How To Have The Perfect Oxford Day Trip
Oxford Summer School
Are you taking a 1 day trip to Oxford? It’s easy to visit Oxford in a day. With our ideas and itinerary below, we believe that you are going to have a wonderful time!
Our Oxford day trip itinerary includes the most famous Oxford University colleges, museums, famous literary spots, Harry Potter highlights and beautiful outdoor activities.
We can’t guarantee that you are going to fit all of this in, so pick and choose what you most want to see to suit your own tastes and pace. Let’s discover Oxford in one day!
All Souls College is the most prestigious academic institution in the whole world. As you peek through the gates, you’re looking at a University which the majority of people will never step in. 80 hopefuls apply to study here each year and only 2 manage to get in.
The good news is that once you are accepted, you can stay and study here as long as you wish to! Famous past students include English architect Christopher Wren, the leading physician Richard Master and British philosopher Stephen R. L. Clark.
Want to get in to just take a peek? You can visit the college free of charge from 2pm to 4pm during the week and when it is open on Sunday.
Oxford has such an array of fantastic and prestigious museums to visit, that it is impossible to visit all of them in one day.
Here are our three favourites.
We recommend a short visit to a couple of them, or to put your efforts into just one and make the most of what it has to offer.
Ashmolean Museum
Welcome to the University of Oxford’s art and archaeology museum, founded in 1683. Pay a visit and you will find yourself transported into ancient Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Islamic and Indian collections, amongst many others!
The Ashmolean Museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday (and Bank Holiday Mondays) from 10am to 5pm. Admission is free!
Founded in 1860 and proudly housed in a magnificent neo-Gothic building, there are plenty of specimens and artifacts to enjoy at Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Highlights include the extinct dodo bird, the oldest remains of a human burial found in the UK ever and a stunning butterfly and moth collection; renowned as one of the most beautiful and scientifically important in Britain. The museum is open every day from 10am to 5pm. Entry is free.
Modern Art Oxford
Fast forward to today and this is your chance to see exciting, bold and international contemporary art at Modern Art Oxford. It’s free to visit here and is open 10am to 5pm Tuesday to Saturday. It’s closed on Mondays and open 12pm to 5pm on Sundays.
Stand below the Bridge of Sighs
There’s no denying that the University of Oxford and Cambridge University have had a turbulent history together – with an ongoing rivalry that still exists today. One way that they compete with each other is through the Bridge of Sighs.
Cambridge University built theirs first over the River Cam in 1831. The University of Oxford saw it and thought they would build their own in 1913. Which one is better? We’ll let you decide!
Welcome to one of the oldest libraries in Europe! The Bodleian Library holds over 12 million items and is only here today thanks to an incredibly generous donation of £23,000,000 from the Weston family.
We recommend taking a 30-minute tour to experience the most beautiful parts of this historic library. The tour includes Duke Humphrey’s library as well as the 15th-century Divinity School! Tours run from Monday to Saturday. Check the tour times here.
Visit the largest bookshop in the world
Next door to the Bodleian Library just so happens to be the largest bookshop in the entire world: Blackwells Bookshop. It may look quite small from the front, but once you step inside, a whole new world opens up. Blackwells Bookshop holds around 150,000 books!
You will have a lot of fun looking through the aisles: just make sure to keep an eye on the time otherwise you may end up being here all day – lost within the nooks and crannies of this bookshop maze.
Whilst you are in this area of town, you must make a quick stop at Radcliffe Camera. You may mistake this building to actually contain a camera inside; yet ‘camera’ simply means ‘room’ in Latin. Instead, the Radcliffe camera holds many history books within its walls.
There’s an underground tunnel connecting it to the Bodleian library – so if you need anything from here, it will be moved along a conveyor belt and delivered to you shortly!
