One of the quiet pleasures of living in or visiting Portsmouth is how much sits within an easy reach of it. A ferry, a short train or a half-hour drive opens up an island, two cathedral cities and one of England’s loveliest stretches of forest, so when you have done the dockyard and the seafront, the day out need not stop at the city limits. Here are the best day trips from Portsmouth, near and far.
Across the water to the Isle of Wight
The obvious escape is the one you can see from the seafront. The Isle of Wight is a fast catamaran or a hovercraft ride away, and it packs a whole holiday’s worth of coast, countryside and attractions into a single island. The chalk stacks of the Needles, the Victorian grandeur of Osborne House, the sandy beaches at Sandown and Shanklin and the steam railway are all within a day, and the ferry from Portsmouth has you there in minutes. “We treat it like our own back garden,” one Southsea local said, which is about right.
Chichester and its cathedral
A short train ride east brings you to Chichester, a genteel Georgian city built around a magnificent cathedral with a spire you can see for miles. The compact centre is made for an afternoon of wandering, with independent shops, the Pallant House gallery and plenty of tea rooms, while just outside town the Roman palace at Fishbourne and the rolling estate at Goodwood give you a reason to stay longer. It is calm, handsome and a complete change of pace from the city.
Winchester, England’s old capital
A little further north, Winchester rewards the trip with one of the longest cathedrals in Europe, the Great Hall with its medieval Round Table and the water meadows where you can walk in Keats’s footsteps. It was the capital of Anglo-Saxon England, and the history is everywhere, yet the city wears it lightly, with a buzzing high street, good restaurants and the grave of Jane Austen in the cathedral to seek out. An easy and rewarding day by train or car.
Into the New Forest
For wide open space and animals roaming free, the New Forest is barely half an hour away by car. Its famous ponies wander the heath and the village greens, the woodland and gravel tracks are made for walking and cycling, and the pretty villages of Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst make natural bases. Add the motor museum and grounds at Beaulieu and you have a day that feels a world away from the dockyard, all heather, shade and the soft clop of hooves.
Closer to home, from Hayling to Portchester
Some of the best days out barely leave the area. Hayling Island, just to the east, has miles of beach, a funfair and the breezy open water that gave Britain windsurfing. Across the harbour, Gosport is a short passenger ferry away and rewards you with its own naval museums and waterfront. And at the top of the harbour sits Portchester Castle, a Roman fort with a Norman keep, which is as good a half-day as any on this list and barely twenty minutes from the centre.
Making a day of it
The trick with a day trip from Portsmouth is to let the transport decide the trip. The island calls for the ferry or hovercraft, the cathedral cities for the train, the forest for the car, and the harbour towns for a short bus or a boat. Check the return times before you go, pack for English weather whatever the forecast, and you can be back on the Southsea seafront for an ice cream before the day is done.
