Manchester’s real advantage over most British cities is what surrounds it. Within an hour by train there is a national park, a Roman walled city, a Georgian spa town, another major city, and the sea.
Almost none of it needs a car.
The Peak District — 40 minutes
The Hope Valley line from Piccadilly is the single best thing about being in Manchester without a car.
Edale for Kinder Scout and the start of the Pennine Way — a serious moorland walk needing boots, waterproofs and a map.
Hope for Mam Tor and the Great Ridge, which is the photograph everybody takes.
Castleton, by bus from Hope, for the show caves, Peveril Castle and Blue John stone.
Grindleford for Padley Gorge, which is woodland and water and suits anyone who does not want a mountain.
Hathersage for gritstone edges, an outdoor pool, and Little John’s grave.
The Dark Peak weather is not a joke. See the destination page before you commit to the high ground.
Quarry Bank Mill — 20 minutes
Quarry Bank at Styal, on the Manchester Airport line, is a working water-powered cotton mill with the machines running and the Apprentice House shown by guided tour.
It is the best single explanation of the industrial revolution available anywhere in Britain, and standing in a room of running power looms is a physical experience that no museum label replicates.
Book the Apprentice House in advance. Allow a full day.
Chester — 1 hour
Roman walls you can walk the whole circuit of, a medieval Rows system of two-level covered shopping galleries found nowhere else, a cathedral with exceptional carved quire stalls, and the largest Roman amphitheatre excavated in Britain.
Chester is compact, extremely pretty, and geared to visitors, which cuts both ways — the centre is busy and priced accordingly.
Trains run from Piccadilly and Oxford Road.
Liverpool — 50 minutes
Two cathedrals, the Albert Dock, the Walker Art Gallery, the Beatles industry, and a waterfront that is one of the great urban set-pieces in Britain.
Trains run from Piccadilly, Oxford Road and Victoria, several an hour.
The rivalry between the two cities is real, ancient, and mostly enjoyed by both sides. It dates to the Manchester Ship Canal, built in 1894 explicitly so Manchester could stop paying Liverpool’s dock dues, and neither city has forgotten.
Buxton — 1 hour
A Georgian spa town inside the Peak District, with a crescent modelled on Bath’s, an opera house, thermal water you can drink from a public well, and a very good second-hand book scene.
The train from Piccadilly climbs steadily and the last twenty minutes are worth the ticket on their own.
The Lake District — 1 hour 40
Windermere is reachable by train with one change at Oxenholme. It is doable in a day, it is a long day, and the lake and the fells are what they are said to be.
Better as an overnight if you can. But if you have a spare day and good weather, go.
The seaside
Blackpool — 1 hour 15. The Tower, the Pleasure Beach, seven miles of sand, the Illuminations from September to January, and a town that is simultaneously a genuine piece of working-class history and quite visibly struggling. It is not a pretty day out and it is a real one.
Southport — 1 hour 20, quieter, with a very long pier and a beach that is famously a long way from the promenade.
Llandudno, on the north Wales coast — 2 hours, and a Victorian resort largely intact, under a headland with a tramway and a cable car.
The mill towns
Manchester’s satellite towns are unfashionable and several are worth a morning.
Stockport — genuinely reviving, with a restored market, the Underbanks, an air-raid shelter museum in tunnels under the town, and the Hat Works. Twelve minutes by train.
Bury — for the market, the black pudding, and the East Lancashire Railway, a preserved steam line running to Rawtenstall. Metrolink all the way.
Rochdale — for the Co-operative Museum on Toad Lane, where the movement started in 1844, and an extremely good Victorian town hall.
Saltaire, near Bradford — 1 hour 20. A complete model industrial village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with the Salts Mill now housing the largest permanent Hockney collection.
Practical
Buy a return rather than two singles; it is almost always cheaper on these routes.
Off-peak fares apply after about 9.30am on weekdays and all day at weekends, and the saving is significant.
Weekend engineering work is the standard hazard, particularly on the airport and Hope Valley lines. Check the night before.
A day ranger ticket covering Greater Manchester and the Peak District exists and is good value if you are hopping between the Hope Valley stations.