‘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!

It's much cheaper to fly. I can count on one hand how many times my plane has been delayed since I started flying in 2015. I can count on both this year alone how many times my train has been cancelled or delayed

Haven't done it but Pisa would be on my list. Apparently you can walk into town and be at the leaning tower within about half an hour of landing. Italian food, wander around, go home.

I am aware of the environmental issues of doing this so I would only suggest it instead of a longer break rather than as well as. As in, if you normally take 6 (or 16) flights a year, this would still be 2 of them.

I suspect I have a blind spot somewhere that won’t let me see what difference it makes if I stay in a city for three months or whether I’m only there for three hours. Or why it’s okay to travel for work but not for personal enrichment.

We all just have to draw the line wherever it seems best to us. I wouldn’t have a private car for example but not everyone is lucky enough to not need their own transport.

Pisa is pretty disappointing but a good base for Florence and surrounds.

I would look at places with small airports that you can get in and out of quickly. Seville was our record, less than15 minutes from wheels touching down to Taxi. La Rochelle was a close second.

Not a city but you can do the channel islands in a day, did it recently.

Do you know about Wingly? Some really fun stuff on there!
Wingly, the flight sharing platform • Wingly

London City airport to Florence. Bus is about 20 mins from the airport to city centre, and both airports are small enough to be easy to get through quickly.

Of course, if you do say 4 return flight trips a year then environmentally it doesn’t matter whether you stay for 1 day or 7 days each time.

However, it seems likely that many doing these extreme day trips will be flying much more often than if they were doing longer trips. For example, the poster upthread who mentioned using her midweek day off to fly to various Spanish cities.

I don’t agree with flying for 1 day for work either, ridiculous in the age of video conferencing.

Paris, Edinburgh, Dublin, Jersey (in the summer), Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich. I’ve done NYC and Dubai in a day too - you need to just make the time difference and flight work for you.

Why not go for the weekend OP? At least then if your plane is delayed you haven't missed half your time out there.

If you could find flights at the right times, I reckon Girona in Spain would make a great day trip. Short flight time, airport close to the city, all the sights can be seen in a few hours. Great food scene.

I saw one online- the influencer went to Madrid and bought some olive oil (as it’s cheaper there) then returned to England on the same day.

Gibraltar is just 3 hours, really small so you can see lots in one day.

Girona is definitely on my list and I think is doable from Leeds, which is my preferred airport but has far fewer flights. I can also go from Manchester but don't fancy a late night hour on the M62 after a long day.

But I knew some people would spoil the thread with the environmental downer. Even though it doesn't make a blind bit of difference. Even if there was no such thing as short haul leisure flights the reduction in carbon footprint would be barely measurable compared with all the other sources.

Agree

If you have Facebook, join the Extreme Day Trip page 😊

Look on youtube/iplayer for the series 'Travel Man'. The shows are based on 48hrs in a place, but could obviously be tweaked to a day.

Get a Logan air to Dundee totally underrated city with loads of history. River Tay is stunning u will fly straight over it

By train- Antwerp or Bruges.

That is simply not true. It's about the most CO2 you can enit in a day unless you own an oil rig or something. (And no the planes don't fly anyway; airlines cut services that don't sell)

A second vote for Nice. Short shuttle bus ride into the town centre. A walk round the daily market followed by lunch and shopping in the old town (definitely avoid the more modern town centre further away from the beach). Plenty of museums, you won’t be able to do all of them in a day. The Musee Matisse is my favourite, it’s outside of Nice, in Cimiez, but you can get a bus. Beautiful gardens.

Oh honestly, you’ve got me looking up flights now 🤣.

One shorthaul return flight emits as much CO2 as you’d save from household recycling for three years.

Airlines won’t fly if demand isn’t there.

I’m not exactly Greta Thunberg myself but flying places for the day for the hell of it because it’s cheap is pretty environmentally grotesque.

I did 3 day trips from London last year: Madrid, Geneva and Cologne.
All using low cost airlines, ryanair and easyjet from Stansted or Gatwick. Madrid and Cologne both less than £50 day return. Cologne was particularly ideal, just a 1 hour flight and the perfect amount to see for a full day. This month I have 2 trips booked, Bratislava and Verona, both sound perfect for day trips and both cost under £40 day return! I wouldn't hesitate, love these extreme day trips! The people talking about the environmental cost are talking total nonsense, those flights are going ahead unless the airline decides to cancel them, whether we book onto them or not is going to make no difference at all. In fact I would argue the exact opposite, surely it makes more sense to fill the flight as much as possible and to book onto it so that the seats on it are utilised as much as possible, rather than risk flying a nearly empty flight out? That's my take on this anyway

I like all the suggestions, and am envious. When I lived near Gatwick, I used to go to Barcelona once a month or so. It's very, very easy and makes a lovely day. Also Lisbon.

Both cities' airports are 10-15 minutes from the centre, so you don't have to faff about much.