Best Day Trips from Cannes
Are you looking for the best day trips from Cannes, France?
I recently spent two weeks in Cannes, and I used it as a base to take day trips around the French Riviera and beyond almost every single day. To tell you the truth, I don’t love Cannes all that much. It’s fine, but it’s not my favorite destination on the French Riviera. Luckily, many of the best destinations are close by!
You can easily explore the French Riviera on day trips from Cannes. In fact, the city actually makes a really great hub for exploring other nearby destinations along the French Riviera.
Many of these day trips can be done by train from Cannes. The TER train is the regional train that links many destinations along the French Riviera. Some day trips also require you to take a bus — make sure you have coins and small bills to buy your ticket on the bus, because you can’t pay with card onboard!
There are so many great destinations you can visit on a day trip from Cannes, from beautiful coastal towns to lovely hilltop villages. You can even visit two other countries in under an hour and a half from Cannes!
Below are 12 of the best day trips from Cannes, in order of distance. I’ve personally done each one of these day trips, so I’m also sharing my thoughts and tips for visiting each destination below.
⭐ Short on time? These are the top tours and activities I recommend. If you book directly through a link on this page, I may earn a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting Stay to Wander!
Best Day Trips from Cannes:
- Private boat tour to the Lérins Islands
- Grasse, Gourdon, and Valbonne small towns tour plus wine tasting
- Monaco and Èze day trip from Cannes
Antibes
Distance from Cannes: 15 minutes by train
Antibes is one of the easiest day trips you can take from Cannes. Just hop on the TER and you’ll arrive there in about 15 minutes! Antibes is a beautiful town along the French Riviera that is well worth a visit.
It has a charming Old Town and beautiful coastal views. I highly recommend stopping for a visit at the Musée Picasso, which houses an impressive collection of works the artist painted while in Antibes.
Île Sainte-Marguerite
Distance from Cannes: 15 minutes by ferry
Île Sainte-Marguerite is another easy day trip from Cannes. It’s part of the Lérins Islands off the coast of Cannes. There are four islands total, but only two are open to visitors. (The other two are very tiny.)
You can buy tickets for the Île Sainte-Marguerite at the Port de Cannes. There are three companies selling tickets: Riviera Lines, Trans Côte d’Azur, and Horizon. It doesn’t matter which you choose, because prices are the same. Tickets are €18 round-trip for adults, with discounts for youths, seniors, and families.
Ferries run every hour, and you can choose how long you want to stay on the island and return at your leisure. On the island, there are walking trails, a historic fort, a couple of restaurants, and beaches.
Île Saint-Honorat
Distance from Cannes: 20 minutes by ferry
Île Saint-Honorat is the other one of the Lérins Islands that you can visit. If you have limited time and have to choose just one island to visit, I would personally choose Île Saint-Honorat.
I loved this island, which is privately owned by the monks who have inhabited the island for more than 1,000 years! This island is smaller than Île Sainte-Marguerite and easier to walk around. You can visit the monastery and see the vineyards where the monks have been producing wine for centuries.
There are also a couple of restaurants and a gift store on the island. Only one company runs ferries to this island, Planaria, and round-trip tickets are €18 for adults, with discounts for youths, seniors, and families. You buy tickets for Île Saint-Honorat in the same place as Île Sainte-Marguerite, the Port de Cannes.
If you want to visit both islands in a day from Cannes, you can book a private boat tour. The Lérins Islands are super popular for boating, and this is something that looks like it would be a lot of fun!
Grasse
Distance from Cannes: 30 minutes by train + 10 minutes by bus
Grasse is a lovely small town that is located in the hills north of Cannes. It’s the heart of the perfume industry in the South of France, and you can visit famous perfume houses like Fragonard and Molinard.
Fragonard has a free guided tour and a perfume museum that I found to be really interesting! The town itself is also very cute and full of interesting boutiques and art galleries, making it well worth a visit.
To get to Grasse, just take the TER towards Grasse (it’s the last stop on the line.) Then you’ll want to transfer to the Centifolia, number 5, or A bus outside the train station, which will take you up to the historic hilltop town of Grasse. (There’s also a walking path that is about a 25-minute walk uphill.)
If you’re interested in a guided tour, this full-day tour from Cannes includes stops in Grasse as well as other charming small towns like Gourdon and Valbonne, plus wine tastings.
Nice
Distance from Cannes: 40 minutes by train
Nice is the largest city on the Côte d’Azur, and you can easily spend a full day exploring it! It’s an easy train ride from Cannes to Nice — be sure to get off at the Nice-Ville station, which is the most central. From there, it’s about a 15-minute walk to the center of Nice and the iconic Place Masséna.
While in Nice, be sure to go up to the Colline du Château for amazing views looking down over the city and the sea. (There’s a free elevator that will take you up so you don’t have to walk!) You should also visit the Cours Selaya, a famous open-air food and flower market (that turns into a flea market on Mondays.)
I also recommend a walking food tour like this one while in Nice. Being the largest city and capital of the Côte d’Azur, Nice is definitely a foodie city with a lot of great cuisine for you to discover.
Saint-Paul-de-Vence
Distance from Cannes: 25 minutes by train + 25 minutes by bus
Saint-Paul-de-Vence is one of the most beautiful hilltop towns in the South of France. To get to this gorgeous town, take the TER train from Cannes to Cagnes-sur-Mer, about 25 minutes away. Just outside the train station, you will then catch the 655 bus, which takes you into the hills to Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
This town is the perfect place to wander and just get lost in the narrow, winding streets. It’s full of art galleries and boutiques. You can also walk along some of the historic walls that encircle the town.
Villefranche-sur-Mer
Distance from Cannes: 55 minutes by train
Villefranche-sur-Mer is an impossibly lovely French Riviera town that is just two stops down from Nice on the TER train. If you’d like to combine them into one day trip, it’s very easy to do so.
This town has a great beach with some of the prettiest water I’ve seen, but what I don’t like is that the train passes right behind the beach, so it’s noisy, and there aren’t any real facilities nearby. However, it’s still a nice beach, and the town itself is a beautiful place to wander around for a couple of hours.
Monaco
Distance from Cannes: 1 hour by train
Monaco is the second-smallest country in the world (after Vatican City) at just 0.81 square miles in area. Although this tiny country is fully surrounded by France, it is an independent principality.
You’ve probably heard of the famous Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco, and that’s definitely a highlight. But I also highly recommend visiting the Prince’s Palace, which is located in the Monaco City neighborhood (the oldest part of Monaco with less flashiness and more charming historic buildings and streets.)
Short on time? This small group guided tour from Cannes combines a visit to Monaco with the charming hilltop village of Èze. It includes private minivan transportation and pickup and dropoff in Cannes.
Èze
Distance from Cannes: 55 minutes by train + 15 minutes by bus
Èze is yet another stunning hilltop village high above the French Riviera. To get here from Cannes, you’ll take the TER train to Èze, but then you’ll need to take the number 83 bus way up through the winding, hilly streets to Èze-Village. Honestly, this was one of the trickiest day trips I did because of the bus.
It only runs once an hour from outside the train station, and during the summer months, there can be a HUGE crowd waiting to go up. I was lucky the bus stopped, and the doors opened right in front of where I was standing, but there was a crowd of 50+ people waiting, and many didn’t make the bus.
You can hike up to Èze-Village, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I hiked back to the train station, and what Google Maps said would take 45 minutes took 1.5 hours — and that was coming down.
As I mentioned above, this small group guided tour combines Èze and Monaco into a day trip, and it might be worth it, so you don’t have to worry about the logistics and can just relax.
Menton
Distance from Cannes: 1 hour and 15 minutes by train
Menton is one of the most picturesque towns along the French Riviera, and in my opinion, it has one of the best beaches too. It’s a large sandy beach, and there’s a long pedestrian promenade behind it lined with shops and restaurants, as well as restrooms and changing facilities (a rarity at many beaches!)
While the beach in Menton is great, you also shouldn’t miss walking through the town itself. With its pastel-colored buildings and narrow hilly streets, it’s the perfect place to spend an afternoon.
You can also explore the cuisine of Menton, which is a unique blend of French and Italian due to the town’s proximity to the Italian border, on a small group food and wine tour like this one.
Saint-Tropez
Distance from Cannes: 1 hour and 15 minutes by ferry
Saint-Tropez is part of the French Riviera, but it’s at the far end and more isolated from many other destinations. Luckily, Cannes is located closer to Saint-Tropez than any other spot on this list.
The fastest and easiest way to get to Saint-Tropez is by ferry. Trans Côte d’Azur operates the ferry, and round-trip tickets cost €65. The journey takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes. When you arrive in Saint-Tropez, you’ll have approximately five hours of free time in the town before catching your return ferry.
Saint-Tropez is famous for its luxury shopping, and it’s been an iconic French Riviera hotspot since the 1950s. I also recommend walking up to the Citadelle de Saint-Tropez, which has an interesting museum.
Ventimiglia
Distance from Cannes: 1.5 hours by train
Finally, the last day trip from Cannes that I’m sharing is Ventimiglia. And surprise, Ventimiglia is not even in France! It’s actually just across the border in Italy. So if you want to visit two countries in one day, head to Ventimiglia! It’s the closest and most easily accessible Italian Riviera town from France.
It’s the last stop on the TER, so it does take a while to get there (about 1.5 hours.) You can walk around the town, which isn’t as polished as many other Riviera destinations, enjoy some Italian food for lunch, and do some shopping for designer handbags, sunglasses, and watches of questionable legitimacy.
You can combine a day trip to Ventimiglia with a visit to Menton. Start your day in Ventimiglia, then ride the TER back about 20 minutes and get off in Menton, before returning to Cannes later in the evening.
Best Day Trips from Cannes
These are the best day trips from Cannes, France.
Cannes is a great jumping-off point for exploring more of the French Riviera. If you have the time, it’s well worth taking a day trip (or several!) from Cannes to explore more of the beauty of this region.
Whether you want to explore islands, beaches, or hilltop towns, there are plenty of options.
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