Day Trips from Cambridge
The best excursions and trips you can do in a day
Full-Day Trips
Worth dedicating a whole day to explore.
Ely Cathedral and riverside walk
$25-35Ely Cathedral lifts like a great stone ship above the drained fens, its octagonal lantern visible for miles across the black-soil flats. The town pairs medieval pomp with riverside ease, and tearooms serve cream teas sharp enough to revive any walker.
Bury St Edmunds Abbey ruins and market
$30-40The brooding skeleton of a once-mighty Benedictine abbey anchors this thriving market town. Georgian terraces spread from the abbey gardens to rows of indie shops and one of England's tiniest cathedrals.
Anglesey Abbey and Houghton Mill
$20-30A National Trust twofer: a Jacobean mansion beside a working watermill. The abbey's winter garden flames even under dull skies, while the mill rumbles through flour-grinding demos and riverside rambles.
Newmarket racing town and studs
$35-50British racing's nerve centre opens its stables and studs to backstage tours. Even sceptics fall for the thunder of morning gallops across the heath and the polished glamour of thoroughbred life.
Constable Country Flatford and Dedham
$40-60Follow the footpaths that fed John Constable's canvases. Willy Lott's cottage still leans beside the mill pond exactly as in 'The Hay Wain', ringed by Suffolk's soft, rolling fields.
St Albans Roman ruins and cathedral
$35-45Roman walls, medieval lanes, and England's longest nave stack like sediment in this compact city. Verulamium Museum keeps mosaics vivid after 1,800 years, and the cathedral guards the world's oldest mechanical clock.
Half-Day Options
Shorter excursions when time is limited.
Grantchester meadows and tea rooms
$15-25A lazy riverside path from Cambridge crosses water meadows to the village where Rupert Brooke once wrote. The Orchard tea garden dishes scones beneath old apple boughs.
Audley End House and gardens
$25-35This Jacobean house, trimmed from palace to mansion, drips with ornate plasterwork and Capability Brown curves. A ridable miniature railway in the grounds thrills children and rail buffs alike.
Wicken Fen nature reserve
$10-20England's first nature reserve shelters scraps of primeval fen on boardwalk trails between thatched buildings. Boat rides along the lodes bring you eye-to-eye with bitterns and marsh harriers.
Cambridge American Cemetery
$5-10A stark memorial to US Second World War airmen, its chapel overlooks East Anglian fields from a clipped lawn beside a still reflecting pool.
Day Trip Tips
Make the most of your excursions.
- ✓ Grab a Network Railcard before three or more rail outings, 33 % off turns spur-of-the-moment hops into bargains.
- ✓ Pack layers whatever the Cambridge forecast, the fens can run 5 °C colder and whip up wind without warning.
- ✓ Reserve National Trust houses online the evening prior, $5, 8 saved per head and no risk of a shut gate at peak times.
- ✓ Install the Trainline app for live boards, many rural stations lack staff or digital displays.
- ✓ Carry cash in market towns, Ely and Bury stallholders often refuse cards for small change.
- ✓ The X5 bus links Cambridge to Oxford through Bicester, a slower, prettier full-day ride across Cotswold stone villages.
- ✓ Check the racing calendar before Newmarket, hotels increase in price and streets clog during big meets.
Book These Day Trips
Top-rated excursions you can book now.
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Shared Punt Tour - Cambridge
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Private Cambridge Punting Tour
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Walking Tour of Cambridge
Fun and friendly private walking tours of the city of Cambridge. We are qualified Cambridge guides, the only guides permitted to lead groups into the University colleges. Every tour can be personalise
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