The practical question worth asking before booking either is simple: how much time is actually free, how far is the travel, and what does the trip need to achieve. A couple chasing a reset and a family building their main holiday of the year are rarely solving the same problem, even when they're looking at the same park.

Both half-terms fill up faster than an ordinary week because every school in the country breaks up at roughly the same time, so the whole country's families are looking at the same seven days. Booking two to three months ahead gives the best choice of pitch and accommodation type; leaving it to the fortnight before means taking whatever's left, if anything is.

Find out more at Yorkshire coast staycations.

The practical advice is the same whichever May date is the target: check the actual calendar for the year in question, since bank holiday dates move, confirm it against your children's specific half-term dates if that's part of the plan, and book earlier than feels necessary. May fills up quietly and then, in the specific weeks that carry a bank holiday, fills up fast.

Term-time also shapes what's worth doing once you arrive. Crazy golf courses, amusement arcades and seaside cafes near a park like ours run full hours through the school holiday weeks and cut back once term resumes, so a trip planned around half-term rather than a random week in September gets the full run of what's open. Check opening times for the specific attraction you have in mind before you travel, since some seasonal cafes and smaller museums close earlier once the summer crowds thin out.

There's a practical side too. If your children are tied to term dates, travelling even a day either side of the official holiday means less competition for the roads and Norfolk Broads holidays the local attractions, without losing any of the actual holiday. Leaving on the Saturday after school breaks up, rather than fighting the Friday afternoon exodus, can shave a good hour or two off a journey to the coast.