Extreme Day Trips - Are they for you?

 On 30th September I went on an extreme day trip. What's one of those? How do you make day tripping extreme? 

I'd heard of this concept, but not looked into it all that seriously. It basically means that you fly to another country but instead of staying for a weekend or for a longer holiday, you just go for the day! 

Airlines will sometimes do flights first thing in the morning and return last thing and night, but most places will have a couple of different airlines offering different things. So one airline will do a flight out and another will do the flight back. So I decided to look closer to see what my local airports will offer. I can get to Bournemouth and Southampton fairly easily so I took a look at Skyscanner (google search for flights) to see what was available. I had no specific time frame and I could go any day of the week so I just wanted to see what was cheapest and had the most convenient flight times. 

Palma, Majorca came out on top with a flight out of Bournemouth at 7am and a flight back landing 10:20pm. Perfect!

   

I then had a realisation........ The journey from Bournemouth to Majorca takes just over 2 hours to complete each way and then you get yourself into town, explore, spend time on the beach, experience local food and culture and then fly home again.......I then realised that the trip up to London from Bournemouth takes around 2 hours on the train, then you have to get into town, explore what you want to, need to eat and experience the culture. Can these two experiences be comparable? If so, how much does each one cost? 

I had to find out. 

In order to get the train to London from Bournemouth using the same timings and on the same day, I would need to leave at 7am and return at 11pm. I was astonished to find that the cost would be £94.30!

In contrast the flights were going to be 2 different airlines. Jet2 would provide me with the flight out at a cost of £34 and Ryanair provided the flight home at £14.99. A total cost of £48.99! How can it be cheaper to fly to another country cheaper than it is to get a train to the capital of my own, which is less than 100 miles away? Palma is 800 miles away and I needed an aircraft! 

With this astounding piece of news I decided to get the plan in motion. Flights booked, next I needed to know how to get to the airport. My usual method of transport is by car. But this is cost prohibitive because airports charge ridiculous amounts of money to borrow a patch of land for the day in order to leave my car on it. Bournemouth Airport charges £50 per day to park the car. That's not budget friendly at all. The nearby car park with a reasonable walk to get to along a dark path would have been £30! So I decided to use something else at my disposal which was completely free and good for the environment. The family electric bike. Bournemouth Airport says they have bicycle parking, but they actually don't. You need to just utilise the railings, lampposts and signage posts to park a bike on. This isn't really good enough and I think this needs to be improved. The local authority are making efforts to put bike lanes in all over town and the airport doesn't have a bike park at the end of it. 

Anyhow with that sorted, the next piece of research for me would be how to get from the airport to the centre of town. It turns out that an island like Majorca that has had many tourists for many years has this covered. You take the A1 bus from outside the airport terminal and at €5 each way using a very convenient tap on tap off system with a credit / debit card. Easy Peasy!

Getting into gear at 5am, cycling to the airport and on the plane within 1.5 hours was amazing! On board I had a middle seat (I could have paid for an aisle or window seat, but this was a budget thing and as it was only me with a backpack with camera gear in it, it didn't bother me). I could see easily outside the window and soon enough I was off! 

Majorca is a really lovely place to visit and Palma is a lovely town to walk around. I spent time bumbling around looking for anything nice to look at (and I found loads), I got some lunch at the local supermarket as dining alone isn't a big deal for me. I saw the cathedral which really does dominate the view at the water's edge. 

There is a small beach in Palma near the town centre and I managed to get my feet in the Mediterranean which was very lovely and a welcome cool down moment because the temperature was 31°C and the humidity also showed up as high as well. 

I finished the day looking around the shops and bumbling back towards the bus stop to take me back to the airport. 

Granted going through airports can be busy and stressful for people. The new(ish) ESA gates where you scan your passport and fingerprints are extra steps in the process which are not needed when going to London and time at the airport is far longer than you need at a train station.

However, I had a wonderful time experiencing the place and it can give you a taste of somewhere before committing to a full week in an area. 

Overall, I loved it and would absolutely do it again in the future. Would you consider doing it? If you'd like to see the full adventure, click here for my full YouTube video! Full Video Here!

Until Next Time

xx