Leaving Straight From Work for a Friday Night Getaway

The plan sounded perfect on Tuesday. Leave the office at five, be at the cottage by eight, wake up Saturday already somewhere else. Then Friday arrives. A meeting runs over, the motorway is solid until Junction 9, you reach the village at a quarter to ten, the guesthouse reception closed at nine, and the only food left is a petrol station sandwich. You spend Saturday morning recovering from Friday night.

A Friday night departure is the single best trick for stretching a two night weekend, because it turns a day and a half away into two full days. But it fails in very predictable ways. Almost all of them come down to things you could have sorted on Thursday, and none of them are complicated.

Why Friday evening trips go wrong

The problem is not distance. People happily drive three hours on a Saturday morning. The problem is that Friday evening stacks three tired things on top of each other: you have just finished a working week, the roads and trains are at their busiest of the week, and the place you are going is starting to shut down for the night.

Rush hour on a Friday usually starts earlier and lasts longer than midweek, roughly from mid afternoon until around seven in most cities, as commuters mix with everyone else heading out for the weekend. A drive that takes two hours at 10am on a Tuesday can easily take three and a half at 5:30pm on a Friday. Trains fill up the same way, and the cheap advance fares on Friday evening services are often the first to go.

Meanwhile, the small places that make weekend trips worth taking keep short hours. Family run guesthouses and B&Bs often staff reception only until eight or nine. Pub kitchens in many rural areas stop serving around nine, sometimes earlier outside summer. Arrive at ten and you are dependent on a key box, a vending machine and luck.

The advice I would ignore: "beat the traffic by leaving at lunchtime"

The usual answer is to take Friday afternoon off and leave early. If you can do that without stress, wonderful. But most people who try it either cannot get away when they planned, or they burn half a day of leave on every weekend trip and soon stop taking them.

What works better, in my experience, is to accept the evening departure and plan around it. Leave either well before the peak or clearly after it. A 7:30pm departure often gets you to a two hour destination faster than a 5pm one, and you can eat a proper dinner near home first. The trip only feels late if you arrive hungry and locked out.

A late Friday arrival is fine. A late Friday arrival with no food, no key and no plan for Saturday morning is what ruins the weekend.

Picking a destination that works on a Friday night

Not every weekend spot suits a Friday evening start. A rough guide I use with people who ask me where to go:

• Keep door to door travel under about two and a half hours at Friday evening speeds. Beyond that, you arrive too drained to enjoy the first evening, and you might as well leave Saturday.
• Favour places with a 24 hour reception or self check in. Chain hotels, aparthotels and many holiday rentals with lockboxes are easier than a charming four room inn with a landlady who goes to bed at nine.
• Look for somewhere with at least one late kitchen. Towns with a station and a bit of nightlife are safer than remote hamlets. Spain and much of southern Europe eat late anyway, so a 10pm arrival there can be perfectly normal.
• Choose a destination where Saturday morning is the main event. A coastal walk, a market, a hill you climb before the crowds. That way the late arrival costs you nothing you cared about.

Train trips deserve a special mention. If there is a direct train within reach, Friday evening is when it shines. You can eat on board, doze, or read, and you arrive without the motorway headache. There is more on choosing a base town reachable by train if you want ideas that work for this.

The Thursday night checklist

This is the part that actually decides whether Friday goes well. Spend twenty minutes on Thursday evening and do these in order.

1. Message your accommodation. Tell them your expected arrival time and ask directly what happens if you are later. Get a lockbox code, a phone number that will be answered, or a confirmed late check in. Do not assume the booking site's "24 hour front desk" label is accurate for small places.
2. Pack fully and put the bag where you will leave from. In the car boot, or by the front door if you are going straight from home. If you are taking the train from work, bring it in on Friday morning. A light bag makes this easier, and packing light for any trip covers how to get it down to one carry on.
3. Decide where and when you will eat. Either dinner near home before leaving, food bought for the journey, or a confirmed kitchen at the destination that is still open when you arrive. Write the plan down.
4. Check traffic patterns or train times for your exact departure window. Map apps can show typical Friday traffic at a set leaving time. Book a train seat if your route takes reservations.
5. Plan Saturday breakfast and the first activity. Find out whether breakfast is included and what time it ends. Many small places stop serving at nine or half past, which is easy to sleep through after a late arrival.
6. Clear Friday afternoon at work as much as you can. Move anything that tends to run over. Set your out of office for 4pm, not 5:30.

On the road, and the first morning

If you are driving, be honest with yourself about tiredness. A long week followed by an evening drive is exactly when people nod off at the wheel. Stop after about two hours, even if you feel fine, and swap drivers if you can. Coffee buys you a little time, and that is all it buys.

When you arrive, do the minimum. Get in, eat if you have not, go to bed. The temptation to explore the town at 11pm is understandable, and on a summer night in a lively place it can be lovely. Most of the time, though, it costs you the Saturday morning, which is the best part of the whole trip.

Saturday morning is your reward. Wake up early because your body is still on weekday time, and use it. The places that are crowded by midday are empty at eight. For more on getting the most from a short trip once you are there, see making the most of a weekend getaway.

Try it once this month

Pick one weekend in the next four weeks. Choose a destination under two and a half hours away with a self check in or 24 hour reception, book it, and put the Thursday checklist in your phone as a reminder for the night before. Then leave at 7:30pm instead of 5pm and eat dinner before you go. One trip is enough to find out whether Friday departures suit you, and most people who try it this way keep doing it.