The Xmas exodus this year, >+< London, dates?

[DiamondEcho]

I live in London, and will be spending a few days with family in East Anglia over Xmas. But I've returned from a decade abroad and forgotten what the Xmas exodus is like.
I'm self-employed so am flexible on when I travel. What I am conscious of is that Xmas is a) well, obviously, when 1/2 the country seems to be on the road, b) seemingly half the years major rail engineering work are scheduled for this time of year, and c) I have some discretion to shift dates/times to avoid the worst of the crush.

Since I work from home I have almost zero sense of when the bulk of people are planning on travelling out of and back into London after. A trip duration between out <> return dates of 4 days is what I currently have in mind.
That week falls as follows:
Fri 21 Dec
Sat 22 Dec
Sun 23 Dec
Mon 24 Dec - Xmas Eve
Tue 25 Dec - Xmas Day [Bank holiday]
Wed 26 Dec - Boxing Day [Bank holiday]
Thur 27 Dec
Fri 28 Dec

This is pitched to people who are similrly travelling, or work or know people who will be travelling over that period. Pollv1 re outward journey, v2 re return.
I will also x-post this to the London sub-forum.

[DiamondEcho]

It's positioned the poll above my post describing it, fair enough...
It also does not allow me to ask two questions in a single poll-topic, so I'll have to poll for post Xmas return dates in a separate topic, right after this.

[PinkDalek]

It's positioned the poll above my post describing it, fair enough...

Yes, that’s how it is designed but I’ve seen quite a few threads where people haven’t noticed the Poll at the top. That’s why I nowadays put Poll in the title.

[tjh290633]

If you are planning to travel by train, your options may be severely limited. National Express Coach may be different.

With Christmas being on Tuesday, things may be more spread out this year as far as road traffic is concerned, but my guess is that any day from Thursday 20th onwards is likely to be busy.

TJH

[gryffron]

Worst day outbound is always Friday. With any Friday before a bank holiday being worse still.

With Xmas being midweek I guess a lot of people won't be back until Jan-2nd. I concur rail closures could easily be anytime between those dates, so do check your rail travel plans very carefully.

Roads are deserted outside of city centres on Xmas day. I've driven down an empty M1 before now.

Gryff

[Slarti]

East Anglia automatically says Liverpool St to me and the bit of that in greater London and west Essex will be closed from Saturday 23 December until Monday 1 January, possibly longer.

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2017-09 ... christmas/

Slarti

[AF62]

Friday 21st will be by far the busiest day, with people getting away before the weekend. However Saturday 22nd will also be busy due to a combination of those who decided not to or couldn't do Friday, plus more traffic on the roads for those mad fools out shopping for Christmas.

Sunday 23rd won't be that busy.

Monday 24th is probably not terrible, as a lot of people who can avoid travelling into London that day to work will avoid doing so, but there will be people still heading out who didn't want the extra three days or so with relatives if they had left earlier.

[Slarti]

East Anglia automatically says Liverpool St to me and the bit of that in greater London and west Essex will be closed from Saturday 23 December until Monday 1 January, possibly longer.

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2017-09 ... christmas/

Slarti

OK, so that story is from last year, but I was sure that I saw something similar on the local news a week or so ago.

Anyway, this https://www.greateranglia.co.uk/travel- ... 2018-12-31 seems to say that not much is happening over Christmas.

Slarti

[DiamondEcho]

Thanks all!
Slarti, you almost gave me a heart attack with your first link, ground-hog day flashbacks from last year's utter chaos, until I noticed the article was from last year. But then re: yr promising sounding 2nd post/link it turned out that there would be a rail-replacement bus for part of the journey and alas that is precisely the kind of chaotic scrum I'm hoping to avoid.

So what I'm going to do is train out, and National Express back. That way both legs would be direct.