Claire Howard had coffee at a French market, lunch by a lake, dinner in a Thai restaurant and was back in Birmingham before midnight.
The whole thing cost her about £70.
The 48-year-old English teacher spotted £27 return Ryanair flights to Beauvais on Skyscanner and booked them a month in advance.
Her husband dropped her at Birmingham Airport for the 7.30am departure, and a £1.80 bus had her in the town centre 15 minutes after landing.
She was not there for Paris. She was there for Beauvais.
“I’ve been to Paris a few times and didn’t want to travel in from Beauvais as Paris is really pricey and busy,” she told CreatorZine.
“I just wanted to see what was actually in Beauvais itself for a relaxing day of wandering, eating and drinking.”
Market, cathedral, lake, wine
The morning started at the town’s Saturday market with a coffee and a pain au chocolat for £4, followed by a drink in the town square with live music playing.
Then a £10 Uber to Plan d’Eau du Canada, a lakeside spot where lunch was an £8 supermarket picnic.
Baguette, cheese, a small bottle of wine, a book, some sun.
Beauvais Cathedral and the Musée de l’Oise were both free to enter.
Dinner was a £10 Pad Thai at a local Thai restaurant before the 11pm flight home.
She also picked up an £8 bracelet as a souvenir, which is roughly what a large popcorn costs now.
“I don’t want to pay £50 to go to the cinema and lunch here in a shopping centre when I can go and experience so much more abroad for a very reasonable price,” she said.
“It’s just a different feeling abroad. It makes it feel much more like an adventure than just going somewhere at home.”
Once a month, term time permitting
Claire reckons the trip could have been done for even less.
“I do stay over in some places depending on flight times but it wasn’t necessary for this trip as the flight times fit and I could still have an evening meal and a full day.
There’s no point in staying over to get a flight home the next morning as it’s a waste of accommodation money.”
She is now hooked. Since discovering bargain fares out of Birmingham she flies to a different city nearly every month, and this year alone has ticked off Bergamo, Malaga, Valletta, Poznan and Porto.
She cannot take leave during term time, but she has Tuesdays off and intends to use them.
“I just love the way you can do and see so much in the same time that you might waste a day at home just watching Netflix and doomscrolling,” she said.
“I usually find the best prices four to six weeks in advance.
“My husband doesn’t like short trips so he’s not jealous.”
Why It Matters
Budget micro-travel is one of the most reliable content formats going.
Itemised “my £70 day in France” breakdowns perform because they are half aspiration, half maths, and viewers can fact-check every line.
Claire’s itinerary, receipts and all, is essentially a ready-made video script, and creators in the day-trip niche are building full channels on exactly this premise.
With UK leisure costs still climbing, “cheaper abroad than at home” is less a stunt than a genre.
She has already booked her next round: return flights to Poland and Berlin in August, £70 for the pair.
The Tuesdays are filling up fast.
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