Holiday rush

[dazzer6666]

Yep as usual. To be fair unless there is an accident it is not too bad travelling down, it's the returning home bit, the M5 is a traffic jam from Weston Super Mare to Taunton at the weekends northbound. The A303 is just not worth bothering with unless you are lucky.
Next weekend I am in Eastbourne for a wedding and as usual in the summer I will leave at about 8pm on Friday and drive through the night, it's the only way, in fact it's great.

I'm originally from mid Devon and a lot of the family are there so I go down fairly often. The 303 is my favoured route (having tried all the other options), but you have to be very careful with timing.........my Burgess Hill to Tiverton trips have varied from 2hr 30 (2am, alone, risking speeding tickets) to well over 6 hours (first Saturday of the school summer holidays). The real bottleneck is always at Countess Services going down.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

I drove back from Cornwall this morning. Uneventful driving East but A30 & A38 in places heading West had big chunks of queuing traffic. Nowhere near as bad as the M27 going West before Southampton, must have been a good 5 - 8 miles of tailbacks. Sod that in this weather.

The A38 after Saltash going west can be a nightmare on a Saturday at the wrong time for those going to the forgotten corner of Cornwall and Looe/ Polperro.
East was only ok because everyone is coming down for the 1st week of holidays, that will change next weekend.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

The A38 after Saltash going west can be a nightmare on a Saturday at the wrong time for those going to the forgotten corner of Cornwall and Looe/ Polperro.
East was only ok because everyone is coming down for the 1st week of holidays, that will change next weekend.

Love Looe - one of my favourite places in the UK. Stayed at Saltash a number of times which is also lovely. Never had any issues once I got over the Taymar ( sp ? ) bridge.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

Love Looe - one of my favourite places in the UK. Stayed at Saltash a number of times which is also lovely. Never had any issues once I got over the Taymar ( sp ? ) bridge.

You have been lucky then is it is quite often jammed up from Saltash to Trerulefoot roundabout.
It's a mixture of constant 2 lanes to 1, steep hills and corners with speed cameras, it all concertinas up.

 

[The Andy Naylor Fan Club]

The A38 after Saltash going west can be a nightmare on a Saturday at the wrong time for those going to the forgotten corner of Cornwall and Looe/ Polperro.
East was only ok because everyone is coming down for the 1st week of holidays, that will change next weekend.

Love Looe - one of my favourite places in the UK. Stayed at Saltash a number of times which is also lovely. Never had any issues once I got over the Taymar ( sp ? ) bridge.

My wife and I now try and have one foreign and one UK holiday a year. The last 4 years have been down the West Country and this has now become our favourite part of the UK. This year we stayed at Morval ( 2 miles from Looe ) and I must say yet again the area did not disappoint. Looe is stunning but not knowing about Polperro, this village blew us away when we visited it. A couple of pub/restaurants we stumbled upon and highly recommend are The Plough in Duloe and The Copley Arms in Hessenford.

 

[Captain Sensible]

Mate took 8 hours to get from the A20 to the ferry, when he arrived at the passport checks only 3 of the 7 booths ( manned by french) were open.

My ferry is next Saturday....hopefully it will be better than today,

When all the operation stack kicked off last summer, I moved my tunnel bookings to a little long weekend in October to go to Brugge, and went via Newhaven to Dieppe instead. Honestly, it takes longer, but it's a shorter drive, get a cabin and have a kip or whatever. It's far better. There are other alternatives to Dover and Folkstone. Maybe Newhaven isn't suitable for you but there's Portsmouth as well.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

My wife and I now try and have one foreign and one UK holiday a year. The last 4 years have been down the West Country and this has now become our favourite part of the UK. This year we stayed at Morval ( 2 miles from Looe ) and I must say yet again the area did not disappoint. Looe is stunning but not knowing about Polperro, this village blew us away when we visited it. A couple of pub/restaurants we stumbled upon and highly recommend are The Plough in Duloe and The Copley Arms in Hessenford.

I worked in morval last week, the other places I know well.
So many people go to the north coast but there is so much on the south coast where you have been between Saltash and Fowey, the countryside is prettier and it's not as crowded in the peak season.
If you continue down from Fowey to Lands End there are endless villages, coves and great beaches to discover including the Roseland and Lizard peninsula.
As an example Google the Lugger Hotel at Portloe and you will see what I mean.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

why use them then are they the only roads

If you like to holiday in Cornwall, as I do, driving from Indian Queens onward, there is only one road in and out. There are countless resorts fed by this road. People approach it from all points north and east. It is a bottleneck. I avoid agro by traveling out on a Tuesday and back on a Thursday week. Except this year when availability and circumstances mean we will be travelling on the weekend . . . . . Unfortunately a lot of holiday venues, especially the less expensive ones that appeal to a greater number of people, use Sunday to Saturday block slots. Also for a lot of people whose employment is structured it may not be all that easy to book holiday time that starts and ends in midweek.

I drove down the A2 near Dover today, on the way to Deal. The road was fine, so I guess all the agro is on the M20 . . . . incidentally, whoever posted about 'M2', that ends on the ourskirts of Faversham, which is as close to Dover as Crawley is to Brighton . . . . traffic fine here . . .

 

[Two Professors]

Must be terrible living down south!Live somewhere civilised,like Birmingham,and you can fly to France.Just over an hour to most destinations,and to my amazement,the French have hire cars .Nice short flight to Newquay from here as well and guess what,Cornwall has hire cars too.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

If you like to holiday in Cornwall, as I do, driving from Indian Queens onward, there is only one road in and out. There are countless resorts fed by this road. People approach it from all points north and east. It is a bottleneck. I avoid agro by traveling out on a Tuesday and back on a Thursday week. Except this year when availability and circumstances mean we will be travelling on the weekend . . . . . Unfortunately a lot of holiday venues, especially the less expensive ones that appeal to a greater number of people, use Sunday to Saturday block slots. Also for a lot of people whose employment is structured it may not be all that easy to book holiday time that starts and ends in midweek.

I drove down the A2 near Dover today, on the way to Deal. The road was fine, so I guess all the agro is on the M20 . . . . incidentally, whoever posted about 'M2', that ends on the ourskirts of Faversham, which is as close to Dover as Crawley is to Brighton . . . . traffic fine here . . .

You will be pleased to know that they have sorted that bottleneck (apparently) by adding a further lane and the whole road will be sorted completely by the spring.
I heard it in the background while our local news was on last week I will just check it out .

 

[swindonseagull]

Must be terrible living down south!Live somewhere civilised,like Birmingham,and you can fly to France.Just over an hour to most destinations,and to my amazement,the French have hire cars .Nice short flight to Newquay from here as well and guess what,Cornwall has hire cars too.

CAnt take camping gear on planes. I think my trailer tent is a bit big for hand baggage

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

Yep, Temple to higher Carblake only single carriageway on the A30 now has extra lanes as of last Friday and will be completed in the spring.
Have a nice holiday.

 

[Notters]

Eurotunnel is the easiest one. You book everything online, do your passport checks online before you go, as you arrive there is number plate recognition, so confirm the booking number on a keypad. We've never waited more than half an hour to board the train, 35 minutes later, you're in France driving straight off the train onto the roads out of Calais. We've been at all times of the year.

Coming back from Calais, we have been held up twice in 15 years. Once because a train had broken down, so we had a two hour delay, and the second time was the day after the Paris attacks in November when security checks were very stringent making us an hour later than was intended.

I'd rather save 200 miles driving and have a nice breakfast

 

[Notters]

I drove to France a few years back in the summer hols. Never ever again. You just know 2 days of your journey will be sat in tailbacks to any number of French toll booths (3 mile queues to each one), under manned borders, the M25 or caravans.

It's not a holiday sat in traffic for 2 days solid.

Curious. Driving in France is one of life's great pleasures. You're far more likely to get stuck in a jam in this country.

They do have a few "rush" days but other than that the roads are deserted.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/columnists/2205214/Savvy-Traveller-Holiday-dates-to-avoid.html

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I'd rather save 200 miles driving and have a nice breakfast

Curious. Driving in France is one of life's great pleasures. You're far more likely to get stuck in a jam in this country.

They do have a few "rush" days but other than that the roads are deserted.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/columnists/2205214/Savvy-Traveller-Holiday-dates-to-avoid.html

We would rather be driving, than hang around on a ferry for four hours. The loading and unloading take so much longer too. We go through the tunnel early in the morning and have breakfast in France.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Surely the solution is to enjoy the UK ? We had a lovely day in Frinton on Saturday. No traffic queues, glorious and clean beaches and great weather.

 

[Notters]

Surely the solution is to enjoy the UK ? We had a lovely day in Frinton on Saturday. No traffic queues, glorious and clean beaches and great weather.

Because we've only had one week of decent weather in the last four months, for one.

There are some great places to holiday in the UK but the weather is far from guaranteed.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Because we've only had one week of decent weather in the last four months, for one.

There are some great places to holiday in the UK but the weather is far from guaranteed.

the weather is a fair point although we had a good early summer and last few weeks have been positively Mediterranean like. I've driven to France many times in the past but the events of the past few days at Dover certainly put me off going again unless out of season. When we get weather like this weekend there is no better place to holiday than the UK.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Dover is down to the French not employing enough boarder staff. Personally, if I were the Home Minister I'd order Dover to cease checks on outgoing people and get the queues moving.

It'll no doubt also take them by complete surprise in a fortnight, when all these people are coming back the other way.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

Curious. Driving in France is one of life's great pleasures. You're far more likely to get stuck in a jam in this country.

They do have a few "rush" days but other than that the roads are deserted.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/columnists/2205214/Savvy-Traveller-Holiday-dates-to-avoid.html

Driving across Death Valley was one of lifes pleasures. Driving to Brittany was my idea of hell. There was an average 3 mile tail back at each toll road.

Portugal this year. 20 mins to the airport either end with a negligible price uplift. With 2 kids, lengthy drives in crap traffic are just no fun.