Extreme Day Trips: Barcelona for Lunch, Home by Midnight....?
I was reading in The Week about the latest travel 'craze', people flying abroad for the day, wandering round a city for a few hours and then flying home again the same night. No hotel, no suitcase, just a boarding pass and a phone full of photos.
Apparently this is a proper thing now, with a name and everything - 'extreme day trips'. According to a Booking.com survey around one in five Brits have already done one, and nearly six in ten say they'd be up for it. Some go a LOT further than Paris too, The Week mentions people doing Delhi and back in a weekend, which sounds more like a punishment than a holiday to me!
Why bother?
The obvious answer is money. A flight to Europe can be cheaper than a night in a Premier Inn, and if you're out on the 6am and back on the last flight you don't need the Premier Inn. Do it on a Saturday and you don't even need to book a day off.
But I think the more interesting point is how daft our own transport system is. One member of the Extreme Day Trips Facebook group (240,000 members, apparently) told Euronews it's cheaper to fly to Denmark for Legoland than get the train to the one in Windsor. That's not Gen Z being frivolous, that's a system that rewards flying and punishes the train. Airlines pay no duty on their fuel, while rail passengers.... well, you've seen the fares.
Ticking boxes
Tourism used to be about getting away, now it looks a lot more like collecting. Country ticked, selfie posted, on to the next one. John Urry wrote about the 'tourist gaze' back in 1990 and he'd have had a field day with this lot, it's the same thing on fast forward. See the Sagrada Familia, photograph the Sagrada Familia, leave.
And TBH I do get the appeal. People are skint and short on time, and a cheap flight feels like a way of having a bit of a life without paying for a proper one. I'm just not convinced five hours in a city you've barely seen counts as travel, it's more like shopping for experiences.
Final thoughts
So, clever or a bit crazy? Bit of both. The people doing it are only responding to the prices in front of them, it's the prices that are mad. As long as flying to Europe costs less than getting the train across England, people will keep doing it, and the government will keep telling the rest of us to cut our emissions.
Maybe fix the trains first...? We shall see!
Wanna fly and explore different countries ✨
!GLYPH
I read the other time someone flew to Turkey somewhere, might have been Istanbul, got a haircut, bought a bag of groceries and flew back the same day, and it worked out cheaper than in UK even after including the air fare
That is absolutely insane!
Probably took them a bit longer mind!
Yea, early morning train from London to Birmingham , over £200, nuts !
Not sure I'd fancy topping and tailing my day trip with the airport faff though, even though I live within walking distance of an international airport.
I have done Dublin back and forth for the day for a specific task and to meet my daughter, I've also done Stockholm in the day for work, but nah!, the airport bit makes it unappealing to me for "fun".
I get the economics of it though, flights can be very cheap, certainly cheaper than trains at times in the UK.
If anywhere tempted me it would be Barcelona, airport close to the city, relatively short flight and good city to walk around
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This is such a fascinating read, and I completely agree that the real issue here is how our transport systems are designed, not the people taking these trips. Living in Asia, I always find it wild to see how cheap and easy it is to hop between European countries compared to the huge distances and costs we face here.
But I also understand the 'ticking boxes' mentality. Sometimes when life is exhausting and money is tight, just getting away for a few hours feels like a lifeline. It might not be deep travel, but it’s their way of grabbing a bit of joy. Still, you're absolutely right, fixing the trains and making sustainable travel affordable should be the priority. Great post!
The Denmark-versus-Windsor Legoland comparison says everything about why people bother, the train fares are the real story here.
Flying ought to be more expensive, but there's so many companies and countries competing. I did get flown to LA for a couple of days for a meeting once, but I like to travel slower on my own time.