The autumn break comes in two waves this year. Schools in region Noord are off from Saturday 10 to Sunday 18 October; Midden and Zuid follow from 17 to 25 October, according to the government’s holiday calendar. The dates are advisory, so check your own school’s.
The busy moments are easy to predict: the Friday afternoons before each wave, when holiday traffic meets the normal rush hour. In earlier years Rijkswaterstaat saw the jams build from midday. This time that means Friday 9 October, and above all Friday 16 October, when the much larger middle and south set off while the north is still away.
Roadworks add to it. The A59 between Waalwijk and Oosterhout is closed in both directions from Friday 16 October at 21:00 until Monday 26 October at 05:00, including the links with the A27 at Hooipolder. Count on 30 to 60 minutes extra. From the same Friday the A15 parallel lanes between Ridderkerk and the Benelux junction are resurfaced, with up to an hour’s delay on weekdays. And in Limburg the A2 between Het Vonderen and Kerensheide is being widened from 8 to 12 October, just as the north leaves.
Rijkswaterstaat’s own advice is short: check, check, double-check, on rwsverkeersinfo.nl, right before you leave. Leaving on Friday morning or early on Saturday usually beats the Friday afternoon queue.
After this week’s summer encore the weather is back to a normal October, so the best trip may be the short one: a bike, a thermos and a dyke. No roof box needed.