Blandford Forum sits in the middle of a rich area for day trips. Shaftesbury, with its famous Gold Hill — the cobbled street used in the Hovis bread advertisement — is just 12 miles north and makes an easy half-day outing. Sturminster Newton, the small market town where Thomas Hardy and Emma lived for two years in the 1870s, is 9 miles to the west. Cranborne Chase, the ancient chalk plateau to the northeast, rewards a drive or cycle through its lanes and villages. The Dorset coast at Swanage, Lulworth Cove, and the Jurassic Coast is around 30–35 miles south.