Day trips from London with personal driver and guide

I'm interested in this also. So will be watching for replies.

Canterbury is an easy train ride. No need to rent a car. Do not know about Cambridge.

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Cambridge is also an easy train trip.

Easy day trips from London:

Use public transport:

Cambridge ( Thameslink train from St Pancras station Hour and 30 minutes)

Canterbury ( Hour and forty minute South Eastern train from London Bridge )

Whitsable ( Hour and a half South Eastern train from Victoria Station )

Hampton Court Palace ( 45 minutes via South Eastern train from Victoria Station )

Bletchley Park ( West Midlands train from Euston Station. 50 minutes)

You should also look at London Walks; www.walks.com

I take one each time I’m in London. Never been disappointed.

Most people would take the train.

Thank you for your advise. I will help them find the trains.

I'm curious whether anyone would recommend taking the train to Cambridge or Canterbury and then meeting a guide there?

Do you really need a guide? I usually just Google ‘visit .........’ and up comes the official tourist board website for wherever. See >https://www.canterbury.co.uk

Note that 2 train routes go from London to Canterbury. The one from St.Pancras is high speed for most of the way. Trains >
https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

Do not get a driver & car in London - it will take ages to clear the city due to congestion and be very expensive.

Hampton Court is South Western railway from Waterloo station, rather than South Eastern, from Victoria.
Bletchley Park is London North Western Railway (that's the name you will see on the trains and stations, West Midlands Railway only runs in the Birmingham area, but they are two trading arms of the same overall company).
Whitstable also has High Speed trains from St Pancras, hourly, journey time 1 hr 15 minutes.

Cambridge- there is a choice of 3 routes-
Great Northern- from King's Cross- the fastest route- both non-stops and stoppers- usually the most expensive.
Greater Anglia- from Liverpool Street- the slowest, usually the cheapest.
Thameslink- these trains have come from the South Coast and have several stops in Central London- London Bridge, Blackfriars, City Thameslink, Farringdon and St Pancras (which is directly opposite Kings Cross, with which it shares a tube station)- usually in the mid ground for timings and for the fare.
If you book ahead there is no reason why you can't take Thameslink one way and Greater Anglia the other way, for different scenery. The route you take is personal preference and ease of access of the main line station from your friend's hotel.
I would just organise a 'blue badge guide' to meet me locally in each city. They are the officially trained and registered guides from Visit England.
Does RS have suggested guides on his website?- I'm not familiar with the innards of his website, so it's an honest thought for someone with better knowledge to follow through for the OP.

London Walks sometimes offer day trips to Cambridge and Canterbury. Their summer schedule is not out yet but you could get in touch with them to find out if they are planning these tours later in the year.

I''ve taken the one to Cambridge. You meet the guide at the train station, go to Cambridge as a group, a coach is waiting to take you around the town, then you travel back by train to London. It's a full day tour.

Not sure of the specifics for Canterbury.

London Walks guides can also be hired for private tours.

I have picked up local walking tours in Canterbuty (from the tourist office), Oxford and Cambridge. I think the latter two were run by the universities. I got the info from Rick's guide book. All the tours were good. They were also quite inexpensive. Just about any really popular destination will have a walking tour available, perhaps starting mid- to late morning.

Another possible destination would be Windsor, but I haven't been there.

If your friends want a private tour, I's che k on a website like GetYourGuide. That should be affordable if they meet the guide at the destination rather than having to pay for his/her time traveling back and forth from London.

In addition to the occasional out-of-town trip, London Walks has dozens of London offerings, many of them focused on a specific neighborhood in London. Those can feel like day trips to smaller towns, and they don't take a lot of time. If you find the area you've toured interesting, you can stick around and see more.