Regina sits in the middle of southern Saskatchewan, and the day trips available reflect that geography: flat prairie, big sky, and distances that require a car.
Moose Jaw (75 kilometres west) is the most obvious day trip — a smaller city with a well-preserved main street, the famous Tunnels of Moose Jaw attraction (a tunnel tour based on local legends about Chinese labourers and Al Capone), and the Sukanen Ship Pioneer Village with its collection of homesteader-era artifacts and a ship built on the prairie by a Finnish immigrant who planned to sail it to Finland.
Qu'Appelle Valley (about 80 kilometres northeast) cuts through the flat prairie in a way that feels almost shocking — a glacial valley with a chain of lakes that has been a retreat for Regina residents since the city's founding. Fort Qu'Appelle at the valley's heart is a pleasant small town with a good farmers' market and historical significance as the site of treaty negotiations with the Plains Cree in 1874.
Weyburn and the Dirt Hills (110 kilometres south) are worth a drive if you want to understand the physiography of southern Saskatchewan — the Dirt Hills are an unusual moraine formation rising from the flat plains, and the drive through the grain country south of Regina gives the best sense of the prairie agricultural landscape.
Buffalo Pound Provincial Park (60 kilometres northwest) has a lake, camping, and the Buffalo Pound Wildlife Display — a small herd of plains bison in a natural setting, the closest thing to the original prairie ecosystem available near the city.