By Megan Harwood-Baynes, cost of living specialist
The first rule of extreme day-tripping is the shorter, the better.
An overnight stay is tolerated, two nights barely, but the real winner is managing to cram a visit to a European destination into the space of a single day.
The real test of an extreme day trip is if “you tell someone ‘I’m doing this’ and their response is ‘that’s ridiculous’,” says Michael Cracknell, founder of the EDT Facebook group.
He first took an extreme day trip in 2002, travelling to Switzerland for the day with his dad. But in 2019, it ramped up a gear. After a break during COVID, the delivery driver now takes around ten a year, with destinations including Germany, Switzerland, Northern Ireland and Spain.
He has also started to run group trips, uniting strangers with their love of far-flung day visits.
Michael set up an online group in 2022, with the community now home to more than 300,000 members who trade tips and itineraries and flag cheap flights.
So what’s the best way to start extreme day-tripping?
“Check the Extreme Day Trips Facebook page,” he says, laughing. “There are so many itineraries, so much detail on there.”
Making sure you research your airport transport is crucial, he says, as you usually don’t have long in the country to be worrying about getting delayed.
“Switzerland is the only country in the world where I trust the trains to run on time. You can go three hours away from the airport and you can trust you will get back in time.”
Travelling on a Saturday to give yourself a buffer in case things do go wrong is also a wise move, he says.
“If something happens, it happens, but at least then you aren’t worrying about work the next day.”
Most people only travel with a backpack, so a power pack is important – especially if you don’t have time to be messing about with a power adaptor for a different country.
The sweet spot for a day trip is if you have around seven hours in a country.
“You can get 11 hours in Venice, though,” he adds.
As for cost, a decent return flight from Gatwick is anything less than £60, he says, but you often can find deals around the £30 mark if you’re willing to plan ahead and be flexible.
So where else have people visited?
I took my dad, Frank, to Belfast for his 80th in October. The whole day out, including flights, food, travel to and from airports, Titanic and hop-on-hop-off bus all came in less than I was going to pay for two return tickets to London from where we live. Dad had a great day and we made memories. He’s already asking where we’re going next.
Joanne
We did Helsinki for our first one back in December, absolutely loved it, and done ten more since then.
Gary
London Stansted to Pisa last October. Think it cost £56 return on flights. Train from the airport into Pisa costs about €10 return and takes about ten minutes. Headed straight for the tower taking in the sights as I went. Had pepperoni pizza in one of the cafes, cherry and mascarpone gelato and coffee. Fantastic day out – would recommend it.
Andy
My favourite (and furthest) this year was a trip to Corfu. Amazing lunch in the town followed by an afternoon on the beach. A few years ago, me and some friend did The Three Ds – Dublin, Dubai and Delhi – a full day in each on consecutive days.
Mark
Seville – fantastic food scene, absolutely beautiful architecture with the Alcazar and Place de Espana. Porto – super vibe, loads to do or can just wander the streets, fantastic both sides of the river.
Jennie
We are wild water swimmers from Doncaster – did an Extreme Day Trip to Lake Como to swim at the famous waterfall in Nesso. This was October, the water was chilly.
Donna
The environmental impact
Michael says he pays into a scheme to plant trees for every visit he takes – and encourages others to do the same.
“I really try and do my part, I recycle everything, but I know it’s not perfect,” he says. “But I’ve had people messaging me before telling me I am a murderer for doing this.
“But I’m hardly a celebrity taking my private jet ten miles down the road.
“There are thousands of planes taking off every day across the world and they don’t get cancelled because I am not on them.”
My extreme spa day
I wanted to test Michael’s theory that often it works out cheaper to go abroad than for a day trip in the UK. My husband and I wanted a spa trip, but even with discounts (and this was before Black Friday deals kicked in), we were looking at about £150-£200 each for a night away in a decent hotel spa.
So would it be cheaper to go abroad?
We flew to Budapest, Hungary, spending 29 hours trying to cram in as much culture and relaxation as we feasibly could. (I wasn’t quite ready to commit to fitting it all into a single day – we added in an overnight, which is still within the rules of extreme day-tripping).
We managed to visit two thermal baths (though a lack of organisation on our part did mean they had fully booked all massage slots before we arrived), did more than 20,000 steps marching around the city and had a couple of decent meals (not including a Burger King at the airport).
Our final total worked out at…
Would we do it again?
Dashing from the UK to another country was fun, though we did seem to spend a lot of time in airport queues. Both times our flight took off late, but Wizz Air managed to make up some time in the air and we only landed around 20 minutes behind schedule.
It did make me think how precarious it would be if you only had a few hours – one major flight delay and it suddenly becomes not worth going at all.
It also only really gives you a short flavour of the place you are visiting – which is great if you don’t want to commit to a longer stay but doesn’t give you quite enough time to get the vibe of a city. I would definitely go back to Budapest, as there were plenty of landmarks we had to miss because we didn’t have time.
The spas themselves were excellent value – at around £20 each for a day ticket, even though they were pretty busy, for that price you just can’t compare them to anything back in the UK. In hindsight we should have planned ahead a bit better – a massage costs around £37, significantly cheaper than what you might pay over here.
When stacked up next to a spa day in the UK, the price came in about the same as if we had opted for a pretty posh hotel and spa. However, we could definitely have saved money in a few places: booking the flights earlier would have meant they were around £90 in total, and taking public transport instead of using Bolt would have also kept those costs down.
I definitely wouldn’t rule out doing it again, and like Michael, I did enjoy people’s faces when we told them what we were doing.
“That’s ridiculous” – maybe it is, and maybe that is the point.
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