The Northern English cities of Manchester and Liverpool are often said to be similar to Glasgow – relaxed, unpretentious and friendly! Of course, both cities have unique characters of their own and they are great places to explore, which can be reached easily and quite cheaply from Glasgow.

Manchester
Travel
You can travel to Manchester easily by bus or train. The bus tends to be much cheaper, but takes a bit longer. A good website is http://uk.megabus.com/ which offers cheap tickets to Manchester from Buchanan Street Bus Station at short notice. Useful websites for finding cheap train tickets are http://www.redspottedhanky.com and http://www.thetrainline.com ; trains from Glasgow Central to Manchester Piccadilly are fairly frequent.
Accommodation
Manchester has several youth hostels offering budget accommodation, such as the Hatters Group: http://hattersgroup.com/ and YHA Manchester: http://www.yha.org.uk/hostel/manchester. If you would prefer a hotel, there are many cheap options available at http://www.booking.com. Hotel chains like Travelodge…