London to Sweden for the day: These travelers are embracing extreme day trips
The family caught an early morning flight from London Stansted Airport, grabbed a ride share to the park after landing in Gothenburg and arrived just as Liseberg's gates opened at 11 a.m. They spent the entire day tackling the rides and shows with their daughters, ages 11 and 13, and enjoyed a meal at an Italian restaurant before leaving for the airport at 9 p.m. to catch their flight home.
The Earls' flights cost £24.99 (around $34) each, roundtrip. Add to that four theme park tickets and other expenditures for the day and the total came out to roughly the same as what the family would have spent for entry tickets alone to an amusement park near their home on England's South Coast, Earl says.
For the foursome, the Swedish jaunt was one of five day trips around Europe they've taken so far this year. They've traveled there and back for the day from England to places like Dublin, Venice and Palma de Mallorca in Spain – all while keeping airfare costs under £25 per person and arriving home in time to sleep in their own beds.
While the United Kingdom — with its low-cost air carriers offering frequent connections throughout Europe — is a hub for 'extreme day trips' like the ones the Earls embarked on this year, people have also tried it in the US and beyond.
The practice is not without its environmental drawbacks, but fans of the one-day trip say it's a fun and satisfying way to get a taste of a new place, especially when budgets and vacation time are limited.
Earl's daughters liked their Sweden day trip best of all, he said, but spending a day in Venice, where they clocked more than 17,000 steps exploring the city, was tops for him.
With school holidays making it hard and expensive to travel for much of the year, the travel hack feels rewarding, he says.
'Doing these day trips on a weekend outside of school and work hours, it kind of works from a budget point of view. It's allowing us to do lots of little mini adventures throughout the year,' Earl says.
The sometimes exorbitant price of train fares across the UK compared to those in many other European countries paired with the ample options for cheap flights on budget airlines like EasyJet and Ryanair from cities like London, Edinburgh and Manchester has sparked this day-trip trend among British travelers.
A Facebook group, Extreme Day Trips, currently has nearly 324,000 members who share tips on everything from the full breakdown of how every hour of their day trip played out to restaurant suggestions in places like Prague and Milan and just-scored airfare deals. All-in and itemized pricing info is sometimes shared; one member's recent extreme day trip from Sheffield to Pisa cost her £121 (about $163) including flights, ground transport and food and drinks.
Michael Cracknell, a UPS driver and wedding photographer from near Brighton on England's South Coast, says he created the group in 2022 'purely as a way of showing people who are based in the UK that there are alternatives to our overpriced public transport system and overpriced days out within this country.'
In 2019, when looking for a day out somewhere, he passed on city trips at home in England and turned his sights farther afield, catching flights for day trips to places like Switzerland, Germany and Spain.
In 2022, Cracknell realized he'd been to 22 different countries just for the day, and the idea to start the Facebook group was born.
Today, Cracknell and several other unpaid group administrators serve as facilitators and guides for extreme day trips. Demand far exceeds the space available, he says. Group trip dates are released months in advance on the Facebook page and thousands of people apply via a form, but the trips are limited to 20 or 30 people, Cracknell says.
He tells the travelers who secure a slot (the selection process is random) the exact flights to book, what train tickets to reserve and information about any other attraction tickets and logistics they'll need to book themselves before meeting with the group at the airport for an early morning flight.
Cracknell said he has led more than 500 people on extreme day trips in recent years to locations in Switzerland, one of his favorite countries for spending an unforgettable day. He is guiding two group trips to Athens from London later this year as well as 10 more day trips to Switzerland. Cracknell tries to keep total costs from London Gatwick for such trips to around £170 (about $228) per person or less.
'The Swiss Alps offer an easy day out for these people that's something completely unique that 95% of them have never done before. And they go back to work on Monday morning, still buzzing from it. They say to their work colleagues, 'Guess what I did at the weekend? We went to Switzerland,'' he says.
The logistics of finding the cheapest airfares for out and back day trips can be time-consuming as it often involves booking flights on two different airlines, says Rick Blyth, who runs the website ExtremeDayTrips.com. (The website is not related to the Facebook page, which came before it, but Cracknell and Blyth collaborate on some projects).
The site's free flight tool lets users search for low-cost, low-demand flights from their home airports across the UK to destinations across Europe.
It also has day itineraries for packing a weekend's worth of fun into a single day in cities and regions including Lisbon, Lake Como in Italy and Finnish Lapland. A paid premium version of the website, with an annual fee for members (currently £35 per year or about $47), just launched and allows users to further customize their extreme day trip flight searches.
And when it comes to where to go for the day and what you can see and do there, those options are the stuff of travel dreams, Blyth says.
'You've got this choice of getting an expensive train to somewhere you already know or sitting on the motorways stuck in traffic — or getting on a cheap flight and going exploring Lapland, or the desert in Morocco, or going to a spa day in Bucharest, visiting Barcelona, going on a hike on Caminito del Rey in Malaga. There's just so much you could do,' he says.
The environmental toll of taking short-haul flights — just because they're inexpensive and you can — is impossible to ignore. In 2023, France banned short-haul domestic flights where train journeys of 2.5 hours were available instead to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Blyth says he doesn't pretend extreme day trips are guilt-free travel, but it's worth considering that people traveling this way usually travel light and opt for low-demand early morning and late-night flights. He says they're often filling seats on empty planes and therefore lowering the overall carbon imprint per passenger. ExtremeDayTrips.com will plant six trees for every premium member that signs up for the new service and 12 trees for every premium plus member, he adds.
He also contends that skipping hotel stays cuts down on hidden energy costs related to things like laundry and air conditioning.
There are other impacts to consider, too. Extreme day trip might leave you feeling more exhausted than refreshed by the time you make it home, says Georgia Fowkes, a travel advisor for Altezza Travel.
Fowkes says she has noticed growing interest in one-day trips, likely driven by the rise of affordable and frequent flights. But she says that after one or two of them, travelers might realize that such a packed trip took too much energy for the rewards reaped.
'The typical one-day itinerary tends to be overly ambitious when accounting for the time spent at airports, waiting in lines and commuting. A great brunch and a cappuccino won't save the day,' she says.
Earlier this year, Fowkes took advantage of a flash sale on US low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines to travel from Pittsburgh to Chicago for the day to visit friends. Her flight left before sunrise from Pittsburgh and returned after midnight, at which point she was utterly exhausted from the long hours of sightseeing and time in transit.
'I was wrung out. And in reality, my one-day trip cost me two more days to fully get back into my routine. This is the part of one-day trips that people rarely talk about,' she says.
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American influencer Kevin Droniak , who is based in New York City, chronicles his solo day-trip adventures in the US and beyond on Instagram and TikTok (New York City to the Grand Canyon or Montreal for the day, for example).
But the UK's abundant cheap airfares on budget airlines with relatively short flights to countries all over Europe, as well as access to destinations in North Africa and the Middle East, make it ground zero for the trend.
For Earl, extreme day tripping has been a way of doing economical mini-adventures and a great opportunity to get a taste of different countries at his family's doorstep.
'If you go there and actually quite like what you're seeing, it's like, 'We'll come back here for longer next time and make a long weekend of it, or a week or two-week holiday,'' he says.
And while Earl says he plans all his family's trips on his own, traveling unguided and using Skyscanner to search for flights that meet their £25-or-less parameter, he loves the Extreme Day Trips Facebook group for inspiration on where to go next.
'We very much would like to go and do the Alpine coaster in (Churwalden) Switzerland later in the year, if flights and cost allow. We're also looking at Norway, Portugal, Luxembourg and Germany, specifically Berlin,' he says.
The family is hoping to visit a total of 12 countries together in 2025 on single-day hops from England.
Terry Ward is a Florida-based travel writer and freelance journalist in Tampa who has traveled the world for three decades but has yet to try an extreme day trip.
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How To Do It Join AmaWaterways' 9-night Discover Africa voyage, from $12,045 per person, with 3 nights in Cape Town, a 4-night Chobe River wildlife cruise, and 2 nights at Victoria Falls (including luxury lodges, game drives, and river safaris). This fare includes all meals, guided excursions, and internal flights. To book, visit 12. The Elbe The Elbe getty Stretching nearly 700 miles from the Czech Republic's mist-shrouded Krkonoše Mountains to the North Sea, the Elbe is less trafficked than its European siblings—offering a quieter journey through baroque cities, vineyard-cloaked hills, and fairytale fortresses. Designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve , it is home to white-tailed eagles, beavers, and migrating cranes, with floodplain meadows and wetlands in abundance. Cruising between Prague and Hamburg, you'll pass through the Elbe Sandstone Mountains—known as Saxon Switzerland —where jagged rock spires rise above pine forests and misty gorges. While stops include Dresden , once dubbed the 'Florence of the Elbe', with its rococo palaces and ornate domes, and Wittenberg , where you'll walk in the footsteps of Martin Luther. How To Do It Join VIVA Cruises' 7-night Adventcruise from Berlin to Prague, from $2,145 per person, including all meals, a selection of premium wines and beer, and one 'high tea' experience per trip. To book, head to 13. The Magdalena Magdalena getty Spilling northward for almost 950 miles from the misty Andean highlands to the sun-kissed shores of the Caribbean, the Magdalena is Colombia's ancient artery of trade. Departing from Cartagena or bustling Barranquilla, you'll glide past tangled mangrove forests and banana plantations, pausing in storied towns like Palenque , a UNESCO-recognized 'free town' founded by escaped slaves, and Mompox —where masterful filigree artisans craft intricate gold jewelry by hand. In El Banco, birthplace of jubilant cumbia music, you'll be serenaded by local performers in embroidered costumes, while in Nueva Venecia , you'll drift through a floating village where homes, schools, and churches rise on stilts above the water. The Magdalena is also a haven for birdwatchers and nature lovers alike—so keep watch for scarlet ibises, river dolphins, and the elusive blue-billed curassow amid its thriving wetlands. How To Do It Join AmaWaterways' 7-night Wonders of Colombia River voyage along the Magdalena River, from $3,089 per person, including all meals, wine and beer (with lunch and dinner), a daily cocktail hour, and small-group excursions. To book, visit Read More: Forbes Meet The President Of AmaWaterways By Lewis Nunn 14. The Garonne and Dordogne Dordogne Valley getty In the heart of southwestern France, the Garonne and Dordogne form the majestic Gironde Estuary—dotted with fairytale châteaux aplenty, where UNESCO-listed towns unfold in slow, elegant succession. River cruises typically begin in Bordeaux , a city of neoclassical grandeur, with café-lined boulevards, leafy promenades, and 347 protected buildings, where the opulent Place de la Bourse shimmers and the Cité du Vin offers a deep dive into wine heritage. On the way, you'll glide past Cadillac's medieval streets, Blaye's formidable Vauban citadel, and the vineyard-laced slopes of Pauillac, home to legendary wine estates like Château Lafite Rothschild . Highlights? Think Sauternes for golden dessert wines, Arcachon Bay for oysters, and Saint-Émilion 's limestone catacombs. How To Do It Join Avalon Waterways' 8-day Bonjour Bordeaux: Chateaux Wineries and Charming Villages voyage, from $4209 per person, including all meals, regional wines and beers (at meal times—plus a daily 'happy hour'), and excursions. To book, visit 15. The Danube The Danube getty Flowing 1,770 miles from Germany's Black Forest to the Black Sea, the Danube is Central Europe's cultural spine—threading through ten countries and four historic capitals—Vienna ( Austria ), Bratislava ( Slovakia ), Budapest ( Hungary ), and Belgrade ( Serbia ). River cruises often start in Budapest, where the river splits the city in two— Buda and Pest —offering postcard-perfect views of the iconic Hungarian Parliament , Chain Bridge , and turreted Buda Castle . In Austria, however, the river glides through the Wachau Valley —a utopia of terraced vineyards, romantic hilltop castles, and blooming apricot orchards, where you can sip crisp Grüner Veltliner in candlelit cellars. In Germany, medieval towns like Regensburg and Passau brim with Gothic spires, storybook townhouses, and charming cobbled squares, while the grand Melk Abbey dazzles with its golden frescoes. Further east, you'll cut through the mighty Iron Gates Gorge , where towering limestone cliffs rise above swirling sapphire waters—one of the great wonders of the world. How To Do It Join Amadeus River Cruises' 7-night Classical Danube Cruise from Budapest to Passau, from $2,454 per person, including all meals, wine and beer (with lunch and dinner). To book, visit Read More: Forbes The Best Danube River Cruises For 2025, According To Experts By Lewis Nunn Forbes The World's Best River Cruise Lines, According To Globe Travel Awards By Lewis Nunn Forbes Why A Douro River Cruise Is The Best Way To See Portugal By Lewis Nunn Forbes Is This The World's Most Expensive Cruise? By Lewis Nunn Forbes The World's Best Luxury Cruise Lines, According To Globe Travel Awards By Lewis Nunn Forbes The Ultimate Guide To South Africa Cruises By Lewis Nunn Forbes Meet The President Of AmaWaterways By Lewis Nunn
