaside resorts etc)
- Hampshire/the New Forest
- York (by train)
- Edinburgh (by train)
- The castles of North Wales
- Dorset
- and just about any of the others already mentioned . . . .

Stamford? Well I never. I've never heard of it. middlemarch you say? Isn't that by George Bloody elliot?

Whitstable, Dorset, and other south coast reccomendations are excellent ideas.

With a 3-4 hour driving time, you could very easily go to Leeds (which I do in around 2 1/2 hours) up the M1, and explore Yorkshire for a night (or two). Also you could try a night in Manchester. Look further up north/Midlands rather than simply place in the south!