Bath and Stonehenge Day Trip from London Advice

Can you do them on your own but on different days? Very easy to do on your own but I wouldn’t do them same day.

It should do, but importantly gives you flexibility as trains on all three legs are every 30 minutes- Paddington to Bath is 90 minutes or less (a bus will only be passing Reading in that time), Salisbury to Waterloo is also 90 minutes journey time and Bath to Salisbury about 50 minutes journey time.
Be aware that the last bus from Salisbury to Stonehenge is at 4pm, last return bus at 7pm

So you will spend about 4 hours overall on trains, and about an hour to/from Stonehenge. Say you spend two hours in Bath and the same at Stonehenge- that is still a 9 hour day in round terms.

Doing all this in a day from London would seem like an ordeal to me. As day trips from London I would look at them as two 1 day trips. So, one day for Bath and one day for Stonehenge and Salisbury. And many would suggest that just one full day in Bath is not nearly enough to do it justice. But, one day may be all you have......

If you do decide just to do either Bath or Stonehenge/Salisbury have a look at London Walks - www.walks.com. I'm pretty sure they do Bath as a day trip still, not sure about Stonehenge/Salisbury - they used to do a trip there before the pandemic, but not sure if it has been reinstated.

This type of day trip allows you to say you have “seen there”, but not really “been there”.
I do not believe your self-tour will save on time.
Let’s ask a different question, “what do you desire to experience while in Bath?”.
Then consider “what do you desire to experience while Salisbury and Stonehenge?”
If you are unsure then ask the forum for their suggestions on how to experience each area separately.
With forum knowledge you can craft an itinerary.
Also keep in mind time of year you will be attending and potential impact of weather on ability to enjoy Stonehenge.
We chose to invest in Bath for a day trip and then did Salisbury/stonehenge as a separate day trip (on a separate visit to the UK).
Another consideration, what wear and tear impact on you will a long busy day have upon the remainder of your trip?
Your most valuable travel commodity is time, so spend it wisely on “being there”.

I'll ask how long you will be in London?

I also agree that trying to do both in a day is a lot. I'd vote for at least a night in either Salisbury or Bath.

I have done the local bus shuttle out to the stones from Salisbury which leaves from both the train station and the city centre. It's run by the Salisbury Reds and is called The Stonehenge Tour even though it's not really a "tour". The times I have done it I was staying IN Salisbury the 2 nights. I then took a train to Bath the next day but I stayed there several days.

IF you decide to do this, I'd do Stonehenge first and be to Salisbury by the time the 1st shuttle bus leaves (which I think used to be 10A). See the stones, return to Salisbury and take a train to Bath. Stonehenge closes with the last ticket being sold at 4:30P while Bath is a city and will have restaurants etc open later. (Does that make sense?)

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/plan-your-visit/questions-and-answers/

You all are wonderful with your quick responses!. I guess I should've clarified that Salisbury is in the mix because that seemed to be the only way to get to Stonehenge if we were doing our own thing. We do only have the one day to do this so maybe the pre-arranged day tour of London to Bath and Stonehenge would be the way to go. This doesn't go through Salisbury and we'd be able to relax on the bus.

I have looked into the London Walks tours and the ones to Stonehenge and Salisbury aren't done this year.

Try the tour company The English Bus. They are small group tours using a 16 seat bus. There are 2 tours that go to Bath, Stonehenge and a small village. We have taken 2 of their tours and are planning on another one in September. The 2 we took have been delightful enjoyable days.

I suggest doing Stonehenge and Salisbury in one day instead of Bath. Salisbury is closer and Bath needs more time.

Stonehenge closes with the last ticket being sold at 4:30P

That is not correct. It is an out of date web page stating that last tickets are sold at 2.30pm or 4.30pm in June to August. My suspicions were raised when it was still talking about hand sanitising stations.

If you look at the actual ticket buying/opening times page it says that tickets are sold until two hours before closing time- currently 7pm, thus tickets sold until 5pm. That is exactly why the buses from Salisbury run until the times they do.

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/prices-and-opening-times/

My wife and I are world travelers with 5 contenients under our belt, but we rarely go back to the same place twice. One of the countries that was most pleasurable that resulted in our returning a second time was Great Britian. Like the US there is a variety of different things to see and do. Plus it is central to visiting other surrounding counries.

I keyed in on your statement that you wanted to "do your own thing". We always do. We rent cars and drive, use the trains, and our lodging is typically in a vacation rental that allows us to stage day trips. If we do not drive, we use the train system. Which by BTW is really nice. Having traveled to all 50 states, I wish America could come up with that cost effective convenience.

We have been to ever corner of GB and Wales. We did Stonehedge and were not impressed. The entrance fee is way too much for what is there. Just a collection of rocks. I know historical, but rocks nonetheless. And the on site museum is also not impressive. Even if you drive up to the place, you still have to pay an unreasonable fee to get in.

We spent about 4 hours in Bath. It takes that long to fully see and enjoy all that is there. The nice thing is the city has a HOHO bus system. While at the Crescent we met a local security guard who was kind enough to spend some time with us explaining the history and other interesting aspects of Bath. That is really what "doing your own thing" is all about.

Can't help you with Salsbury, but I would suggest that you look into visiting Portsmouth.