My best friend and I are traveling to London in October, we'd like to visit another part of England. Ideas?

Question

We cannot be too far away from Gatwick airport as we have an earlier flight scheduled for the day of our departure and only 2 extra nights that aren't already booked at a hotel in London. We were thinking of Devon, but the train times just don't cooperate with our departure schedule.

Answer 1

try windsor. i was there in february, and its beautiful. its not too far from london, and the trains go to and from there frequently. and you can see windsor castle, where the queen spends most of her time

Answer 2

I would defiantly recommend kent it is a lovely place in the countryside and it is quite near london!  

Answer 3

My first recommendation would be Brighton. Average train travel times between Gatwick and Brighton are about 30-40 minutes.  There's a lot of very early trains out of Brighton, so hopefully that will fit your airplane departure times.

A tourism site :

http://tourism.brighton.co.uk/

Lewes and Eastbourne wouldn't be too far off the beaten path either, but overall Brighton has a bit more to do - definitely enough to make it worth a two night stay.

I would not recommend Windsor if you need to make a plane.  Journeys can take anywhere from 1-1/2 to 2 hours, with earliest trains departing at 5.41. Not that Windsor isn't lovely, for it is, but from personal experience you don't want to cut things any closer than absolutely necessary. It's always good to leave a safe time pad. You also have to make a minimum of one station change from Windsor whereas you can get a direct train from Brighton to Gatwick.