Risking booking a UK break more than 3 months ahead (before train tickets are released)?

katejo

I don't drive and wouldn't want to drive long distances even if I had a car. I am cautious about booking a walking holiday more than 3 months ahead because the train companies don't release the tickets. I could find that there are engineering works/line closures on my chosen dates and so I can't get there. Do others take that risk and just hope that the trains are available?

elsien

If there’s engineering works don’t they put alternative transporter on as a rule, although that may take longer?

katejo

elsien said:

If there’s engineering works don’t they put alternative transporter on as a rule, although that may take longer?

Yes but it can extend the journey time too much. I once came close to booking a train to St Ives but the journey was going to last about 11 hours!

Spendless

I'd be more concerned about train strikes .Does the walking holiday allow for flexible booking so you can cancel without penalty with so much notice? Would holiday insurance cover you? If nothing else I'd have it planned that the alternative option would be to set off the day before and find an extra overnight stop nearby, if you book and then discover there's an issue.  

heatherw_01

I personally wouldn't book until I see train times.

Reason being, that I know engineering and other work often means that trains are severely affected.

In fact, if I personally didn't wait and assumed trains would be similar, I would have messed up the last trip I had as they ended up with only 1 train that day which I couldn't have caught.

I guess it also depends where you live as some places have lots of train choices, whereas where I am, there is limited choice so I wouldn't risk it myself.