Top day trips from London — 5 best day trips from London you should make

Day trip from London? Why not? Unlike other European tourist cities, London has a convenient location and is close to many world famous tourist attractions. If you are planning a trip to travel to London, you should definitely not miss these day trips to have the opportunity to see the thousands of years old cultural sites of England. So, where to take a day trip out of London? Let’s check out our suggested top day trips from London with 5 best day trips from London by train or car for you refer to.

Top day trips from London: Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle is located 33km to the west of London. This is one of the three main residences of the Queen of England today. This castle is often used by the Queen of England as a weekend retreat. On important occasions such as the knighthood ceremony, receiving the visit of the royal family and heads of state often take place here.

With an area of ​​​​nearly 45,000 m2, this famous London tourist attraction is the largest castle in the world that still exists today and still has people living there. Windsor can be considered the most convenient place to visit if you want to take a day trip from London because it is very close to the center of the capital. If you only have half a day to come here, it is still possible to make a trip.

Windsor Castle Afternoon Tour from London

Address: Windsor SL4 1NJ, United Kingdom
Hours: 10AM–5:15PM/Tuesday, Wednesday: Closed
Construction started: 1070

Best day trips from London: Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monument near Amesbury England and about 140km from London. Archaeologists believe that these stone pillars were erected between 2500-2000 BC although the surrounding earthen rings were built earlier, around 3100 BC.

This area and the surrounding area was recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1986. This place is always in the top day trips from London voted by most tourists because any tourist is also curious about the monumental stone pillars which dating back to thousands of years old.

Stonehenge Ticket in Salisbury

This place always attracts millions of visitors each year because Stonehenge is one of the most mysterious places on the planet. To this day, it is not clear who erected those large rocks, and for what purpose.

The structure consists of 30 vertical giant stone blocks (25 tons each, around 4.1 meters high) from Mount Prezeli, located about 200 km from Stonehenge and how the ancients were able to move these blocks here. There are many theories that it was the aliens who participated in the construction of Stonehenge.

Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath Day Tour from London

Address: Salisbury SP4 7DE, United Kingdom
Hours: 9:30AM–5PM

Top day trips from London: Bath

Bath is the oldest city in England in Somerset in southwestern England and about 180km from London. The city was built by King Bladud in 863 BC. This is a city famous for its ancient charm beauty with many unique attractions and places to visit such as Thermes Romains – The Roman Baths, Bath Abbey Cathedral, Pulteney Bridge, Royal Victoria Park…

Usually, visitors often combine Bath and Stonehenge in one trip because these two places are close to each other and are on one route to London. These 2 places are often chose as the 2 most popular day trips from London.

Best day trips from London: Oxford

Oxford is located 80 kilometers to the west of London, on the banks of the River Thames. Known as a highly educated city with over 43% of the population having graduated from university and post-graduated compared to other cities in the UK.

In addition, the city of Oxford is also famous for Oxford University, one of the oldest and most reputable universities in the world today. Because of this, it has become an university to train many talents in the world, including 25 British prime ministers, 6 kings, 46 Nobel laureates, and many other scientists, politicians.

The Oxford University includes 36 members of schools and colleges, meeting the learning and research of more than 14,000 students. Coming here, you will have the opportunity to witness firsthand the true student life with many libraries and research projects.

Some prominent places in Oxford:

Christ Church College (Address: St Aldate’s, Oxford OX1 1DP, United Kingdom): This is one of the largest colleges of Oxford University. With its ancient and mysterious beauty, Christ Church was chosen as one of the main exteriors for the Harry Potter movie series. This place has trained a lot of talents for Britain, especially among them are 13 British Prime Ministers.

The Bodleian Library (Address: Broad St, Oxford OX1 3BG, United Kingdom/Hours: 10AM–5PM): One of the oldest libraries in Europe and opened in 1602 with the largest volume of books in the world – 12 million volumes.

Oxford University Museum of Natural History (Address: Parks Rd, Oxford OX1 3PW, United Kingdom/Hours: 10AM–5PM): This is considered a scientific research center at the University of Oxford where collections of geological and animal specimens are kept. The most prominent of them are the Oxfordshire, Dodo dinosaurs.

Top day trips from London by train: Paris – Amsterdam – Brussels

The distance from one of these three capitals to London fluctuates in the range of more than 400km. If you take the bus from London on a day trip is definitely impossible because the travel time of each way is more than 6 hours.

However, between these capitals, there is a Eurostar train that runs quite fast with a traveling time of only about 2 hours. This will definitely be the most suitable choice if you want to know more about the magnificent capital of France or Belgium, the Netherlands. Click on each name to read detailed travel guide articles of these cities.

There are quite a few day tours to these cities with prices ranging from £70-100 for 2-3 locations. You can go by yourself or buy a tour. I find that going to each place separately, the train and bus tickets are also quite complicated and also very expensive, so I think buying a tour will be more profitable.

For example, to go from London to Stonehenge, you need to change bus, train for 2-3 times… and go to other places, too. After searching for information about the way to travel for a while, I decided to buy a tour to save time. Because at least with the tour, they have their own car, so they will arrange a reasonable travel time, going on your own way, you have to watch the travel time of many different routes.

Advice before take these top day trips from London

Among the above locations, the most suitable travel will be as follows:

• Combining Stonehenge and Bath: Spend one day to going to these two places is quite comfortable.
• Combining 3 tourist sites of Windsor, Stonehenge and Bath: Windsor is not located in the same direction as the other 2 places, so the travel will take longer. To visit all these 3 places, you need take a 12-hour tour with a travel time of at least 6 hours. Going this way is a bit rushed, but if you don’t have much time and don’t want to miss Windsor Castle, take this tour.
• Oxford can be combined with the above places or go separately in 1 day. Personally, I recommend you should stay here leisurely for a full day. You can easily take the bus/train here and visit the colleges, libraries and museums in Oxford or buy a guided tour package.
• Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels: With a travel time of about 4h30 minutes, you will have more than half a day to visit the above cities. If you decide to take a day trip from London, you can only “look at the flowers while passing on horseback”, but it is difficult to explore all of them. I recommend you to stay 2 more nights instead of going back to London during the day.

Some of the most popular day trip packages from London:

• Day trip from London : Windsor Castle Tour, Stonehenge, Bath costs £75 a day. You can book tickets online here.
• Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, Oxford Tour costs £48 excluding admission and £80 including admission. You can book tickets online here.

Some best day tours, trips, activities and transfer services, tickets in, from and to London you can refer to

• Shared London Airports (LHR, LGW, STN, LTN, LCY) Transfers to/from Central London
• Private London Heathrow Airport (LHR) Transfers for London
• Tower of London Ticket
• London Pass with 1 Day Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
• London Eye Ticket
• Madame Tussauds London Ticket
• Westminster Abbey Ticket
• London Visitor Oyster Card
• London Travelcard
• London Explorer Pass
• London Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Tours (Open-Top)

Are you looking for more top things to do in London: Tours, activities, attractions and other things? Let’s check it out here. And Where should I go in London? — 21 top famous places to go, see & best places to visit in London.