M25 Advice - Jubilee Weekend - South West to Dover

Hoffles

Hi All,

I've been chewing this over for ages and was hoping I could get some last minute advice.

I need to get from Glastonbury to Dover this Friday (1st June). The thing is I need to leave at 3.30pm which means I'll be hitting J12 (M3/M25) at approximately 5.30-6pm. I then need to travel anti-clockwise to J5 where I pick up the M26.

I've never driven the M25 at peak times but I can imagine at this time on a bank holiday weekend, it's going to be a bit crazy.

Therefore I was contemplating a route that follows South Coast A-roads, past Southampton > Portsmouth > Brighton > Hastings > Dover.

On paper the M25 route should take approx 4 hours in standard traffic and the Southern route taking approx 5.5 hours. Is there a better option here? Or is it lose/lose?

Thanks for any advice! :T

mustmakealist

Friday evenings on the M25 at the time you're travelling can be grim.

If you're not bothered about what time you arrive at your destination, you can just go for it and be prepared to stick it out. you can check for accidents or incidents on one of the traffic sites. If it's just volume of traffic then you should eventually get there but you might need a comfort break either at fleet (before M25) or at services on M25.

Another option is to delay your trip for a couple of hours and hope that the traffic has cleared a bit before you set off.

As it's Friday evening, the South Coast route may also be busy and your 5.5 hours might turn out to be longer than that.

Either way I think you're in for a long trip.

dacouch

If you're coming up the M3, you can cut through to the A3 from the Hook junction (Put Hale as your destination into sat nav) on the M3 or further along on the A331 (Put Mytchett) as the destination into your sat nav). This would take you further along the M25. This will save you a lot of time.

If the traffic is busy on the M25 in that area (Switch your traffic announcements on your radio on or tune into Radio London) you could alway cut cross country from Guildford to Reigate along the A25. (Put Reigate as your destination after doing one of the above destinations eg Farnham

Take an atlas with you so you can see the Town names to put in your Sat Nav

The M25 is especially busy between the M40 (J16) and the A3 (J10) anticlockwise on a Friday. On a bank holiday friday it can be even busier or can sometimes be quieter as everyone has taken the Friday off (It's difficult to predict

What time do you need to be in Dover

If you're off to the continent this is a good website http://www.day-tripper.net/ you can play around with routes on https://www.theaa.com