London is a hard place to leave for better weather, because the weather is shared with everywhere a car can comfortably reach. Kent, the Sussex coast, even Paris on a day trip, usually sit in the same air as you do. A list of “sunny weekends near London” that ignores that will send you down the M20 for a forecast you could have read at home.
The trip that changes the day is usually a flight. Which flight depends on the month, and in high summer the smarter trip is often not the sunniest one.
What you can do without flying
A day out. Brighton, the Kent coast, Cambridge and the Chilterns are close enough that the journey is not the problem. The weather is. Go when the forecast is already good at home and you want the sea or a change of scene. Do not go to find a different climate. You will not.
A long drive into France or Belgium. Possible for a weekend, heavy for a relaxed one, and in winter rarely warmer in a way that matters. Northern France under the same front is not a sun holiday. It starts to be interesting from late spring into early autumn, and only on weeks when the south of that drive is actually clearer than London. Check both, or you have hired a tunnel to sit in the same cloud.
For the general version of this limit, see a sunny weekend by car.
Winter: fly, or stay
From November to February a car will not find you a beach, and it will not find you 20 °C. The honest options are:
- Stay, if you wanted a feeling of summer. It is not on offer at weekend distance.
- A short flight for a milder city. Lisbon, Faro, Málaga and, a little further, Rome or Malta. Daytime highs in the mid-teens are a genuine change from a dark 6 °C, and they are for walking. Rain still happens. This is a city break with better light, which is worth booking on those terms.
- A longer flight for actual warmth. The south of Tenerife, Gran Canaria or Lanzarote, about four and a half hours in the air, around 20–22 °C. Agadir is a similar climate. Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh are the ones that feel like a beach, and they take longer still.
A world map of December sunshine, with Chile and the Namib at the top, is accurate and irrelevant to a week off from the UK. The reachable version is winter sun you can actually reach, and the beach choice is Canaries, Agadir or the Red Sea.
Count airports. A four-hour flight is not a four-hour journey. For a Friday-to-Sunday, the mild city is often the better buy than the perfect beach you barely arrive at.
Spring and autumn: the short flight earns its fare
April, May, late September and October are when leaving London pays most cleanly. Home is changeable. Lisbon, Andalusia, Sicily, the Greek islands and Cyprus are often already, or still, in shirt weather. You do not need Egypt. You do need to accept that “sunny” in April is 20 °C with a cool evening, not August.
Sea swimming lags behind. If the water is the point, do not book early June on the strength of the air temperature. The months are in when the sea is warm enough.
July and August: do not chase the sunniest pin
London in a decent July is already warm, and a Mediterranean flight is a flight into more heat, not into the existence of summer. That can be what you want. It is a bad default.
If the goal is sun without 36 °C, look at the Atlantic side: the Algarve and Lisbon are often fresher than the Spanish interior, Madeira and the Canaries stay moderate, and a good week in Cornwall or Brittany may already be enough if you do not need a guarantee. Summer sun without the heatwave goes further. If home is 24 °C and bright, the verdict on a lot of “better” destinations should be that they are not better. They are hotter and further.
A way to decide this week
- If the good weather is already over London, go somewhere for the place, not for the forecast.
- If London is grey and you have a weekend, look at flights of about three hours in the air before you look at a six-hour drive.
- If it is winter and you want a beach, budget the longer flight and more than three days.
- If the upgrade is one or two degrees and an extra hour of sun, it is not worth the trip.
Check the next week by plane from London, or this weekend within a few hours by car or train. Set the start to London. The useful answer includes “nowhere beats home”.