Day Trips from London: What They Cost and How Long They Take

The good day trips from London are all about an hour away, and the money is in the entry ticket rather than the train. What follows is priced and timed: what the journey costs, what you pay when you arrive, how long the day takes, and which days the doors are shut.

💡 The Short Version: Windsor is the shortest and cheapest journey, and its castle is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Oxford is cheapest by coach, Cambridge by advance single. The Harry Potter Studio Tour must be booked weeks ahead and sells nothing on the door. Contactless works to Windsor and Watford, but Oyster does not — and neither works to Oxford or Cambridge. Bath is 1h15 from Paddington and cheapest with advance tickets. Stonehenge and the Cotswolds are the two where a coach tour genuinely beats the train.

The seven, compared

The pattern worth knowing: the train is the small number. Windsor Castle costs four times the fare to get there, and the Studio Tour costs eight times it. The exceptions are Stonehenge and the Cotswolds, where getting there is the hard part and the tour is what you are really paying for. Book the attraction first and fit the train around it.

Windsor

The shortest journey of the seven, and the only one where the castle is the whole day. Paddington via Slough takes under 40 minutes; Waterloo runs direct but takes nearly an hour. Contactless works, Oyster does not.

Windsor Castle is £32 booked ahead, £36 on the day, with no family ticket, and it is closed every Tuesday and Wednesday. The Changing of the Guard is Thursdays and Saturdays. Eton, the Long Walk and the Great Park are free, and Legoland is ten minutes away if the castle is not the point.

→ The full Windsor guide

Oxford

Two ways in: Paddington, or Marylebone on Chiltern. The Oxford Tube coach runs through the night and is cheaper than either.

The catch is the colleges. Some charge, some are free, and several close to visitors during exams — including Christ Church, whose staircase and hall are the Harry Potter draw. The Ashmolean, the Pitt Rivers and the Natural History Museum are free, and the covered market costs nothing to wander.

→ The full Oxford guide

Cambridge

49 minutes from King’s Cross on the fast train, or slower and cheaper from Liverpool Street. Neither Oyster nor contactless works, and the walk-up fare can be £48 on a morning fast train, so book ahead: advance singles start at £15.20.

King’s College is £16.75, St John’s £17, Queens’ £5, and Trinity does not let the public into its courts at all. Punting is £28.50 a punt if you row it yourself, from £41 a seat if someone else does — and the touts on the street are breaking a council order, so book at one of the licensed stations.

→ The full Cambridge guide

The Harry Potter Studio Tour

The busiest day trip from London, and the one that most often goes wrong, because nothing is sold on the door. It is £58.50 an adult, £47 a child, the same price on every date, and it closes 9 to 13 November while the sets are redressed.

Euston to Watford Junction is 18 minutes, and the shuttle bus from there is free with your ticket.

→ The full Studio Tour guide

Bath

1h15 direct from Paddington, and much cheaper booked ahead: £47.60 return in advance singles against £75.90 walk-up. The Roman Baths are £26.50 on weekdays and £29 at weekends, Thermae Bath Spa’s rooftop pool is £44 for two hours, and Pulteney Bridge and the Royal Crescent are free.

Most coach tours pair Bath with Stonehenge, but they give you two or three hours in the city, and none we checked includes Roman Baths entry as standard.

→ The full Bath guide

Stonehenge

The one day trip where a tour is genuinely the sensible choice. By public transport it is Waterloo to Salisbury, then a bus that runs five times a day in winter, about three hours each way and roughly £80 all in. Tours start at £66 with entry included.

Entry is £27.20 to £32.30 booked ahead, 15% less than at the gate. And you can see the stones free from the National Trust land around them, a mile and a half’s walk from Amesbury.

→ The full Stonehenge guide

The Cotswolds

Not one place, and that is the problem. Moreton-in-Marsh is the only station with a useful bus, the 801 to Stow and Bourton-on-the-Water, and it is the only route that runs on Sundays. Bibury, Broadway and Chipping Campden are Monday to Saturday only by bus.

Nothing in the villages needs a ticket, so a small-group tour from about £89 is mostly buying you transport between them — which here is worth it.

→ The full Cotswolds guide

Day tours from London, by destination

Some of these places are easy by train. Others — Stonehenge, the Cotswolds, Highclere — have no useful station, and a coach tour is the only sensible way to do them in a day. These are the cheapest credible prices we found, checked on 12 September 2026:

⚠️ Check what the price includes before you book. On a lot of coach tours the attraction named in the title is an optional extra, so entry is charged on top. Read the includes list rather than the title.

Where else is worth the train

These do not have a guide of their own yet, but they are worth the day:

• Coast: Brighton for the pier and the Lanes, Whitstable for oysters, Margate for Dreamland and the Turner, Broadstairs, Hastings, and the Seven Sisters cliffs at Eastbourne.
• Cities and towns: Canterbury and Dover together on the high-speed line, Winchester, Rye, St Albans and Rochester.
• Castles and houses: Leeds Castle, Hever, Arundel, Warwick, Blenheim Palace, Hatfield House and Highclere, better known as Downton Abbey.
• Countryside: the Chilterns, Box Hill and the South Downs — the places where hiring a car genuinely helps.
• Theme parks: Legoland, ten minutes from Windsor and a day of its own rather than an afternoon after the castle, plus Thorpe Park, Chessington, and Alton Towers if you are prepared to stay over.
• Abroad: Paris by Eurostar, which is from 2h16 direct and a real day out if you start early — see the full guide for the fares, the border checks, and how many hours that actually leaves you in the city.

Making the day work

• Check the closure day before you book the train. Windsor Castle shuts Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the Studio Tour shuts for its November changeover, and Cambridge colleges close for exams in spring.
• Buy advance singles for Oxford and Cambridge, where walk-up fares are two to three times the price. Windsor and Watford are cheap enough to turn up and go.
• Travel out after 09:30 on weekdays for off-peak fares, which on most of these routes also means a seat.
• Check the last train before you commit to dinner. They are earlier than London habits assume, particularly on Sundays, when engineering work can close a branch line entirely.
• National Rail 2FOR1 covers some attractions, including things in Cambridge, but not Windsor Castle or the colleges. It needs a paper ticket, not contactless.

Continue planning your London trip

• 🚗 Hiring a car and driving in the UK — licence rules, the real costs, and the charges that catch visitors out.
• 🚇 London transport costs and fares — how contactless and capping work before you leave town.
• 🎟️ National Rail 2FOR1 — the rules, and the attractions it actually covers.
• 🗺️ London itinerary planner — how many days you need, and where a day trip fits.
• 🇫🇷 Paris by Eurostar — the one day trip here that crosses a border, and what that adds to check-in.