Newcastle

Take the train to Durham for the day, is only about 20 minutes, and look around the castle, the Cathedral (which if it interests you at all was one of the sits where Harry potter was filemd), walk along the river and check out some of the college buildings

Go down the Bigg Market at about 11pm on Friday night - very entertaining.

Quite a bit about Newcastle and its surroundings on this Post - Tour of Britain

Ages since I've been but there used to be a revolving dance floor on the big white boat nightclub thing in the Tyne.

Great fun once you've had a few drinks (not that I rely on alcohol to have a good time, in a typically British way, honest).

There's a backpacker's in the centre of town on Grainger St. It's five minutes walk from the Central Station on the left opposite the Yates pub.

If you don't go to the Bigg Market then try some people watching down the Quayside. They
don't have a drink problem there- they drink, they fall over. No problem! Try finding out if any up and coming bands are playing in venues such as The Cluny or the Carling Academy. Gone are the nights of old in the Mayfair, The Broken Doll and Riverside...

Cheers

Keith

(The Mayfair is the only nightclub I was ever refused entry into for being too smartly dressed on a friday night).

OP, the main drinking areas are :-

Osbourne Road, Jesmond - about 1 mile out of city centre and trendy
The Quayside - trendy
The Bigg market - loud & chav-ish
The Haymarket - mixed crowd from students to footie fans, the latter especially on match days
The Gate complex - everything under one roof with Tiger, Tiger a few yards over the road
The Ouseburn - art galleries, the Cluny, etc.

Whole host of other bars dotted around also.

go up the coast towards alnwick, alnmouth, bamburgh etc, beautiful and a great bit of coastline !! durham is also great as post 1 says. lots of bnb's in jesmond