What a winter break offers in return is value and quiet. Prices are typically at their lowest point of the year, pitches that would be booked solid in July are available with little notice, and the specific pleasure of a bracing walk followed by warming up back at the van is one that plenty of summer-only visitors never experience. It suits anyone who wants a genuine change of pace rather than a smaller version of a summer holiday, and who packs, and expects, accordingly.

Booking early is less about beating a queue and more about choice. A pitch with a sea view, a caravan that sleeps six comfortably, or a week that lines up with both parents' annual leave: these are the bookings that get taken months out, not the week before. Parks along the English coast, ours included, tend to open the following year's summer diary not long after the current season closes, so the families who book in autumn get first pick of the following July and August.

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The pattern is consistent enough to plan around. Demand for the specific bank holiday weekend itself, arriving Friday or Saturday and leaving Monday or Tuesday, is noticeably higher than for an ordinary weekend either side of it, since a Monday off turns a normal two-night stay into a three or four-night one without using annual leave. That means the actual bank holiday dates are usually the first to book out, while the weekend immediately before or after often has more availability at a similar price.

Neither is a lesser option than the other, and mixing them across the year often makes more sense than picking one. A couple might take a short weekend break in spring or autumn and a longer week together in summer; a family might use a half-term weekend for a quick recharge and save the full week for the big summer holiday once school allows it.

England and Wales carry eight bank holidays across the year, and for anyone planning a caravan break, they follow a fairly consistent pattern worth knowing before booking. New Year's Day, Good Friday and Easter Monday, the early May Monday, the late May spring bank holiday, the August bank holiday on the last Monday of the month, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Of these, the ones that realistically suit a caravan holiday, early May, late May and August, are also the three that see the sharpest jump in bookings at coastal parks.