Day trips from Ghent

Been to Bruges and Antwerp and both are fun and worthwhile, though Bruges was filled with people even in early March so that might not fit your “non-touristy” criterion.

Rode by Mechlen in train and it looked like a nice stop. Another one to consider is Dinant, though I haven’t been. Others have recommended.

Thank you! I'll take a look at those.

Not much to see in Mechelen. It has a tiny old center kind of duplicate of what you would have already seen in Ghent or Bruges, so I would skip it.

Dinant is striking a more unique experience with a funicular that goes up to the old castle grounds. Also if you find time go to Rotterdam and catch the boat to Kinderdijk, another unique experience.

Well, I agree that Mechelen is not a "must", but it's quite a historic place. You can walk in the small, enclosed garden where (supposedly) Charles V played as a toddler. There are a couple of good museums, including many Lives of the Saints at the Town (i.e. City) museum. I never found the Jewish Museum open. There's a mansion-museum that owns a lot of hometown boy Rik Wouters' paintings (/sculpture?) World famous Carillon school, concerts all the time. Interesting ghost of a Beguinage, you have to have been to one to see what alleys you are walking through. Several nice churches still in use.

There are plenty of trains to Mechelen, but you can also get there by cheap city bus from the Rooseveltplein bus stops in Antwerp. Interesting views of prosperous residential areas.

For those who consider green fields that represent WW II to them must-visits, you should look up The Mechelen Trials, and (very hard to get to without a car) visit the chilling Nazi prison on the outskirts of Mechelen, Breendonk. Audio Guides there include English. Although plenty of people were killed there, it was more about terrorizing the populace than about extermination. Also to encourage collaboration, the topic of the Mechelen Trials.

When the cloth trade fell off in Bruges after 1500, Catholic church regional offices helped make Mechelen among the largest cities in Europe.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/belgium/day-trips-from-brussels-768c7c85-75b9-4374-ad13-ae36967bc521

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/belgium/day-trips-from-brussels-besides-bruges-and-ghent

Other nice towns,
Lier
Turnhout
Ostend (huge beach culture in summer), oceanside tram to some WW II defense ruins. Home of James Ensor, very famous surrealist/symbolist painter. His tomb, too. Statue of Marvin Gaye inside the Casino.

I'll keep all these in mind. Thank you for the advice!

All of those are easy to reach from Ghent. Belgium is small, so most places in Flanders are easily reached in a day. Brugge and Antwerpen are two of my absolute favorite cities in Belgium.

As I remember from this past April, the Ghent St Pieters train station is under major construction , is in a commercial area, and a 20 minute bus ride to the center of old town. (There are two Ghent train stations.) Seems like morning and evening outings would be more pleasant in the old town. Would you consider staying closer to the historical area? Have a great trip.

We stayed about 15 minutes by foot from the Dampoort train station, and we had a 5-minute walk to the old town. That worked great.