North America
North America day-trips differently than Europe. There’s no train pulling out of the station every hour to whisk you to a castle — here, the great day trips are about landscapes: a desert at sunrise, a canyon rim, a coastline you drive with the windows down. The distances are bigger, the logistics matter more, and knowing whether a trip is worth four hours of driving is exactly the kind of thing you want to know before you go.
That’s what these city pages are for. Pick your base, and we’ll tell you which day trips earn the mileage — and which ones don’t.
Popular American Cities
The Best of America
Beyond the big five, some of the best day-trip bases in America are the ones travelers treat as one-night stops. Sedona, Savannah, and New Orleans reward a longer stay precisely because of what’s within an hour or two of them. Here’s everywhere we cover:
Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Jackson Hole, Miami, Milwaukee, Nashville, New Orleans, Palm Springs, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Antonio, Savannah, Sedona, Washington D.C., Orlando, Lake Tahoe, Memphis, Key West, Bahamas, Aruba, Seattle and more on the way.
Mexico, Please!
Mexico might be the most underrated day-trip country in the hemisphere — cenotes, ruins, colonial towns, and coastline, often within an hour of the resort zones. We cover Cabo San Lucas, Cancun, Cozumel, Mexico City, and Veracruz.
Explore Canada
Head north for three very different cities: Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Vancouver in particular is one of the best day-trip bases in North America — mountains, islands, and whales, all within reach before dinner.
Top Pick: Hawaii
If we had to pick one place in America where every single day trip delivers, it’s Hawaii. Oahu, Hawaii Island (the Big Island), Kauai, and Maui each deserve their own trip — but if you’re island-hopping, we’ll help you spend your days well.
South America
Yes, technically a different continent — but if you’ve made it this far south on the page, keep going south on the map: Buenos Aires, Lima, La Paz, Cusco, Santiago, Cartagena and Rio de Janeiro.
What is day.tours?
Day.tours is the worldwide destination guide from LinkParis.com, the award-winning small-group tour company that’s been running day trips from Paris since 2002. Twenty-plus years of putting people on trains taught us what makes a day trip work — and what makes one a wasted day. This site is that experience, written down, city by city. When a trip is worth it, we say so. When it isn’t, we say that too.