FREE DAYS OUT OF LONDON
Towns, coast and countryside you can do in a day. The days out are free, the trains aren't, so we show you the cheapest line and the honest fare every time.
South-eastSandwich goes medieval + French
A free annual day trip to Sandwich in Kent, where every summer the medieval town fills with clashing knights, a French market straight off the Normandy boat and artists painting in the streets. Dates shift each year so check before you go.
Jane Austen's Bath
A day in Bath on foot: honey-coloured terraces, the Royal Crescent, the Circus and Pulteney Bridge. Jane Austen did it first.
Glastonbury town
The strangest town in England: climb the Tor for free, sip from the holy springs and wander a high street like nowhere else.
Brighton by the sea
Pebbles, the Lanes and a pier you can walk for free. The seaside London escapes to when it needs the sea.
Whitstable for the sunset
A working oyster town with a shingle beach and the best free sunset in the southeast. Bring a jumper and watch the sky go.
Margate and the Turner
A free world-class gallery, a wide sandy beach and a salty old town. The seaside that got its cool back.
Cambridge on foot
A free world-famous museum, the Backs and punts you watch rather than pay for. A college town you can do for nothing.
Canterbury
A walled cathedral city you can do on foot. Medieval streets, the river and the old city walls, all free to wander.
Rye
A cobbled hill town that barely left the middle ages. Crooked streets, a ruined castle lookout and the marshes beyond, all free.
Seven Sisters cliffs
The white chalk cliffs you have seen in a hundred photos. A free clifftop walk along the most dramatic coast in the south.
The Cotswolds
Honey-stone villages, drystone walls and green hills. Hop off at Moreton-in-Marsh and walk between the prettiest villages in England.
Salisbury
A cathedral with the tallest spire in Britain, free water meadows and the Constable view. Stonehenge and Old Sarum are up the road if you want them.
Lavenham
England's best preserved medieval village. A wonky timber-framed high street that looks like it is melting, all free to wander.
Saffron Walden
A medieval market town with an ancient turf maze, pastel plaster houses and a huge common, all free. The grand country house next door is the famous bit.
St Albans
A Roman city twenty minutes out. A free cathedral, the ruins of Roman Verulamium and a huge park with a lake, all walkable in an afternoon.
Oxford
The dreaming spires plus two of the best free museums in the country. Wander the colleges, the covered market and the meadows for nothing.
Windsor
The castle costs a fortune but the town, the river and the three mile Long Walk through the deer park are free. That view back to the castle is the best bit anyway.
Hastings
A proper working fishing town with tall black net huts, a tangle of old lanes and big free clifftop views if you walk up. Salt air and chips.
Stratford-upon-Avon
Shakespeare's town. The riverside, the canal basin, the old streets and the church where he is buried are free, even if the birthplace charges.
Dover's white cliffs
The white cliffs you have seen a hundred times, free to walk. A clifftop path high above the busiest sea crossing in the world, with France on the horizon.
Folkestone by the sea
A whole free public-art trail by the sea, plus a harbour arm of food stalls and a clifftop park. The arty seaside town that reinvented itself.
Leigh-on-Sea
A tiny old fishing town of cockle sheds and estuary light, under an hour from Fenchurch Street. Old Leigh is all free to wander.
Bexhill and the De La Warr Pavilion
A free modernist gallery right on the seafront. The De La Warr Pavilion is a 1935 icon and its art shows cost nothing.
Rochester
A Dickensian high street, a Norman cathedral and a castle on the Medway, forty minutes out. The old streets and the cathedral are free.
Winchester on foot
England's ancient capital, done on foot. A water-meadow walk, the cathedral close and the medieval Round Table, mostly free.
Royal Tunbridge Wells
A genteel spa town of colonnades and common land, fifty minutes out. The Pantiles and the commons are free to roam.
Box Hill
A free National Trust viewpoint and chalk-down walk, straight from the station. The Surrey Hills, an hour from Waterloo.
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