Free days out with children, by train

Twenty towns and cities you can reach by train, and what you can do in each of them with children without spending much. Every one is on the TransPennine Express network, so you can get there without a car.

The museums in this list are almost all free. The parks and beaches all are.

Yorkshire and the Humber

Leeds — The Royal Armouries alone justifies the trip, and it costs nothing to get in. Leeds has a surprising amount of free family stuff.
York — The National Railway Museum is free and sits next to the station, which makes York close to the perfect day out by train with children.
Sheffield — A free museum with a stuffed polar bear, free botanical gardens and more green space per person than most British cities.
Hull — Every Hull museum is free, and the Maritime Museum has just reopened after a twenty million pound rebuild.
Scarborough — Two beaches, a harbour, rock pools and a boating lake. The classic British seaside day, and most of it costs nothing.
Huddersfield — A free museum in a Victorian mansion, three good parks and a hill with a tower on it. All within reach of one of the finest station frontages in Britain.
Doncaster — A free museum, gallery and library in one modern building, plus lakes and parks within walking distance of the station.

The North West

Manchester — Manchester has more free museums than you can do in a day, and the best ones are the sort that let children push buttons and pull levers.
Liverpool — Every one of Liverpool's national museums is free, and they are clustered close enough together that you can do two or three in a day.
Preston — The Harris reopened in 2025 after a nineteen million pound rebuild, it is free, and it is right in the middle of town.
Lancaster — A hilltop park with a domed folly you can see for miles, a free city museum and a castle that was a working prison until 2011.
Carlisle — A border city with a Norman castle, a cathedral, riverside parks and Hadrian's Wall country on the doorstep.
Stockport — Underground air raid shelters cut into the sandstone, a Tudor hall in its own park, and a viaduct that dominates the whole town.

The North East

Newcastle upon Tyne — A T-Rex, a Roman wall, a giant turbine ship and a quayside full of bridges, none of which charge for entry.
Durham — A World Heritage cathedral that costs nothing to enter, a river loop to walk and a castle on the hill above it.
Darlington — The town where the passenger railway began, with a big Victorian park and cheap entry to a museum built around Locomotion No. 1.
Middlesbrough — Two free museums, a Victorian park with a boating lake, and a transporter bridge that carries cars across the Tees in a gondola.

Scotland

Edinburgh — A national museum with a roof terrace, an extinct volcano you can climb, and a free museum devoted entirely to childhood.
Glasgow — Kelvingrove and the Riverside Museum are both free and both brilliant, and that is before you reach the parks.

Lincolnshire

Cleethorpes — The beach starts about two minutes from the station, which is the shortest walk from platform to sand on the network.