For decades, the British holiday followed a familiar pattern: pack the car, hit the road and disappear for a fortnight away. Starting in the late 1950s, motorways made it possible to leave work on a Friday and wake up the next morning in the Lake District, the West Country or by the sea.
The M4 became synonymous with people escaping the capital, the M5 with the West Country escape, and the M6 with Scotland and Cumbria. For decades, weekends meant queues of overheating cars and thoughts of the next stop.
That ritual hasn’t vanished completely, but it has changed. The traffic is more constant, but also more fragmented. Instead of a single mass migration, there are waves: weekend breakers, midweek remote workers and delivery vehicles keeping the economy moving. It all feels rather more hurried.
Shorts
Not when you hook up a caravan, though: you’re limited to 60mph, unable to use the outside lane and nudged into a different rhythm entirely. One that’s all about steady speeds, predictable movements and patience.
