To go abroad for one day?

Empty flights still flew during covid to keep slots open

We used to do regular day trips to France. Loved them.

Ive been to Amsterdam and Barcelona for a day go fof it

Some from myself & family

I know people who fly to Iceland, go to the Blue Lagoon hot spa, lunch, then fly home the same day

Also
Ferry, Dover, Dunkirk, drive to Belgium for duty free & back again

Also
Fly Heathrow, train to Amsterdam & back

Also
Ferry John O Groats to Orkney, coach tour round & back

Ferry from mainland Scotland to Outer Hebrides, drive & ferry back from a different departure point on the islands

Ferry from mainland England to Scilly isles, coach tour round isles & back

Train London to Dundee & back in one day

Maybe when I was younger I could get on board with this, but these days I couldn't be arsed with dealing with airports for the sake of only one day.

Amsterdam has come up a lot because of how quick the flight is but there is certainly plenty to do in Amsterdam that justifies spending more than a day there.
I could see it as a fun novelty thing to do, but it does sound like doing it for a novelty rather than the actual joy of exploring somewhere properly.

Dh and I once went to Brussels for the day with 2 other people. Had a lovely day.

Got some Christmas shopping in. Also flew to Glasgow for the day with work colleagues again it was a great day. This was probably at least 15/18 years ago.

The excuse of the eco-denyer

Do all you eco zealots check where your out-of-season fruit/veg has come from or your rubbish purchases from Amazon? They don't arrive in the UK on a magic carpet or a wind-powered container ship. I'm as careful as can be to avoid green beans from Kenya or cheap polyester from China so taking the odd empty seat on a flight to Europe doesn't dent my conscience.

I don’t buy the “having children is bad for the planet” argument. Unless you’re such a radical environmentalist you think we should sacrifice the entire human species to save the planet, having kids is fairly essential to humanity’s continuation. It’s not optional at the population level We’re already heading for a population crisis due to plummeting birth rates (who is going to pay for all the old people?).

Comparing having children to taking a flights for a nice lunch and a couple of hours sunshine is totally laughable, sorry.

Doh! Still go for it. If no delays it will be fine, especially if you pick somewhere with easy airport travel at the destination (eg Salzburg, Leipzig, Bratislava, Jerez, Paris, Seville to name but a few).

Dh has done it more than once, for an exhibition or a concert in Paris or Berlin. We do live in outer London though - fairly handy for both Eurostar and Heathrow or London City airport.

That’s like saying “eating meat is bad for the planet but it doesn’t matter if I buy steak in the supermarket because that cow is already dead”. That’s not how supply and demand works.

And I hate the “but there’s someone else doing something worse than me” argument. “What’s the harm in me throwing a crisp packet on the ground when other people are fly tipping mattresses?”. Take some personal responsibility.

I don’t think we all need to give up flying completely or anything radical but deciding to take an “extreme day trip” dwarfs most other day-to-day decisions in terms of environmental impact.

Many years ago, there was a company based in Bournemouth called Bath Travel. They used to do various day trips using their own flight company with one plane, Palmair. Lord Bath used to stand by the departure gate saying good trip to every passenger

My wife and I did Venice for the day, this gave us the taste and we stayed in Venice many times.

My favourite was a day trip to Cairo. My wife had to be careful where she went so she booked Cairo for me as fascinated by Egyptian history. Left Bournemouth Airport 5am. Went to the Cairo museum, coach tour of Cairo (dirty), spent time at the Pyramids at Giza, went down inside a pyramid, and the area around the Sphinx. Back to Bournemouth by midnight. Saw all the bits I needed to. Wonderful memories.

I seem to recall that the last time we flew from Bournemouth. Lord Bath's son was resurrecting Bath Travel. Not quite the same, though.

Slightly different, but my wife and I did many weekend trips to the States. Both Washington and New York. First flight out Friday morning, last flight home Sunday evening. Very full on, but worth it each and every time.

I'm currently doing over 2 weeks on Ryanair (paid for) hand luggage. I have friends who reckon they can't do a week without checked luggage and after this trip I honestly can't see how it can be necessary.

In my head it sounds great but I think the getting to and from.both airports then getting around, then possible delays mean I wouldn't do it for the few hours I had

Go for it. We went to Belgium for waffles.
Flew at 6am, returned at 5 30. Cost us less than £100 each all in.
Keep looking for another spur of the moment trip but so far the flight timings aren't in our favour, but definitely still looking.

"But the carbon cost of individuals doing this a couple of times a year is dwarfed by weekly business travel, flying tat produced in mega factories all over the world, people having children - the annual carbon cost of a monthly return flight to New York is less by far than having even one child, so if people are expected to pay for the carbon cost of flying, they need to also pay the cost of other life choices. "

And don't forget the private jets used by the rich many, many times over the year.
100's of private jets even flew into cop28, for goodness sake.

I think it sounds awful. You'd have to be up at the crack of dawn, barely have worked out where everything is, and then have to go home again. Plus I think flying somewhere close enough for a day trip is really irresponsible environmentally.

I'd stick to somewhere within train reach or else at least make it a long weekend.

I'd do it in winter when the airport is quiet, you can just walk through then, but at this time of year there's queues so you have to arrive 90 minutes before departure at least. I'm only 25 minutes from airport and can park free (shhh) 5 minutes walk away on a country lane and use the back entrance, still not sure why others don't, so apart from possible queues it's quicker than the train to London to fly to Amsterdam or Dublin or Edinburgh or Paris.

The logic breakdown here is hilarious.

The UK accounts for 1% of global emissions. Sorry to say, but in the grand scheme of things, personal impact is very negligible. Until the US and China, and large corporations step up, there is very little that any of us can do.

I've been abroad for one day - often for work, but also on a day out. It is tiring, as the early flight means a very early start time. You tend to arrive long before the tourist things start (but the next flight, if there is one, may be much later and make it not worthwhile), you WILL hit a point where you want to fall in a heap for a nap, you feel you need to pack in a whole weekend of tourist things in 12-15 hours to make it worthwhile, you can't enjoy a relaxed dinner as you need to get back to the airport, and definitely can't do a show/theatre etc for the same reason, you don't have time for shopping really and it's hard to carry bags around all day....

But you can go see somewhere you might want to and don't want to spend a full weekend in, it's cheaper because you aren't paying for a hotel as well, you might have a glass of wine with dinner but because you're getting a flight you can't have a tonne of alcohol so saving on that too etc.

Personally, the day trip one was that we'd already paid for the flights for a wedding that was cancelled, so we went anyway. It was fun but exhausting.

And I do too many red eye trips for work anyway (was on the last flight last night but at least this is a few days so my red eye is not until Monday, but I have 2 full days of meetings and conferences before I get a weekend with my family (I am posted abroad at the moment and family couldn't come with me - but I've always had a lot of trips involving either late evenings to get dinner in the airport, hotel literally to have a shortened sleep, meetings all day, late night flight home with dinner in the airport again and another shortened sleep and back to office early, or occasionally having the flights not available so having to red eye over and back that night and hope my meeting notes make sense all day).

We did it quite a few times, didn't fly,so not a big impact on the environment,we took the Eurostar. My late father used to go to Belgium monthly.

What do you mean by it's a fairly basic concept... It's a fact the plane is going anyway. You can harp on about encouragement of day trips as much as you want but the plane IS going anyway because there will be many passengers booking that flight for many different reasons. You are talking about a world where everyone makes a choice based on not getting a plane to stop demand so planes fly less.. you're not in the really world if you think this is life.

If I was close to Stansted I'd be doing Ryanair somewhere for weekends at least once a month. I love to travel, always find cheap flights and travel with a sub-1kg bag for a week.

Never thought about a day trip, sounds great! We have free lounge passes too so we would only need to buy lunch 😎

Once drove to Serbia for dinner (from Bulgaria) and Macedonia for a beer.

I don't care about my carbon footprint if I'm honest, the whining is probably coming from a lot of hysterical hand wringing virtue signalling people with their flown-in asparagus, mangos, strawberries etc in the fridge who drive far more mikes in a newer and larger vehicle than I do. Let he who is without sin...