The Case Travel 2027 Annual Leave Guide

25 days booked. 55 days off.

If you have 25 days of annual leave to spend next year, where you place them matters a great deal more than how many of them you have. There are eight bank holidays in 2027 and several of them fall in a genuinely generous way, with two landing on a Friday, four on a Monday and Christmas handing you a Monday and a Tuesday together.

Book your leave around them rather than through them and those 25 days will keep you away from your desk for 55. That is very nearly eight weeks off, on a completely standard allowance, using nothing more exotic than a calendar and a bit of forward planning.

Here is exactly how it works, day by day.

The 2027 bank holidays worth knowing about

1 January - New Year's Day

26 March - Good Friday

29 March - Easter Monday

3 May - Early May bank holiday

31 May - Spring bank holiday

30 August - Summer bank holiday

27 December - Christmas Day, substitute day

28 December - Boxing Day, substitute day

These are the dates for England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland differ slightly, so do check your own if you are north of the border or across the water.

Christmas is the interesting one. Christmas Day falls on the Saturday in 2027 and Boxing Day on the Sunday, which means the substitute bank holidays move to the Monday and the Tuesday and you get two weekdays back that you would otherwise have lost to the weekend.

Every one of the eight is useful. Here is what to do with them.

1. Begin the year with ten days away

Book: Monday 4 to Friday 8 January, five days

You are off: Friday 1 to Sunday 10 January, ten days

New Year's Day falls on a Friday, which hands you a three day weekend before you have booked a single thing. Add the week that follows and you have ten clear days at the very start of the year, which happens to be one of the quietest and best value moments in the whole calendar to be somewhere else entirely.

This is the window for long haul winter sun, for the Northern Lights while the nights are still properly long, or for Lapland with the snow at its very best rather than its most photographed.

2. Eleven days over Easter, for five days of leave

Book: Tuesday 30 and Wednesday 31 March, then Thursday 1, Friday 2 and Monday 5 April, five days

You are off: Friday 26 March to Monday 5 April, eleven days

Easter is the standout of 2027. Good Friday and Easter Monday sit either side of the same weekend, so the bank holidays do most of the heavy lifting before you contribute anything. Place five days of leave immediately after them and you have eleven days clear, which is comfortably long enough for somewhere that genuinely deserves the flight.

Late March into early April also happens to be one of the loveliest times of year to travel. Japan is in blossom, the Italian spring has arrived without the summer crowds, and safari season is at its most rewarding before the rains.

3. Nine days in early May, for four

Book: Tuesday 4 to Friday 7 May, four days

You are off: Saturday 1 to Sunday 9 May, nine days

The early May bank holiday falls on the Monday, so four days of leave straight after it gives you a full nine days. May in the Mediterranean is the version of the Mediterranean everybody hopes August will be, with warm water, quiet harbours and restaurants that still have a table.

The Greek islands before the season properly begins, Puglia, or the Amalfi Coast while it is still possible to enjoy it.

4. Nine more days at the end of the same month, for four

Book: Tuesday 1 to Friday 4 June, four days

You are off: Saturday 29 May to Sunday 6 June, nine days

This is the part most people miss. There are two bank holidays in May, which means you can do the same trick twice inside five weeks and take two separate nine day holidays for four days of leave each.

It also lines up neatly with the school half term, so this is the one to earmark if you are travelling as a family and would rather not pay August prices for the privilege.

5. Nine days at the end of August, for four

Book: Tuesday 31 August to Friday 3 September, four days

You are off: Saturday 28 August to Sunday 5 September, nine days

The summer bank holiday gives you the same nine for four, and it sits right on the turn of the season. Prices soften in the first week of September, the beaches empty out as everybody else goes back to school, and the weather across southern Europe is still entirely on your side.

Croatia, the Turkish coast or the Balearics, all without the August surcharge.

6. Finish the year with seven days off, for three

Book: Wednesday 29 to Friday 31 December, three days

You are off: Saturday 25 to Friday 31 December, seven days

Pound for pound this is the best value in the entire year. Because the substitute bank holidays land on Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 December, three days of leave carries you from Christmas Day all the way through to New Year's Eve.

We have not counted the weekend of 1 and 2 January in the total below, because it belongs to the following year's calendar. You will still be off for it, which makes this nine days in practice rather than seven.

Twenty five days of annual leave, six proper holidays, and 55 days away from work across the year.

Two things worth doing now rather than later

Get the leave approved first. These are the exact weeks everybody else in your office is also eyeing, and the person who asks in September is usually the person who gets them.

Then book the travel quickly. Flights either side of a bank holiday fill up long before the dates arrive, and the rooms genuinely worth having in the hotels we actually recommend tend to go first of all. The dates above are not a secret, which is rather the point of planning them early.

And then the better question

Once you know when you are going, the far more enjoyable decision is where.

Whether those eleven days over Easter become Japan, the nine in May become the Greek islands, or you decide to spend Christmas somewhere considerably warmer than Dorset, tell us what you have in mind and we will take care of the rest.

Love, Dannie, Ally & the Case Travel team x