‘Extreme’ day trips from any London airport?

[WeJustWantYouToBeHappy]

Compiling ideas for interesting destinations within a few hours (by plane) of London. I’d like to leave early and be home by midnight ish, looking for museums, sculpture parks and architectural wonders!

Edinburgh

Edinburgh! Brilliant, thank you. I’ve never been.

Prague will always be our favourite EDT (DS is obsessed) and the architecture is amazing. Super cheap to get to/from the city centre, we paid something like £10pp return flights from Luton (twice!) ~ have also loved Milan, which has lots of museums, and Copenhagen.

If you haven’t seen them already, the FB groups are a treasure trove of suggestions and knowledge.

Look on Skyscanner?
Glasgow
Dublin
Paris
Belfast

Thank you, these are all such good ideas.

I went to Gdansk from Leeds, it was beautiful and I had some amazing Pieogi (sp?).

I will go there at least twice more for the museums and coast in summer. I'm dropping a day at work next year so hope to do some Spanish cities midweek due to low cost flights and see some castles, lunch then sea swim.

The FB groups are great for ideas and tips along with Skyscanner to find flights. From London you will probably have a really good choice, Europe (and North Africa- people are going to Marrakesh) is your oyster.

Pierogi? Mmmm! Thanks, that’s definitely going on the list.

Seriously? Flying somewhere just for one day? Or have I misunderstood?

Could you go by train instead?

For business I’ve been to Paris and Brussels by train instead a day.

Yes, just for a day.

Train sounds good too, I imagined it would take too long but it would be a great way to travel.

Well hair been to Edinburgh for two nights and sep t 9 hours in airport due to delays so don't expect a full day

Amsterdam

I tend to return same day for work trips and I've managed day trips (home before 6pm) to Brussels, Zurich, Lugano via Milan, Lille, Prague, Madrid etc. Pretty much anywhere in Western Europe where I've had work. Always use City or Heathrow.

Actually can be much easier by train. (Or eurotunnel)

Ugh 9 hour delay. That would be a big chunk of lost time!

Amsterdam doable by train!

Climate change is just something that happens to other people.

I presume people into this don't care much for the environment.

How so?

I'm sure you won't like this answer, but using air travel for an unnecessary day trip is morally indefensible imho.

It is great only 45 minutes in the air and the tram stop is just outside of the airport and will take you city centre,

In an effort to be more helpful: have you been the the Henry Moore sculpture park in Hertfordshire?

The plane would still be flying even if the OP didn't go?

We used to do Nice for lunch as a team tell when I worked at Heathrow so doable!!

The more people fly the more flights will be scheduled. If everyone halved their air travel and doubled their train travel there would be more trains and less flights eventually. Airlines don't happily fly around with half empty planes, it's too expensive.