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Cheapest UK cities for a weekend break
Hotel rooms in the best small city in the country cost just £90 on average.
That means in tiny, perfect Wells you'd pay £37 less per night than London, £53 less than Edinburgh and £108 less than the most expensive city - St Andrews.
We’ve taken a look at the best-value destinations in our annual surveys - and crunched data on average hotel prices to see which cities are the cheapest.
The best-value UK city breaks
23 cities in our most recent survey of the best and worst UK city breaks got four stars for value for money. Four of these got an overall score of over 80% - with excellent ratings for things such as cultural sites, food and drink or accommodation - as well as reasonable rates for hotels.
The highest rated was tiny Wells.
Wells 86%, hotel £90
Despite having a population of just over 12,000 Wells is officially a city - thanks to its 850-year-old cathedral - the seat of the Bishops of Bath and Wells.
It topped our small cities table with an excellent score of 86% and gets four stars for lack of crowds and value for money. This (relative) lack of visitors may explain why hotel prices are still below £100 - even if a one-room Airbnb is a bit more expensive.
Wells also received four stars for cultural sites, tourist attractions and accommodation. Vicar’s Close, just round the corner from the cathedral, is described as the only complete medieval street in England.
Liverpool 84%, hotel £95
You’ll struggle to find anywhere decent to stay in central Liverpool for less than £100 a night at the weekend - but visitors still thought it was more than worth it - and there are bargains to be had outside of peak times.
It topped our large cities table with a score of 84%. Visitors loved cultural sights such as the museums at Albert Dock, the Walker Gallery, its two cathedrals and the Beatles museum.
It got five stars for cultural sights and four stars for accommodation, shopping and lack of crowds.
York 83%, hotel £113
York is one of the UK’s most beautiful cities, with its ancient walls and medieval streets such as the famous Shambles.
Unsurprisingly, it’s not cheap for a night’s stay, but its city score was second only to Liverpool in our survey (and level with Edinburgh). Be warned that it got just two stars for lack of crowds and one star for parking. If you want a bit more space, try Chester, Lincoln or Durham.
However, five stars for cultural sites and four stars for almost everything else means it’s still worth a visit.
Chester 80%, £91
Just south of Liverpool, Cheshire’s cathedral city is a pleasure to walk around.
It gets four stars for lack of crowds, cultural sights and food and drink. In the cobbled centre, shops squat on top of each other in half-timbered, double-decker arcades known as the Rows. Although most are Victorian replicas, some original 13th-century buildings remain.
The best-value city breaks in the UK
The cities and towns that got four stars for value for money in our latest survey
City | Average hotel price | City score |
Hull | £59 | 66% |
Sheffield | £74 | 63% |
Plymouth | £78 | 66% |
Lincoln | £79 | 78% |
Newcastle-upon-Tyne | £79 | 75% |
Nottingham | £82 | 66% |
Shrewsbury | £82 | 75% |
Portsmouth | £82 | 74% |
Norwich | £84 | 73% |
Worcester | £88 | 77% |
Salisbury | £88 | 75% |
Wells, Somerset | £90 | 86% |
Chester | £91 | 80% |
Liverpool | £95 | 84% |
Glasgow | £97 | 76% |
Manchester | £99 | 71% |
Stirling | £100 | 75% |
Durham | £100 | 78% |
Winchester | £104 | 77% |
Belfast | £112 | 77% |
York | £113 | 83% |
Edinburgh | £143 | 83% |
St David's | n/a | 74% |
Hotel prices are averages for a double room in three or four-star hotels, provided by online accommodation booking site Kayak. Prices are averages from Jan 2025 to February 2026. N/A means there was no data available for St David’s hotel prices. City score In April 2024, we asked 3,967 Which? members to rate UK cities and towns they’d visited for leisure purposes and stayed in for at least one night in the past two years (since April 2022). We received reports of 7,187 experiences.
Best and worst seaside towns
Many of the UK’s best-loved towns and cities are along the coast. However, some of the most famous seaside towns appear near the bottom of our list of 120 towns - while the top-rated destinations are not so wellknown.
Take a look at our guide to the best and worst seaside towns before booking your next trip.
Or, if you prefer something tucked away inland, try our survey of the best and worst towns and villages.