The most compelling day trip from Kashan is Abyaneh, a mud-brick village in the mountains about 80 kilometres to the south. The village sits at 2,400 metres in a red-walled valley, and its architecture — a continuous mass of reddish-brown clay houses climbing up the hillside, connected by covered alleyways — is among the most striking vernacular settlements in Iran. The women of the village still wear a distinctive local dress of white floral-print chadors, one of the last surviving regional costumes in the country. The drive from Kashan is around an hour each way on decent roads.
The rose-growing town of Qamsar, 20 kilometres north of Kashan, is worth visiting in late April and May during the rose harvest. The distilleries here produce the rosewater that has made Kashan famous, and several welcome visitors who want to see the process. Out of season it is a pleasant but unremarkable agricultural town.
The town of Qom, about 100 kilometres north, is one of the holiest cities in Shia Islam and a compelling place even for non-Muslims — you can visit the outer precincts of the shrine of Fatima Masumeh and walk through the pilgrimage bazaar. The journey takes around an hour by road.