Travel advice: Scotland to Weymouth?

Herzlos

We're heading down to Weymouth soon, and circumstances mean we can't leave before 10am on a Friday.

Google maps suggests getting the M6->M5 down, coming off at Taunton on the A358.

One of the other posts here mentions that traffic on the M5 is awful on a Friday afternoon.

Unfortunately, that will likely have us passing Birmingham about 3pm (it'll be about 4-4.5 hours but we'll need to stop for lunch somewhere).

Are the any suggestions on routes or times to avoid particular stretches? Any services that we should/shouldn't use?

PasturesNew

Everybody in the Midlands heads for Cornwall/Devon every Friday afternoon/evening. You can't really avoid it.

I've done the journey many times - from Gloucester to Cornwall - on Friday afternoons (for 6 months) and I only once got stuck in one traffic jam for one hour.

Just make sure you've got a good packup of food, nibbles, drinks, wet wipes in case you're sitting there thinking "I could murder a sandwich, just to kill the boredom".

Herzlos

Thanks, it doesn't sound too bad (touch wood!).

tedted

i would come off at bridgwater and head to street onto somerton,yeovil,dorchester and into weymouth.it,s a lot quicker that way

agrinnall

You might want to stop at services before reaching the likely jams around Birmingham to check the traffic maps, and if the delays are bad then consider whether taking the M6 Toll and M42 to get round Birmingham might save you some time.

redux

I'm coming to the opinion that going anywhere on Friday afternoon is a problem, especially after a long trip to North Yorkshire. A friend called me at 8pm and I said I was nearly there. For a moment he assumed I was nearly home again, so he might hang around half an hour for a beer. No. I got home at 2.30 am.

The M40 and A34 might be tempting, which would avoid the Midlands to Devon and Cornwall people if that's supposed to be bad. I don't know the M40 at that time of day. There are road works Abingdon to Milton, just occasionally bad, and joining the M3 at Winchester can sometimes have a couple of miles tailback Friday evenings, but it does keep moving. If it's worse you can skip through Winchester from a junction a couple of miles north, or really bad sneak out of the back of Sutton Scotney services and end up parallel on the old road.

But I think you'd only risk a problem there if running later than your 3 pm Birmingham prediction.

forgotmyname

Friday afternoon and going to the coast on a Saturday morning is always going to be busy these days.

Herzlos

According to google maps, the M6 has roadworks after the toll, showing it red/orange which I assume means problems. So is it worth just taking the toll and coming back on the M42? It claims to add 38 miles to the trip but I can't imagine there's much traffic on the toll road.

I think I'll write down a plan of possible rat-run detours to avoid congestion we hit

agrinnall

Which is what I suggested - it is very, very slow on a Friday on the M6/M5, I did it a couple of weeks ago and it took much longer than at less busy time - although it was also very slow around Manchester, so the whole journey was a bit of nightmare.

dacouch

Hopefully you're not travelling the same weekend as Glastonbury...

Herzlos

dacouch wrote: »

Hopefully you're not travelling the same weekend as Glastonbury...

...oh dear...

Yup, that Friday. I didn't realise it was on all week.

So I'm best staying on to Taunton and staying away from the A39 to Street?