Savvy travellers know the value of using the bank holidays to their advantage to spend as much time as possible relaxing under a palm tree drinking cocktails out of coconuts. This year offers even more chances to maximise your annual leave, with an extra bank holiday to honour the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee on June 3.
Here we explain how you can turn 12 days of annual leave into 37 days of holidays, and offer suggestions for where to go. Act fast before your colleagues beat you to it…
Easter
Book four days off for a 10-day holiday (April 15-24)
Bank holiday: April 15 (Good Friday) and 18 (Easter Monday)
Book these days off: April 19, 20, 21, 22
Where to go?
Madeira is a fine bet for Easter, whether you want to get out and do the levada walks (trails alongside irrigation canals) while the countryside is still lush, or just relax in town. Explore offers both a Madeira Island Discovery tour, and a Walking in Madeira holiday. Both last eight days. Currently, Britons can visit Madeira but must be vaccinated or take an antigen test within 48 hours of departure.
Other European options include Crete, which offers everything from beaches, good food and ancient sites to some of the continent’s most spectacular hiking routes.
If you would rather stick with Blighty, Cornwall’s Roseland Peninsula is a lovely spot. Andrew Eames, writing for Telegraph Travel, explains: “The Roseland is Cornwall at its best. Sumptuous rolling countryside, steep-creeked fishing villages, tangles of woodland grizzled with lichen, superlative stretches of coast path, and estate manor houses with walled gardens. It has its own microclimate: down by the waterside in the wooded glade of St Just I find myself in a churchyard that doubles as a botanical garden, its tombs hidden behind stands of bamboo and with monkey puzzle trees among the gravestones. You could almost be on a Costa somewhere, but without having punched a hole in the ozone layer.”
