I flew from Luton to Prague and back for £18 and spent the day admiring the city’s incredible architecture

A man flew from Luton to Prague for the day for just £18 - cheaper than his commute to work.

Luke Simmonds, 36, has been going on extreme day trips since 2023 - and has completed 30 in two years.

For his most recent trip he jetted off to Prague, Czech Republic on October 11 on a Wizz Air flight at 6am. Landing at 8.45am - he wandered round the city, tried a local chimney cake, and visited Prague castle. He flew back at 5pm and said the whole trip cost him £52.65.

Luke, an IT consultant, from Guildford, Surrey, said: “The commute to work is about £40 on the train and the tube on top so about £45 and it’s 60 miles to travel. A day out in London would have cost more.

“It just shows what’s possible having a look and a mooch about foreign capital in a day. Clearly there’s a lot more in Prague and it was not enough time to tick it off and never go again but nice as an introduction to the city."

Luke said Prague is his cheapest day trip and he visited with seven other travel enthusiasts who he met through Facebook. Booking £8.99 flights each way 11 months in advance, his 6am Luton flight touched down in the city by 8.45am.

Luke says he bags his cheap flights by booking at least three months in advance.

He said: “Three months ahead tends to be the sweet spot for trips, you can get really good deals. There’s no exact science to booking flights as the prices go up all over the place. By being flexible with airports it opens up more destinations and way more options then.

“What I really like about it [extreme day tripping] is nobody has commercialised it. I’ve gone to places I’ve never even heard of because I’ve seen people write it up on Facebook and thought, ‘I’ll go there then’.”

Luke’s Prague trip costs

National Express coach: £10.62

Flights: £17.98

Transport: £7.00 (CZK 193.69)

Food and drink: £10.67 (CZK 295.24)

Souvenirs: £6.38 (CZK 176.54)