6 Family Friendly Day Trips From London

London is a wonderful, exciting lollapalooza of a place, but sometimes you and your family want to leave the city behind. All the destinations featured are a short train or car ride away from central London, offering delights for all ages and interests.

Brighton

Fancy a trip to the beach? And how about touring a royal pavilion with Indian domes and minarets, munching on fish-and-chips made of that day’s catch, and sampling “Brighton rock” at a Victorian pier? Brighton, the United Kingdom’s “pleasure dome,” offers a day out with sea breezes, local bohemian color, architectural wonders, and a little something for the child in all of us.

Your first stop should be the Royal Pavilion, first built by King George IV in 1787 as a weekend getaway dedicated to the pleasures of the seaside. The outside, designed by John Nash, is a fairy tale of Taj-Mahal like domes, decorated minarets, and lacy ironwork. The pavilion’s lavish interiors feature Chinese motifs of gilded dragons and faux-bamboo staircases that blend the exoticism of Asia with a pinch of English eccentricity.

If you have kids in tow (or even if you don’t), two museums are worth a visit. First, a stone’s throw from Brighton’s amazingly intricate Victorian train station is the Brighton Toy and Model Museum. Old model trains chug through the museum, scale model airplanes fly from the ceiling, and cabinets feature a collection of antique dolls and dollhouses, teddy bears, tin-plate cars and boats, and 200-year-old model farmyards. Over 10,000 antique toys are on display, and the museum periodically offers authentic Victorian “magic lantern” shows. The shop has a huge range of toys, from pocket delights priced at 40 pence, to marionettes made by local artists for £55 (I liked the frog), to rare vintage teddy bears selling for four figures.

The National Museum of Penny Slot Machines on the beach near Brighton Pier, is Britain’s only public vintage penny arcade. The museum houses more than 40 fruit machines, fortune tellers and strength testers dating from 1895-1945. Just 50 pence buys you seven old pennies (before British money was decimalized) so you can play with the machines and enjoy this trip down memory lane.

Then of course, there is Brighton Pier. Opened in 1899, with gilded filigree ironwork arches and a wide promenade offering exceptional ocean views, Brighton Pier is a theme park on the sea. The “Palace of Fun” offers the typical arcades and booths selling hard candy (Brighton Rock) and cotton candy (candy floss), as well as the Super Booster that lets you experience some stomach dropping G-forces while swinging perilously close to the water. If you want maximum adrenalin, this is the ride for you, but not right after lunch.

Practicalities

Getting there:
There are two trains per hour to Brighton from London Victoria, with a journey time of just under an hour. Regular train services are also available from London Bridge and London King’s Cross (if you go to King’s Cross, check out the 9 ¾ station platform from the Harry Potter movies). Regular National Express bus services to Brighton depart from London Heathrow and Gatwick airports, as well as from Victoria Station, and the journey time is two hours. If traveling by car, Brighton is 45 minutes from the M25 London orbital motorway.  From the M25, take the M23/A23 to Brighton & Hove, and the coastal route A27 links the city east and west.

Where to eat: 
Sea breezes produce a hearty appetite. Here are some recommendations to suit all tastes and budgets:

• Brighton Pier, formally known as Palace Pier, opened in 1899.
• David Blaikie

Jade, 29 Western Road, Brighton, BN3 1AF

A fantastic, reasonably-priced Chinese restaurant with 120 specialties and a fixed price menu. Picky eaters can choose precisely what they want without breaking the bank, and the food is high quality and well-prepared.

Piero’s, 30 Spring Street, Brighton, BN1 3EF

A family-run, Italian restaurant with authentic and tasty cuisine that is known for friendly and personal service. Try the Veal in Lemon and Caper Sauce (piccata).

Terre à Terre, 71 East Street, Brighton BN1 1HQ

One of the best vegetarian restaurants in the United Kingdom. The Blue Cheese Souffle with Walnut Salt appetizer and the Thai Eggplant Curry are to die for. The chefs demonstrate that vegetarian doesn’t have to mean goopy cheese or too much tofu. It’s expensive and reservations are a must. And, surprise—there is also a reasonably priced kids’ menu featuring among other things, “teeny weeny linguine.”

Bardsley's, 23 Baker Street, Brighton BN1 1AA

If you want exceptional fish and chips, avoid the seafront where prices are high and queues are long. A short jaunt up the London Road, this family restaurant has been satisfying seafood lovers since 1926 with cod and chips, but also sea bass and chips, shark steaks, and dressed crab. The secret at Bardsley’s? Simply the quality of the fish.