Weekend trips from London by train: where to go for one night

A day trip is about the journey time. A weekend is about whether there is enough to do on the Sunday morning, which is a different test and rules out about half the usual list.

Everything here is reachable by train from a London terminus, and every one of them has somewhere to stay and something to do after the shops shut.

The coast

Margate, about 1 hour 30 on the high-speed line from St Pancras. The Turner Contemporary is free, the old town is genuinely good now, and Dreamland runs events through the summer. The best of the Kent coast for a night.

Whitstable, roughly 1 hour 20 from Victoria or St Pancras. Oysters, beach huts, a working harbour and a very short high street. Small enough to exhaust in a weekend, which some people count as a feature.

Broadstairs is the quieter neighbour to Margate and has the better beach at Viking Bay. Hastings and Folkestone both take about 1 hour 30 and both have changed a great deal in ten years.

The old towns

Rye, about 1 hour 10 from St Pancras changing at Ashford. A preserved medieval hill town, cobbled and small, with Camber Sands a bus ride away. The best single overnight on this list.

Lewes, an hour from Victoria: a castle, steep lanes, good pubs and Glyndebourne up the road in summer. Canterbury, under an hour on the high-speed line, has the cathedral and enough around it for two days.

The cities

Oxford and Cambridge are both about an hour and both are better overnight than as a day trip, because the colleges empty of day visitors by five and the towns are much nicer at seven.

Bath, about 90 minutes from Paddington, is the furthest here and the one most worth two nights. Bristol is another twenty minutes and has more going on after dark.

The countryside

The Cotswolds are reachable without a car if you pick the right station: Moreton-in-Marsh is direct from Paddington in about 1 hour 40, and Stow-on-the-Wold and Chipping Campden are a bus or taxi from there. Kingham is the other useful stop.

The South Downs from Lewes or Amberley, and the Chilterns from Great Missenden on the Metropolitan line, are both walkable straight off the platform.

What decides whether it works

Book the train, not the hotel, first. Advance singles are often half the walk-up fare and they set the shape of the weekend.

Check the Sunday service before you book anything. This is the one that catches people: a town that is 80 minutes away on a Saturday can be two and a half hours back on a Sunday with a rail replacement bus in the middle.

Small towns close early. Rye and Whitstable are wonderful and largely shut by nine. If you want a late evening, pick Brighton, Bristol or Margate.

Our day trips guide covers the ones that work in a day, and the beaches guide has the coast in detail.