By the time you read this, you've probably seen the headlines. Jet fuel supplies disrupted by the conflict in the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to tanker traffic. Lufthansa quietly scrapping 20,000 flights between now and October. Ryanair admitting, in unusually honest corporate language, that it cannot guarantee fuel supply beyond early May. Airlines starting to pass eye-watering costs on to passengers, with industry analysts at JP Morgan warning of capacity cuts beginning in June, starting with "domestic and marginal routes."
It is not, in short, a normal year to book a package holiday and assume everything will be fine.
But here is the thing nobody's quite saying loudly enough: for British travellers, some of the best summer holidays on earth do not require a single drop of aviation fuel. They require a train, or a ferry, or in some cases just a willingness to get in the car and actually explore the country you live in. The chaos at the airports this summer might just be the nudge that finally gets a lot of people to try something different.
These are your options.
Grasmere, The Lake District
TripAdvisor's latest summer data puts Grasmere at the very top of the UK trending list for 2026, and it is not hard to see why. The village sits at the head of its own lake in the heart of the Lake District, surrounded by fells that look different every hour depending on what the cloud is doing. It rains. Yes. This is not a secret. But the Lake District in summer is genuinely extraordinary when you get a clear day, and accommodation here books out months in advance for a reason.
The village itself is small enough to walk around in twenty minutes, but that is entirely the point. Dove Cottage, where Wordsworth lived from 1799 to 1808, is open to visitors and the museum alongside it is excellent without being overwhelming. Sarah Nelson's Grasmere Gingerbread Shop, sitting in a converted church porch and operating since 1854, will sell you what is legitimately the best gingerbread you've ever eaten. The recipe is still a trade secret.
For walking, the route up Helm Crag from the village takes around two hours at a steady pace and rewards you with a ridge that drops away dramatically on both sides. Longer ambitions might take you over to Easedale Tarn or, on a very clear day, up to Fairfield. You do not need to be a serious hillwalker to enjoy this landscape; you just need boots that have seen rain before.
Getting there without flying is straightforward. Oxenholme is the main Lake District rail hub, served by Avanti West Coast trains from London Euston (around 2 hours 20 minutes) and from Manchester (around an hour). From Oxenholme, a branch line runs to Windermere, and from there you can pick up the 599 Stagecoach bus through to Grasmere in about 40 minutes. The whole thing is manageable in a single morning.
Cornwall: Go Somewhere Other Than St Ives
St Ives is brilliant. It is also, in August, genuinely overwhelming. Porthleven, 25 miles to the west, is the quieter argument for the same county. The harbour at Porthleven is the deepest in Cornwall, there are good restaurants along the waterfront, and the beach to the west of the harbour is a serious surf beach that gets left-hand breaks most of the year. Rick Stein is not there. This is a feature, not a bug.
If Porthleven gets too busy as the summer wears on, try driving another ten minutes to Praa Sands or heading out towards Cape Cornwall, the only cape in England and Wales. Cape Cornwall is the finger of land the locals long believed to be the most westerly point (it isn't; Land's End is, technically, though only just), and it has a different quality of quiet to the tourist-facing towns. On a clear summer evening, standing at the headland with the sun going down over the Atlantic, you will understand why people keep coming back to this county regardless of how difficult it has become to move around in July.
For food, the Hidden Hut near Portscatho on the Roseland Peninsula does outdoor feasts on summer evenings that sell out within minutes of going on sale. Check their site in spring and book the moment tickets drop.
The train from London Paddington to Penzance takes around 5 hours 20 minutes via GWR, and the line is one of the best train journeys in England, tracking the coast from Dawlish to Plymouth and then into the Cornish interior. The sleeper train from London Paddington to Penzance, the Night Riviera, leaves around 9pm and arrives early morning, which is a deeply pleasant way to begin a holiday.
Paris by Eurostar: Still the Easiest Yes in Travel
People forget how straightforward this is. London St Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord: 2 hours 15 minutes. Faster than most domestic UK flights once you factor in the airport experience on both ends. A standard ticket starts around £44 each way if you book early; business class often makes sense for the price difference when you consider you board 10 minutes before departure and there is no security theatre to navigate.
Paris in summer is not everyone's first thought (the French leave for August and the tourists arrive), but June and early July are exceptional. The city is at its best between 7pm and midnight, which is true of almost everywhere but especially true here. If you have not been to the Palais Royal gardens on a warm evening, or eaten at a basic brasserie in the 11th arrondissement and paid less than you would for a mediocre pub dinner in Manchester, you are overdue a visit.
From Paris, the European rail network opens up. Lyon is 2 hours south on the TGV. Barcelona is 6 hours and 25 minutes. Marseille is 3 hours 5 minutes. You could do a week in southern France with Paris either side and not board a plane once.
Amsterdam by Train and Ferry: Two Ways to Do It
The Eurostar now runs direct from London St Pancras to Amsterdam Centraal in around 4 hours. Tickets start from around £35 each way if you book several weeks out. Amsterdam in summer is crowded around the obvious spots, but the city is large enough to absorb it. Stay somewhere near the Jordaan or the De Pijp neighbourhood rather than directly by the Rijksmuseum, eat at De Kas in the old municipal greenhouse, and spend an afternoon cycling out to the smaller villages north of the city where the tourism thins out completely.
The alternative, and genuinely excellent, route is the overnight P&O ferry from Hull to Rotterdam, arriving the following morning. Cabins are available, there is a reasonable restaurant on board, and you arrive rested (or at least horizontal) with a car if you want one, which means you can drive into Amsterdam from Rotterdam in 45 minutes and then continue on to Belgium, Germany, or further if the mood takes you. The ferry itself starts from around £80 per person each way for a foot passenger with a cabin; take a car and the calculation shifts depending on group size but often compares well to flying once you price in baggage, transfers, and the complete absence of a 4am airport alarm.
Northern Spain by Ferry: The Proper Alternative
This is the one that British travellers consistently underestimate. Brittany Ferries runs from Portsmouth to Santander, a crossing of around 24 hours, with cabins available, a decent restaurant, a pool on some sailings, and the quiet satisfaction of watching the Bay of Biscay from the upper deck before turning in. Prices for a foot passenger start around £100 each way; take a car and you can price it against flights plus car hire and frequently come out ahead, particularly for families.
Santander itself is underrated as a destination. The Cantabrian coast it sits on is green in a way that surprises people who only know Spain from the Costas: steep hillsides, good surf beaches, proper Iberian food without the tourist pricing. The Mercado del Este in Santander is a good place to spend a morning. El Sardinero beach is one of the better city beaches in northern Europe.
Drive a couple of hours east and you are in Bilbao, which has the Guggenheim Gehry building and a pintxos bar culture that puts any British tapas scene to shame. Drive an hour west along the coast and you are in Comillas, a small town with two extraordinary pieces of architecture including a Gaudí building that most people visiting Spain never see. This is a part of the country that rewards travellers who take the long way to get there.
What to Do If You Already Have a Flight Booked
Do not panic, and do not cancel anything yet. The Department for Transport has confirmed there is currently no jet fuel shortage affecting UK airline operations, and most of the big carriers have hedged a significant portion of their summer fuel costs in advance. Jet2 has committed publicly to no fuel surcharges on summer bookings. EasyJet has said the same.
The risk is more nuanced than "your flight will be cancelled." It is more likely that capacity gets quietly reduced on marginal routes, that last-minute bookings become very expensive, and that some airlines on thinner margins face more acute problems than others. Check that your travel insurance covers disruption caused by fuel shortages (many policies treat geopolitical causes as extraordinary circumstances, which affects compensation, though your right to a refund or rerouting remains under UK261 regulations regardless). If you booked a package holiday through an ATOL-protected operator, you are in a stronger position than if you booked flights and accommodation separately.
The broader point is that the uncertainty is real. If you haven't booked yet and flexibility is possible, the options above are genuinely good ones. The trains are running fine. The ferries are running fine. The Lake District will be there regardless of what happens in the Middle East.
The Bigger Picture
British travellers are notoriously reluctant to travel by train and ferry, despite having some of the most spectacular domestic scenery in Europe and a coastline within ferry range of some excellent destinations. For the last twenty years, cheap flights made it rational to fly to Malaga instead of going to Cornwall, and to a degree that logic still holds.
But the assumption that flying will always be the cheapest, most reliable option is having a difficult summer. The train from London to Paris takes 2 hours 15 minutes. The overnight ferry to Rotterdam means you wake up in the Netherlands. Grasmere is less than three hours from London by rail. The Cornish coast is accessible without an airport.
None of this requires a particular political position on aviation or the environment. It just requires acknowledging that the alternatives are better than many people's default assumptions about them, and that this summer of all summers might be a good moment to find out for yourself.
Prices quoted are approximate at time of writing and subject to availability. Always check directly with operators for current fares.