Nearly all British people in full-time jobs have at least four weeks' holiday a year, often in two or three separate periods. The normal working week is 35-40 hours, Monday to Friday. People who have to work in shifts with 'unsocial' hours are paid extra for the inconvenience. More overtime is worked (at extra pay) than in most other Western European countries, but there is relatively little 'moonlighting' - that is, independent work for pay in leisure hours. (Another way of saying this is that the 'black economy', involving work paid privately in cash and not officially recorded or taxed, is relatively small.)
There are only eight official public holidays a year, only one of them in the six months before Christmas. None of them celebrates anything to do with state or nation, though the first Monday in May was made a 'bank holiday' (national holiday) by a recent Labour government as the British holiday in honour of working people.
The most obvious - and traditional-British holiday destination is the coast: No place in the country is more than three hours' journey from some part of it. The coast is full of variety, with good cliffs and rocks between the beaches, but the uncertain weather and cold sea are serious disadvantages. Also, two weeks in a hotel room with balcony and private bath can now cost less in Spain or Greece, with flight included, than the same in a British hotel. Most of the hotels in the numerous seaside resort towns were built in the railway age, between 50 and 100 years ago, and seem now to be used as much by people going to conferences as by those on holiday. Going to a conference can be a sort of holiday, even in working time and with expenses paid.
People who go for one or two weeks' holiday to the coast, or to a country place, tend now to take their caravans or tents to campsites, or rent static caravans, cottages or flats. Some take tents, but their optimism is usually disappointed. Many town dwellers have bought old country cottages, to use for their own holidays and to let to others when they are working themselves.
People on holiday or travelling around the country often stay at farms or other houses which provide 'bed and breakfast'. These are usually comfortable and better value than hotels.
By now the holiday resorts most popular with the British are on the Mediterranean coasts, or yet further south. In 1988 a third of all British people went abroad, mainly to places where warm sea and sunshine can be confidently expected. Most travel by air on 'package' holidays, paying for flight, local tax and hotel or flat all together, others travel by car or bus and ferry. If affluence continues to grow and spread more widely, it seems likely that foreign travel will grow more quickly still, particularly in winter to places not too far from the equator.