driving to Cornwall, week before kids summer holidays - travel Fri or Sat?

AbbieCadabra

we usually go to Cornwall out of main season & travel down on a wednesay, midlands to newquay area & it takes 4-4.5 hours. we've never been at this time of the year before, 14th-21st July, so i'm just looking for some feedback please

with it being the week before the main summer holidays start, mega busy or not too bad??

i'm thinking it will be best to travel on the Friday - set off before midday & stop either Taunton or Tiverton area to get past most of the Bristol delays, then leave there on Saturday by 10am.

man of the house thinks it will be ok leaving by 6am on the Saturday & doing the journey in one. i've said i think this will be a 6 hour journey, if we're lucky!, & i'd prefer to split it.

thanks for any replies

cajef

Personally I would travel on the Friday if you can, living in the west of Cornwall I always avoid travelling in and out of the county on any weekend day from mid July till mid September unless it is absolutely necessary, it can be a nightmare though now the A30 is dual carriageway all the way to Carland Cross near Truro apart from one bit over Bodmin moor it has improved slightly depending on volume of traffic.

emile1973

We drive to Cornwall approx every two mths from London. My whole family live in and around Truro.
I would agree with a Friday because of the time of year but to be honest it can be hit and miss.

Saying that you may get caught at Bodmin but not always and it is, as the previous person explained much smoother now to use the A30

We go either M4,M5 to Exeter and then A30 or pick up A303 and past Stone Henge way. Equally good and equally bad.
Both quite nice journeys and I get excited crossing the boarder to Cornwall.

Have a fab trip. Hope Cornwall isn't too busy for you x

Millie2008_2

We always leave v v early on a Friday morning, clear Bristol at 7ish, then stop for breccie around Exeter

This is B'ham to Newquay

AbbieCadabra

thanks!

no guarantees obviously, but definitely leaning towards a Friday start. i'll have to work on hubby i think

kathie1101

When we visit Yorkshire we nearly always leave home (South West Cornwall) early in the morning, anything from 4am to 6am and no matter what day we leave it usually takes about 5 to 5.5 hours to get there. Also we very rarely get held up at Bristol, and never at Birmingham.
When we come home we travel during the day and it always takes longer (by at least an hour, sometimes 2-3 hours), whether it's sheer volume of traffic or accidents that cause hold ups, no matter what day/time we leave

I know you are doing the reverse journey, but personally I would say get up early Sat morning. The other thing is that you get quite a lot of caravans travelling down on a Friday that spend the night in laybys etc. The other advantage would be no overnight costs for the Friday night.

AbbieCadabra

thanks Kathie

after a little more thought, i think this is the conclusion we'd come to & the current plan is to leave around 4am on the Sat morning.

we've tried quite a few stop-overs over the years at various b&b's/pubs & no matter how many good reviews i read, they've never really gone very well! (terrible bed, road noise etc.). holiday inn express would have been my preferred choice this time, but i think we'll just save ourselves £70 & hope for the best!

duchy

Definitely Friday -not all schools break up the same week and even a week or two earlier can be as bad as after they've broken up

[Deleted User]

We live in Devon and generally the traffic coming down may be slower but not to bad,though I cant say around Bristol the hold ups seem to be going back from Weston-super-mare to Bristol.

AbbieCadabra

duchy wrote: »

Definitely Friday -not all schools break up the same week and even a week or two earlier can be as bad as after they've broken up

not what i want to hear! i used this to check the school dates, admittedly i didn't check every single school, but the ones i did all said Fri 20th/Mon 23rd July was the last day before the summer holiday...

nikki._2

Our schools in bude break up on the 27th.
So the idea is when all your kids break up - holiday in your first week in bude and it will be less busy lol.
I would say early friday or even very early saturday.
Early hours are a great time to travel, kids can sleep in the car (if you have any) and you can get yourselves set up at your destination and do what you want for the day rather than only having half a day on your first day x