How to Utilise your Bank Holidays in 2024
Bank Holidays (or Public Holidays for the North Americans) are scheduled days in the year where banks and government buildings are closed. In the UK we get a minimum of 8 of these. The most famous permanent ones are Christmas, Boxing Day (day after Christmas) and New Year.
There are eight bank holidays a year in England and Wales, nine in Scotland and ten in Northern Ireland. A lot of people who work full time and want to travel do not use their bank holiday to the fullest. I am going to show you a small hack that I use to use to maximise my own time off. (whilst using minimal of my annual leave)
To give you an idea, I started off with 20 AL and 8 standard bank holidays as my holiday entitlement but was able to travel a lot of the time. Yes, at the time I utilised my weekends as well so I could maximise visiting one country a month.
Maximise UK Bank Holidays
Below I have a table of how you can maximise your Bank Holiday time off. Obviously this is aimed at people who work full time Monday to Friday. I will make an example so you understand how to do it.
As the first Bank Holiday of 2024 is the Easter weekend, I will start from there. (Yes, I know technically it is New Years Day but its too late to give you advise on that now).
Good Friday (29th March) and Easter Monday (1st April) if you optimise it you can have 16 days off and only use 8 annual leave. That is if you book off 25th March to 5th April; you have off three weekends and two bank holidays which are 8 free days! So for planning your holiday – leave 23rd March and return the 7th April and you are golden!
| Bank Holiday | Total Days off | Annual Leave Days | Free days (icl weekends) | Dates off |
| Good Friday/Easter | 16 | 8 | 8 | 23rd March 2024 to 7th April 2024 |
| Early May BH | 9 | 4 | 5 | 4th May 2024 to 12th May 2024 |
| Late May BH | 9 | 4 | 5 | 25th May 2024 to 2nd June 2024 |
| August BH | 9 | 4 | 5 | 24th August 2024 to 1st September 2024 |
| Christmas/Boxing Day/ New Years* | 9 (2024) 7 (2025) | 3 (2024) 4 (2025) | 6 (2024) 3 (2025) | 23rd December 2024 to 7th January 2025 |
For people wanting to come to London during Bank Holidays… I got you. The next travel hack post will be about the events in London during Bank Holiday seasons. Brunches kick off then, day parties and all of that. I got you!
Love and Hugs,
Tillyah x
