Decent area to stay near Portsmouth?

[Woodsey]

Heading to London this weekend and it turns out I need to do some work in Portsmouth on Monday morning so going to stay over in/near Portsmouth Sunday night.

Don't know that south coast area at all, can anyone suggest a nice area to stay within about 45 mins of Portsmouth with some interesting stuff to see and do in the daytime on Sunday?

Any outdoorsy stuff or scenery etc would be cool, or any obvious interesting tourist stuff....

Cheers

[vegaslover]

Hi Woodsey

Portsmouth itself, is frankly, a shithole. Never stayed there though so cannot comment.
For somewhere decent outdoors to go I would say the New Forest. West along the M27 from Portsmouth, come off at Junction 2 and head for Lyndhurst. From there all the Forest is close by

[vegaslover]

Forgot to add, what standard of accommodation you looking for and price range? i know plenty of places in the forest, if they have a vacancy. Alternately there are a few places between Portsmouth and Southampton, that will make getting to work on Monday quicker

[Woodsey]

I have to use our company hotel booking system, generally hotels up to around £120 a night pop up on there but a lot of the independent hotels don't always show...so I guess 3/4 star for the most part.

[Woodsey]

Chichester looks close enough too, much there anyone?

[vegaslover]

Ok. Most hotels in the Forest are independent or part of very small groups. Good chance they will be more than that too. All depends on demand of course. Shedloads of chains around Southampton. Pretty quick from there to Portsmouth too.

For the outdoor stuff check out the forest website, pretty easy to see what's going on from that. Looking for anything specific to do, just post in here

[Woodsey]

Ok cheers mate. 

[Marky147]

Think there is a Holiday Inn down at Gunwharf Keys, and you've got everything right on your doorstep.

[Doobs]

Arundel is as nice a part of England as you could want.  Town is very nice, lots of ducks nearby and a big castle.  If it is a nice day, sit outside here for some food/drink

http://theblackrabbitarundel.co.uk/ 

There is a hilton nearby, but the premier inn near there isn't that bad.  Stayed there a couple of times and think I preferred it to the hilton.  Never stayed at the swan, but it wins on trip advisor/.

[tikay]

Portsmouth Harbour well worth a visit. Got some proper ships there.

They have a cracking sticky-up thing there, too.

Click to see full-size image.

[Ironside]

£120 in Portsmouth you can buy a hotel not that you would want to