There’s no denying plenty of us love a nice long holiday to unwind and unplug from the stresses of modern life. A fortnight next to the beach? Bliss!

But being able to take huge chunks of time off work, or take the kids out of school (’cause summer holiday travel can be pretty extortionate), isn’t a luxury lots of us have. Plus, some of us want to see more of the world – and only have so much time to do so.

It’s perhaps unsurprising then that travel companies are seeing interest in EDTs – or extreme day trips – in 2026.

Fuelled by low-cost flights, high-speed rail connections and a desire to see more of the world on a budget (all while preserving precious annual leave), EDTs involve travelling to other cities early in the morning, spending a full day sightseeing, eating and exploring, before returning home that evening.

In fact, one in four millennials and Gen Z travellers plan to take a one-day international trip in 2026, according to Expedia.

The benefit is you save on accommodation costs while getting to explore a new place. You can also enjoy several trips without breaking the bank – or ploughing through PTO (paid time off).

Although it may sound ambitious – and perhaps even a little tiring – Kayak reports that 66% of UK travellers plan to take several shorter trips this year, enjoying landmarks, local food and cultural experiences without the expense of multiple nights away.

Here, Manuela Savoca, travel expert at airport transfer company Transfeero, shares the European cities that work best for a one-day adventure, and how to make the most of every minute.

If there’s one city that proves an EDT can feel like a real holiday, it’s Paris. Thanks to the Eurostar (just over 2 hours) and frequent flights (just over 1 hour), you can enjoy breakfast in London and lunch beside the Eiffel Tower just a few hours later. A private transfer from the airport (Charles de Gaulle Airport) to central Paris takes just 40 minutes.

Start your morning with a coffee and fresh pastries at a Parisian café before walking to the Eiffel Tower. Stroll along the Seine towards Pont Alexandre III, continue to the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe, then stop for lunch at a traditional bistro, advises Savoca.

Spend the afternoon exploring the Louvre courtyard, relaxing in the Tuileries Garden or browsing the boutiques of Le Marais before finishing with an evening walk around the river – and perhaps a quick bite to eat before you head home.

Best way to get around: Walking, the metro and a private airport transfer from the airport to the city centre.

Bruges feels like stepping into a storybook, and because its historic centre is compact, it’s “one of Europe’s easiest cities to explore in a day”, claimed the travel pro. The flight only takes 1 hour, plus a 35-40 minute private transfer from the airport.

Start in the Markt Square before climbing the Belfry for panoramic views. Wander along the canals, visit local chocolate shops, enjoy Belgian waffles or moules-fries for lunch and take a relaxing canal cruise, suggested Savoca. Finish with a peaceful walk through the Begijnhof before heading home.

Best way to get around: Walking.

Bologna is one of Italy’s best cities for an EDT thanks to its small centre and incredible food scene, said the expert. It’s a slightly longer flight at just over 2 hours, however an airport transfer to the centre takes just 22 minutes.

His advice is: Start in Piazza Maggiore before wandering beneath the city’s famous porticoes to the Two Towers. Stop for tagliatelle al ragù or handmade tortellini before looking around the bustling Quadrilatero food market. Finish with authentic Italian gelato before coming home.

Best way to get around: Walking.

Surrounded by mountains, packed with history, and just two hours via flight from London, Salzburg offers an unforgettable day without feeling rushed.

Visit Mozart’s birthplace, stroll along the colourful Getreidegasse shopping street, admire Salzburg Cathedral and take the funicular to Hohensalzburg Fortress for breathtaking views across the city and the Alps, he suggested. End the day with a traditional Austrian cake or schnitzel before heading back.

Best way to get around: Walking and the funicular.

Geneva has both lakeside scenery with elegant streets, and is just under two hours flight away from London. Many of its attractions are within easy walking distance to each other. Savoca recommends spending the morning walking along Lake Geneva to the famous Jet d’Eau before exploring the charming Old Town. Visit St. Pierre Cathedral, browse luxury watch boutiques, enjoy lunch overlooking the water and, if time allows, take a short boat cruise across the lake before making your return journey.

Best way to get around: Walking.

Book the earliest departure you can: The earlier you arrive, the more time you’ll have to explore without feeling rushed.

Don’t try to see everything: Pick three or four must-see attractions and leave time to wander.

Plan your transport in advance: Know how you’ll get from the airport or station before arriving. In cities like Paris, a pre-booked airport transfer can save valuable sightseeing time.

Travel light: A small backpack or handbag is usually all you need and makes getting around much easier.

Leave room for spontaneous discoveries: Avoid planning every minute. Stop at a local café or browse a market.

Keep an eye on the return journey: Allow extra time for security, train departures and unexpected delays so your trip ends as smoothly as it started.

Wes Streeting has suffered an “unbelievable volume” of homophobic abuse since becoming defence secretary, he has revealed.

He said it was clear that many people online “cannot cope with the idea” of a gay man in the role.

Streeting was brought back into the cabinet by Andy Burnham after resigning as health secretary under Keir Starmer.

Speaking at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, he said his sexuality had been “almost entirely unremarked upon in the media” when he was put in charge of the Ministry of Defence.

But he said that “online it matters to a lot of people”.

Streeting said said the role was an opportunity for him to “challenge this sort of stereotype that clearly persists in dark corners of the internet”.

Despite the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967, it remained a criminal offence for military personnel until 1994.

Even after that date, homosexuality remained classed as “conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline” until 2000, meaning service personnel could still be dismissed for being gay.

Streeting added: “I am proud of the fact that in my lifetime we’ve gone from gay people not being allowed to serve in the military to a gay defence secretary.

“And in my first week, someone in the MoD said to me, you know, as a gay man, I’m really proud that we have our first gay defence secretary, and it means a lot to many of us who remember the bad old days.”

Streeting also said Andy Burnham “probably” would not have become prime minister if he had not resigned as health secretary.

“What I think my resignation did that week was force choices for others,” he said.

Streeting also revealed that he had ditched his plan to challenge for the Labour leadership after talks with Burnham during the Makerfield by-election campaign.

He said: “I sort of went in with the aim of saying I think we can show a different way of doing politics in terms of how we debate the future of the Labour Party and how we conduct ourselves in a contest.

“And we sat around over a cup of tea, talking about what had gone wrong. And inevitably, when you talk about what’s gone wrong, you give hints to each other about what you think you need to do to make it right.

“And the more we were talking, the more I was thinking, how much do I fundamentally disagree with this guy on anything?”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

If you’ve ever taken antibiotics, you might’ve noticed your digestive system took a bit of a hit.

On a very simple level, the medication targets bacteria in the body to kill off the bad stuff – unfortunately it can also get rid of the good stuff, too.

Research suggests antibiotic-associated diarrhoea can occur in 5-30% of people either during the early stages of them taking antibiotics, or up to two months after.

These loose stools are one of the “clearest signs” that antibiotics are impacting your gut health, according to Dr Megan Rossi, a gut health scientist at King’s College London and founder of Smart Strains.

“The extent to which antibiotics affect the gut depends on several factors,” she told HuffPost UK.

“Firstly, the type of antibiotic matters. Some antibiotics are narrow-spectrum, meaning they target specific bacteria, while others are broad-spectrum and affect a much wider range of bacteria, including many of the beneficial microbes that live in our gut.

“Dose is another important factor, and repeated or prolonged courses of antibiotics can also have a greater cumulative impact on the gut microbiome.”

Dr Michael Passarella, a gastroenterologist at The University of Alabama Birmingham St. Vincent’s Hospital, suggested it’s “difficult to truly ‘protect’ the microbiome” while taking antibiotics.

That said, certain probiotics, “especially Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium and Saccharomyces boulardii, have shown to reduce the risk of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea,” Dr Passarella previously said. “They are safe to use, but the long-term benefits are uncertain.”

Dr Rossi points to recommendations from the The World Gastroenterology Organisation that people on antibiotics should take 10 billion CFU of the specific bacterial strain Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG), twice daily, alongside antibiotic treatment to help reduce the risk of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea.

“This is the exact formulation used in Smart Strains [Dr Rossi’s own brand] for When You’re on Antibiotics,“ she added.

“The formulation has been shown to reduce antibiotic-associated diarrhoea by around 70% compared with placebo in both adults and children in randomised controlled trials.”

Probiotics might also help, but Dr Rossi notes that not all probiotics are the same. “Each different type of bacteria, known scientifically as a strain, has different effects, so the evidence for one strain cannot be applied to another,” she explained.

“Just as I wouldn’t recommend an iron supplement to treat a vitamin D deficiency, I wouldn’t recommend a generic probiotic when the evidence supports a specific strain.”

If your probiotic contains the LGG strain, that is a good sign. Dr Rossi notes the World Gastroenterology Organisation recommends taking this type of strain during your antibiotic course, rather than waiting until it’s finished.

“The recommended dose is 10 billion CFU twice daily, ideally taken a couple of hours away from the antibiotic dose. I also recommend continuing it for at least one week after finishing the antibiotic course to help support recovery of the gut microbiome,” she added.

Dr Passarella also suggested that you don’t need to go for the expensive brands as “some of the commonly found over-the-counter options are just as effective”.

“A high CFU count isn’t necessarily better. The specific strain matters more than the number of bacteria,” he added.

Diet is also a big consideration during this time. Dr Passarella noted “fibre basically acts as a prebiotic”.

“If probiotics are the good bacteria, prebiotics are the food they need to thrive,” he explained, adding that it’s important to eat fruit, vegetables and other fibre-rich foods while taking antibiotics.

Some healthcare providers recommend eating more yoghurt with live cultures while taking antibiotics (providing you’re not sensitive to it).

Yoghurt contains Lactobacillus acidophilus, according to Dr Ravinder Machra, of West Tennessee Medical Group Primary Care. This can help “reup your bacterial balance while you’re taking an antibiotic”, she said.

Fermented foods such as kimchi and sauerkraut may also help.

Thanks to House Of The Dragon and House Of Guinness, James Norton is becoming an international hot property.

However, the Bafta nominee has already been a regular on British screens for nearly 15 years, since rising to fame as the lovable vicar Sidney Chambers in the ITV detective drama Grantchester and the villainous Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley.

Since his on-screen debut in the 2010s, James has gone on to appear in a wide array of projects on both the big and small screens – though, admittedly, not all of them have stood the test of time.

As his star continues to rise, here are 13 James Norton roles you may have forgotten about…

One of James’ earliest notable appearances came when he was cast as Mr Henry Alveston in Death Comes To Pemberley.

The BBC murder mystery drama was an adaptation of the P. D. James novel of the same name, starring Matthew Rhys, Anna Maxwell Martin and Jenna Coleman as characters in the same universe as Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice.

Taking place six years after Mr Darcy’s wedding to Elizabeth Bennet, the show followed the investigation into the murder of Captain Martin Denny on the grounds of Pemberley house.

James’ character, Dr Henry, was a lawyer and legal reformer who was involved in the court case, and also served as a love interest to Georgiana, Mr Darcy’s sister.

James played Sir Clifford Chatterley in one of the many adaptations of DH Lawrence’s scandalous 1928 novel.

This TV movie version starred Holliday Grainger as Lady Chatterley and Richard Madden as Oliver Mellors.

In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, James played the war veteran husband of the titular character, who is paralysed from the waist down after returning from World War I.

Written and directed by Line Of Duty creator Jed Mercurio, the BBC adaptation also featured Jodie Comer and Edward Holcroft.

The BBC miniseries War & Peace is now renowned for its star-studded cast, many of whom went on to become huge names in Hollywood – James included.

The Leo Tolstoy adaptation starred future household names including Jessie Buckley, Lily James, Jack Lowden and Callum Turner, alongside more established actors Paul Dano, Brian Cox and Stephen Rea.

War & Peace followed five aristocratic Russian families as they navigated society, love and the French invasion of Russia under Napoleon between 1805 and 1820.

In the six-part drama, James played the nihilistic Andrei Bolkonsky, the son of the strict retired general Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky and the brother of Princess Marya.

Andrei spends much of the show frustrated with the superficiality of his high society life, trying to find a higher purpose.

That same year, James also appeared in the first instalment of Black Mirror’s third season (and its first as a big-budget Netflix original), entitled Nosedive.

Bryce Dallas Howard took the lead in the episode, which took place in a not-too-distant dystopian future, where people rated each other after each interaction via a smartphone app.

James played Ryan, the laid-back, videogame-obsessed brother of Bryce’s Lacie. Unlike his sister, Ryan was nonplussed about society’s opinions of him, rejecting the superficiality and spending most of the episode hiding behind a VR set, while Lacie desperately sought the affirmation of those around her.

The episode is still one of Black Mirror’s highest rated and best remembered offerings ever, with The AV Club commending the episode for painting “a darker picture, of a world in which the instant gratification of online approval has spread outward”.

You’d be forgiven for forgetting they ever remade Flatliners, let alone that it featured James Norton.

Meanwhile, the 2017 reboot starred Elliot Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev and Kiersey Clemons alongside James as medical students who try to conduct experiments that create near-death experiences.

The remake, which also acted as a sequel, was slammed by critics and now holds a measly 4% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Around the release of the ill-fated Flatliners, James also played a supporting role in Hampstead, alongside Brendan Gleeson and the late Diane Keaton.

The romantic comedy-drama was based on the real-life story of Harry Hallowes, who lived on a camp on Hampstead Heath, and successfully battled property developers, successfully claiming adverse possession when they tried to evict him.

Brendan played Donald, who served as a fictionalised version of the late Hallowes, with Diane starring as an American widow whom he befriends after she tries to help him.

James appeared as her well-meaning son, who was worried about the financial and personal burden Donald was putting on his mother.

Although made in 2017, the film’s release was delayed until 2019, reportedly due the allegations made against Harvey Weinstein, who had acquired the US distribution rights to the film around that time.

The movie was met with mixed reviews with Variety calling the unlikely rom-com “gentle, attractively appointed and phonier-than-thou Britcom in the Richard Curtis mould”.

BBC audiences were absolutely hooked on the crime drama McMafia when it premiered in 2018.

In the gripping series, James played Alex Godman, a young financier who became embroiled in a life of crime, rubbing shoulders with the Russian mafia and the Mexican cartel.

Inspired by a non-fiction book by journalist Misha Glenny, the series also starred David Strathairn and Juliet Rylance.

“This isn’t just a story of the sexy side of the mafia which people are attracted to, but also the cost of that lavish lifestyle, how it’s paid and who pays for it,” James teased to iNews in 2017.

Another big-budget BBC drama James Norton appeared in was The Trial Of Christine Keeler. Airing at the end of 2019 and start of 2020, the miniseries followed the real-life events of the 1963 Profumo Affair.

Sophie Skelton played Christine Keeler, the model who became involved in a national scandal when she had an affair with two married men. The 21-year-old was entangled with both a Soviet Union attache and the UK Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, during the Cold War,

James played Stephen Ward, a well-connected osteopath and artist who was dragged into the scandal when he introduced Profumo to the then 19-year-old Christine Keeler. He was also friends with the Soviet attaché and was later involved in the cover-up.

At the time, James’ most high-profile job to date came when he appeared in 2019’s Little Women, directed by Greta Gerwig.

The British star appeared alongside an illustrious cast including Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet and Florence Pugh, playing the hardworking tutor John Brooke.

In the film, his character married Emma Watson’s Meg March, with whom he has two children.

“I was very aware of the calibre of people on that set. I spent most of my time standing in the corner just trying to soak as much of it as I possibly could,” he told Variety at the Cannes Film Festival, calling working with the star-studded cast a “total privilege”.

One of James’ most critically-acclaimed projects is the 2020 indie film Nowhere Special, in which he played a single father with a terminal illness.

James starred as John, a man who must make arrangements for his four-year-old son after learning he has terminal cancer, while also shielding the young boy from his inevitable death.

In 2021, the actor was nominated for a British Independent Film Award for Best Actor for his performance in the drama. Nowhere Special holds a rare 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Guardian praising James’ “spine-tingling, intimate performance”, and the BFI calling him “grounded and genuine” in the role.

Set in Victorian London, the series followed a group of people who acquired abnormal abilities after a mysterious supernatural event.

In the steampunk series, James played Hugo Swann, an aristocratic pansexual man who owns a private club and is known for extorting customers.

In 2021, James called his character an “absolute joy to play”, telling Radio Times: “I love being able to let rip, and tap into that dark, wonderful, bawdy side of humanity. We’re all desperate to be Hugo Swann, but we’re all too repressed to actually give it a go.”

Kingsley Ben-Adir won acclaim and critical nods for his leading performance role as Bob Marley in the 2022 biopic, One Love.

The biopic followed the reggae legend’s career from his mid 70s success through to his untimely death in 1981.

In the film, James played the record producer and founder of Island Records, Chris Blackwell, who represented artists like Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh, and is credited with helping bring reggae music to the wider world.

James researched the mogul extensively and consulted with art director Neville Garrick to capture the producer’s personal dynamic with the late reggae singer.

He told Screen Rant about the importance of Neville and Bob’s son Ziggy Marley’s involvement with the project.

“Having those guys there, both in terms of just the references and the historical advice was brilliant, but it was a bigger, more profound presence,” he enthused.

Just last year, James both starred in and executive produced the four-part ITV drama Playing Nice, kicking off a run of prolific projects that included King & Conqueror for the BBC and House Of Guinness for Netflix.

In the show, James and Niamh Algar played a husband and wife, who discovered that their child had been swapped with another couple’s in the same hospital when they were newborns babies.

The series followed the couple as they tried to “play nice” and co-parent their biological child, while still raising the toddler they believed to be their own.

However, tensions quickly rose when legal threats were made by the other set of parents.

The show was one of ITV1’s highest-rated new dramas of 2025, breaking ITVX records with its viewing figures.

Digital Spy hailed Playing Nice as “the kind of show that will plague your mind in an infuriating, all-consuming, perfectly addictive way, although it did face some criticism due its storyline.

James hit back at the critics at the time, insisting: “Family, either your parents or your children, they are the thing which you have that 4am anxiety about,” he said.

“So this… I mean, look, I don’t want to push back [but] the people who are finding it too much – it’s drama!”

House Of The Dragon’s third season concludes on Monday on HBO Max, Sky and Now in the UK.