driving to cornwall in august - Friday or Saturday best?

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Hi all, can anyone tell me which day would be the least busy for travelling down to Cornwall in August? We've just come back from a week and it took 9 hours to get there last Saturday from Liverpool which was a nightmare. (Just under 7 on the way back which was ok).

We are wanting to book again and there are some Friday cottages available - would going on a Friday make the journey better or worse than a saturday? DH reckons the HGVs on a Friday would make the journey bad and I think Friday might be slightly quieter than a Saturday in terms of families going on holiday?

No difference in my experience- both days are handoverdays and Fridays you get weekender traffic too. Either leave very early or late, split the trip either with a b and b or a day somewhere - sorry there is no easy answer!!

^ This. It took us 9 hours to get home from Cornwall recently vs sat nav estimated 3.5 hrs. Driving in the evening (after rush hour + a tolerance) can help, or setting off stupidly early but both days are bad. On the return trip, if you can pack your car so that everything is out of sight, I'd have a 'day out' in Cornwall after clearing out of your accommodation, then start the drive home early evening.

We tried early evening to leave and failed!
livingboy that will be the backlog from what we were stuck in on the Friday night.

We leave very early in the morning or after 7pm. Coming back we leave after 6pm, so most people have left by then.

Can you book a b and b and go on a Thursday morning?

Going to Cornwall Thursday early morning was great though.

We left Bodmin at 10am Saturday and arrived at Holyhead at 7.30 - we did stop at Gloucester services for an hour though. I was

Drove from London to Bude one year - left at 4am and was in Bude by 8am having had a dream drive with no traffic and only one stop to change drivers. DD was still little so went back to sleep after the initial transfer, made it all very easy.

Only thing is we'd proably be hitting Birmingham at rush hour on a Friday on the way home - not good. Would have to think of a way round that...slightly different route around it maybe.

You've got no chance for the next 18months +. There are roadworks all over the M5, from the junction with the M6, then again between B'ham and Worcester. Add on to that the fact they are reconstructing spaghetti junction, there is just motorway gridlock for hours. Just don't think of traveling on either Friday or Friday afternoon or night around M5.

My first suggestion would be to go North or East or West, into Wales, but don't try to go to Cornwall.
My second would be to set off early Friday morning, then book a travel Lodge or a B&B or something anywhere after Bristol or towards Exeter, and do the Cornwall leg starting from 1/2 way there early on Saturday morning.

We leave at 6am

Leave really early - 4am . We used to travel to Cornwall regularly and frequently arrived for an early breakfast.