How far are you willing to travel for a day out?

[MsWalterMitty]

I love in the countryside with lots of windy roads and very poor public transport links.

I wonder whether my thinking is skewed due to the windy roads. But for a typical day out with the kids, say on a normal weekend I am happy to drive up to 45 mins in the car to a destination... this is approx 15 miles due to the roads. So I’d say less than 20 miles is my norm.

Anything more than that would be a special occasion/very rare. Bit anything more than 30 miles I would want to be stopping over!

It's a 20 mile round trip to my closest supermarket!
We will go up to 3 hours each way for a day trip, although would rather it be closer to 2.5hrs. We always end up with very long days but have lots of lovely trips out

About 45mins to an hour normally, more for something really special.

But we're only about 5 mins from an M6 junction so we can go a long way.

Not on summer/bank holiday weekends though, we stay local for those!

What?!

I travel over an hour in one direction to work in London.

Poor little cherubs who can't drive more than 15 miles or 45 mins

For an average day trip, I think 40 mins-1 hour max is prob right for us. If it was something really special, we would go further, but it would have to be a very special thing. Parents are 2.5 hours away and we would always stay over. Five hours of driving in one day with a toddler is too much if it can be avoided, I think.

For an afternoon: up to an hour.
For a day: 1-2 hours, occasionally 2.5-3 hours.

As a child, my grandparents were 2.5 hours away, and we only ever went for the day.

Meh! We live in the middle of the Midlands.
If we want a day out at the coast or at a Welsh lake etc, it’s about two hours away. We do it.

An hour (60 ish miles)away is still considered close for a day out for us.

As a family 2 hours to the coast is about our limit in a car. I absolutely detest driving so if it's just me I'd only drive an hour max. On public transport we'd go any distance that was feasible on the timetable - natural limit of around 3.5 hours away as usually you can't get further away than that and back in the day.

I'm amazed by how far people will drive though. I consider 30 minutes a bit steep to go to our nearest farm animal / tractor ride place but many people will go to one two counties over just for a change. Perhaps I just don't like goats enough...

Poor little cherubs who can't drive more than 15 miles or 45 mins

What an odd comment It's not about whether you can or not, it's about whether you want to, surely? Same way a two-hour commute a day would not be for me at all, but it works fine for you.

Usually just 45 minutes drive on a day trip but would do up to 2 hours for somewhere special. Would stay over if over 3 hours.

I used to regularly do 200 miles each way by train as a day trip and still do that occasionally on my own. I once did it with a toddler, but that took very extreme circumstances to imagine it was a good idea.
My limit in cars is much, much smaller. If I have to be in a car less than fifteen minutes, I’d probably rather walk. If I have to be in a car longer than fifteen minutes, I’d probably rather not go. Not a car person at all.

I would and often do drive a 6-8 hour round trip for 90 minutes of football.

Generally speaking, a couple of hours each way. Occasionally, up to 3 hours. I wouldn't even think about staying the night, but then I've driven 5 hours each way, in one day, to pick up children from uni. (Obviously, that is a bit different to a day out, but it shows how easily I would take a 2 or 3 hour drive each way, whilst still fitting in leisure time.)

Up to a couple of hours each way approximately, unless for a particular special occasion.

During covid, when we could only meet outdoors (when we could leave our areas) I did travel for 3 hours each way to see my parents, and my sister & nephew.

We've also been to London for the day before now, that's about 2.5 hours each way on the train.

An hour at the most. We have pretty poor roads around here, which is basically just one motorway to get any distance, and it's a nightmare, with constant roadworks, almost weekly accidents causing closure. We try to avoid it like the plague, so use minor roads instead, which limits us as to where we can easily go.

If we are going any greater distance, i.e. to an airport or a UK holiday, we drive late evening or overnight or very early morning, to avoid the heavy motorway traffic.

I did a 2hr round trip to meet me sister at soft play for an hour recently. I think 2hrs ish each way is probably my tipping point to consider an over night.

@ActonSquirrel

What?!

I travel over an hour in one direction to work in London.

Poor little cherubs who can't drive more than 15 miles or 45 mins

I used to do a lot of driving (work and pleasure). I had a 90 minute each way commute to my normal workplace, and would often drive 2-3 hours to client's premises when I had to work on site (around a 8 hour working day). That was in the 80s and 90s when roads were well maintained, driving standards were higher, etc.

I then started to get stuck more and more in traffic jams caused by roadworks or accidents, and there were several fatal accidents on my usual commute route. Seeing a fatal accident happen in front of my eyes was a wake up call. I got a new job much closer to home and didn't involve travel to clients. Now, I actively avoid motorways and trunk roads as the driving standards these days are terrible.

So, rather than "little cherubs", I think a lot of people are just being more cautious due to incessant roadworks and bad driving these days!

A lot depends on the actual roads. Generally getting into the closes city to us (not far in mileage) can take 30-40 mins on a bad day but we have to go in for things like cinema, ice skating etc. For a normal weekend trip with small people, I wouldn’t choose to do more than about 40 mins as don’t really see the point. Will go on longer trips into London or to visit family though. Special trips like theme parks I’d go further but would probably stay over to reduce the hassle.

While no one is suggesting they do it regularly I wonder how safe it is, and what your concentration levels are like for those considering 8-10 hours driving in a day, especially at the end of a day out, if doing it on your own and not sharing the drive.

Agree Fizbosshoes

Well we drove 200 miles and back to attend a family bbq last weekend....

I would do an hour's driving for a day out - possibly 1.5 hours on a train

I live in the SE and have done some mega day trips over the years including Disneyland Paris , which was an entire day ! . Last year the longest we did was the Swannery at Abbotsbury which was 170 miles each way . I have in the past driven to Blackpool and back in a day but that was for a meeting and we only stopped for a couple of hours .

1hour or max 1.5 for something special. I enjoy driving but don’t want it to dominate a day out. If it’s a 2hour trip I’d more likely stay over.

It depends. I’ll travel further if it’s on a motorway, up to 100 miles.
A roads and less, 40 miles comfortably, 60 if it’s somewhere special.

2.5 hrs each way is fine. Sometimes just for the afternoon/evening.
It’s that long to our closest lovely beach, to lovely pine forests for cycle rides and to visit family.