Get ready for a cheeky midweeker

Britain’s booked up, right? Wrong. Ditch the traditional weekend escape and stuff your summer with short breaks that don’t conform to the norm. They’re still available, says James Stewart

Britain is full. Ask anyone who has attempted to go away for the weekend recently (me). Pent-up demand after a stinker of a start to 2021 and the new reality of foreign travel (where possible) mean local authorities may as well hang “No vacancies” signs on county borders across the nation every Friday until September.

Nor is the problem confined to hotels. Camping bookings website Pitchup reports that demand this June is up by 344 per cent on pre-pandemic levels. Bookings of bell tents have more than tripled. If you’re after a yurt this summer, try Mongolia.

The temptation is either to kick the cat then sulk in the garden or resign yourself to the so-so hotels and inflated rates early bookers have rejected. But there is a solution: travel midweek instead.

The appeal is not simply that there’s greater availability when you can cherry-pick days from Monday to Thursday (one caveat: this excludes A-list regions such as Cornwall and the Lakes, but who wants to contend with those crowds, anyway?) It’s not even that prices are generally lower or that hotels waive the two-night minimums imposed at weekends.

No, the joy of the midweeker also boils down to elementary holiday mathematics. Fewer guests plus less frazzled staff equals a more relaxed hotel with more personal service, thus a more enjoyable stay.

The same logic applies to locations. Travel midweek and destinations empty of weekenders wringing every second of fun from their free time. Unreserved tables appear in restaurants. Footpaths empty. A trip becomes less an exercise in logistics than an opportunity to indulge whims. To live life in the moment.

Actually, there’s more to it than that, too. Every time I go away during the week I feel as if I’m pulling a fast one. While everyone else is beavering away at desks, I’m taking slow breakfasts, then seeing where the day takes me.

It feels like I’m cheating the nine-tofive world. And isn’t that the whole point of a holiday?