Windsor, Bath or Canterbury/ Dover?

I'd be inclined to miss out Dover altogether and focus on having a really good day in Canturbury. Dover used to be pretty but nowadays it's just a port that huge ferries sail in and out of, loading and unloading cars. The old picture postcard resort of Dover has been swamped by people who have entered these shores illegally and are surviving on charity and state aid.

You can spend a whole day in Canturbury and have a great time, there's plenty to see and do.

My experience on two consecutive weekends in England in October was that there is construction on the tracks on weekends. This leads to detours by bus and trips taking much longer than expected. Be aware and/or check it out before making plans. I took day trips to Cambridge, Portsmouth, and Bournemouth. I'd do it again, even with the detours, but maybe leave earlier and be prepared for confusion and bus detours. Windsor or Bath would be excellent choices for daytrips.

Just did this trip over Thanksgiving. It is quite doable, and an awful lot of fun. Just take an early (earlier?) morning train out if you want to give yourself more time.

When we went to Dover we visited the castle and the underground tunnels. I thought it was extremely interesting. We're glad we made the trip to Dover.

My experience has also been construction work on the
tracks on weekends, especially Sundays. To make
the most of your limited day light I would do
Windsor, a lovely town that is easy and quick to
access from London.

Dover/Canturbury is doable. But I agree that a whole day in Canturbury would be a better bet. Bath is a good day trip, but Windsor can be done in 1/2 day. You might also want to consider York or Stratford-upon- Avon. I just published an article in the Jan/Feb issue of AAA Carolina's "Go" magazine on day trips out of London. You can read it at http://www.aaacarolinas.com/Magazine/index.htm (just use 28208 as the requested zip code).

My wife and I did Dover/Canterbury last Thanksgiving (2006). It will be a long day, but will be an awful lot of fun. Like others have suggested, make sure you get an early train out of London and you'll be fine. My advice would be to pay a few extra pounds to get a train ticket that lets you take any train between London and Dover on the day you're travelling.

I'd also suggest grabbing a cab from Dover station to get to the castle, otherwise its a LONG uphill walk. Then you can walk back downhill through Dover proper and check out the city.

Thank you for all your valuable insights!

I really do hope I have more time to explore BOTH Bath and Canterbury but for now, I would probably just settle for Canterbury and Dover. The Canterbury Cathedral really looks enchanting.

Thanks! :)