Lake District 'top UK Easter break'

The Lake District looks like being the top UK destination for travellers over the Easter and royal wedding bank holidays, it was revealed today.

And for those going abroad the most-popular spot is Malaga in southern Spain.

The Lake District topped the list of places people were most likely to travel to by car over the next two weekends, according to a poll by insurance company esure.

The next most-popular spot was Brighton followed by the north east coast of England and Bournemouth.

The poll of 1,025 British motorists also showed that 8% plan to travel more than 500 miles over the two weekends, with drivers spending an average of four hours 30 minutes in their cars.

Of those surveyed, 74% always expected delays over a bank holiday weekend and 60% reckoned jams were getting worse.

As many as 35% said they would consider a holiday abroad rather than in the UK to avoid the traffic.

For those who actually are travelling overseas, Malaga is the most-popular destination, according to budget airline easyJet.

The no-frills carrier said that after the southern Spanish city, the next favourite destinations were Madrid, Paris, Faro in Portugal and Amsterdam.

EasyJet UK director Paul Simmons said: "The double bank holiday offers the perfect opportunity to get away from it all, and therefore it's no surprise that Malaga is the most popular destination for British travellers during this period."

More than 200,000 passengers are expected to depart from Stansted airport in Essex over the Easter weekend.

Among popular destinations from Stansted this Easter are Belfast, Turkey and Hanover in Germany.

Stansted's operations director Martin Lyall said: "Rules on liquids in hand luggage have been in place since 2006 but some passengers still come unprepared, spending what should be valuable time relaxing before their flight, getting ready for security checks and delaying people behind them in the queue."

British Airways said it would be flying 95,000 passengers to Easter destinations on Thursday while 80,000 would be travelling away with the airline on royal wedding day, April 29.

BA said its most-popular long-haul destinations were New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Miami, followed by Johannesburg.

Nearer to home Edinburgh, Paris, Barcelona, Rome and Amsterdam were the favourites.

BA said there was still some availability on destinations such as Istanbul, Nice, Madrid, Prague and Jersey.