Each break, on its own terms
What North Somerset Council’s holidays are good for, 2026–27
Sunset, clock changes and bank holidays are calculated from the dates. The rest is guidance — there are no prices here, because we cannot verify them.
Christmas
21 Dec 2026 – 1 Jan 2027 · 11 nights
sunset 15:57Christmas DayBoxing DayNew Year's Dayevery council off — peak
Two different holidays wearing one name
- The first half and second half behave nothing alike. Up to the 25th is Christmas markets, Lapland and northern lights; from Boxing Day to the 2nd is New Year, which is the single most expensive stretch of the winter.
- Lapland and Santa trips sell out the previous spring, not the previous month. If that is the plan, this window is far too late to start.
- Alpine snow is not dependable below roughly 1,800m in December. Higher, glacier-backed resorts are the safer bet this early.
- Long-haul winter sun - Caribbean, Gulf, Red Sea, Southeast Asia - is at its annual price peak across this window.
Easter / spring
26 Mar 2027 – 9 Apr 2027 · 14 nights
sunset 19:41clocks go forward 28 Mar 2027Good FridayEaster Monday3 of 66 councils off — off-peak
The window that moves - and the one worth planning around
- Easter shifts by more than a month between years, and councils split over whether to follow it. That is exactly why this break diverges more than any other, and why it is the best chance of finding a week your schools are off and most others are not.
- An early Easter still has skiing at altitude and a Mediterranean that is too cool for the beach.
- A late Easter is the opposite: most Alpine resorts are closing, and Greece, Spain, Portugal and Turkey are genuinely pleasant without summer prices or summer heat.
- The clocks go forward at the end of March, so a later break gets usefully long evenings.
Summer
26 Jul 2027 onwards · 41 nights
sunset 20:33Summer bank holiday62 of 66 councils off
Peak everything - so the timing inside it matters most
- Within the six weeks, the ends are materially cheaper than the middle. The last week of July and the final days before term are the two places to look first.
- Southern Europe in late July and August is now routinely uncomfortable rather than merely hot. Northern Spain, the Atlantic coast, the Alps in summer, Scandinavia and Scotland all trade heat for space.
- This is the one window where every council in England is off at once for a long stretch, so there is no scheduling trick available - only choosing where inside it to go.