The best Brexit-proof holidays, from Rotterdam to the Canary Islands

Fancy a flight-free trip? Here are five of the best

Avoid Spain’s planes and cruise your way to Lanzarote (Tamara Hinson)

Fears that flights will be grounded after Brexit mean more of us are considering staycations, travel agents say. So here are five of the best holiday suggestions that don’t involve a single flight.

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Rotterdam is proof you don’t need planes to hop across the channel. The city is just a 3hr 49m train journey from London via the Eurostar. For a more leisurely journey, take the ferry from the UK to the Hook of Holland, just 30km from the city.

If you’re heading to Rotterdam this summer, stop by the Kunsthal Rotterdam’s hip hop exhibition, which looks at the creative power of the genre. It runs until September.

The new rooftop tours offered by Inside Rotterdam look cool if you’ve a head for heights, while Bike and Bite’s new tour combines two things Rotterdam is famous for – cycling and food. You’ll bike to some of the city’s best restaurants, including three owned by Michelin-starred Dutch chef Mario de Ridder.

Antwerp, Belgium

It takes under four hours to get from London to Antwerp on the Eurostar, and although there are various reasons to visit the world’s diamond capital, one in particular stands out – the world’s largest chocolate museum, which recently opened right next door to the main train station. This city’s a fitting home: the Port of Antwerp has the largest storage site of cacao beans in the world. Visit Chocolate Nation to join chocolate-making workshops, learn about production processes at the Bean-To-Bar Atelier and gorge on the sweet stuff at the in-house restaurant.

Antwerp is accessible by train (Getty)

We also recommend a visit to Antwerp’s Diamond museum, Diva, which opened last year. The museum has six themed rooms, an atelier, library and two shops. Diamond-encrusted magnet, anyone?

Manchester, UK

Manchester is one of the UK’s most accessible cities and it’s got an exciting few years ahead. July will see the long-awaited return of the Manchester International Festival, and artists confirmed to appear include Idris Elba and Skepta. Yoko Ono has been commissioned to create a piece of artwork welcoming the event back to the city (the last one took place in 2017), and you’ll find her creation, Bells for Peace, in Cathedral Gardens.

Manchester is crammed with events and new openings (Marketing Manchester/Rich J Jones)

Autumn will see the arrival of boutique Everyman Cinema chain, which will open its first Manchester venue in the up-and-coming St John’s quarter. There’s a fantastic new music venue too, in the form of the expanded Band on the Wall.

The newness will continue well into 2020, when three of Manchester’s biggest museums – the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester Museum, and Manchester Jewish Museum – reopen following major expansions.

London, UK

This year, there’s a whole host of fantastic exhibitions guaranteed to take your mind off the dreaded B-word. On 27 March, the Tate Britain unveiled the largest UK-based exhibition of Van Gogh’s work for almost a decade. The event runs until the end of November.

Other Tate Britain exhibitions worth checking out include the William Blake exhibition, which runs between September 2019 and February 2020, using 600 pieces of art to examine how Blake influenced other artists.

London is an art lover's dream city (Tamara Hinson)

Spring also saw the reopening – following a move and major expansion – of the Cartoon Museum on Wells Street, near Oxford Circus. Meanwhile, the British Museum is hosting the largest exhibition dedicated to Manga outside of Japan until late August.

The Canary Islands, Spain

The best thing about the UK’s close proximity to Europe is that you don’t need a plane to get to some of its best bits. P&O’s Canary Islands and Portugal cruise is the perfect way to bid a final farewell to our European neighbours. This 12-night cruise, which starts and finishes in Southampton, has five ports of call (including Madeira, Lisbon and Lanzarote) and your vessel – Ventura – has plenty to distract from all things Brexit-related, from the two-tier theatre to the four pools and spa.