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Seasonal research · Autumn 2026 - the October half term

Road Trip Fuel Cost

Britain's best-known drives, priced at October 2026 pump prices - and mapped to the cheapest and dearest fill-ups on each corridor, from the 8,191 live stations on our map. Provisional - the edition updates weekly until the month closes.

PROVISIONAL - MONTH IN PROGRESS

The season

19.4m

RAC leisure trips, half term

The big one

£97

the NC500 in petrol - about one tank

The widest gap

38.0p/l

£21 a tank on Snowdonia and the North Wales Coast

This year

+£22

the NC500 vs last October, petrol

Download the PDF The routes, priced

The finding: the drive is cheap, the pump you choose is not

Six of Britain's best-known drives, 1,196 miles of road: £226 of petrol, £230 of diesel. The North Coast 500 - the season's signature trip - is almost exactly one tank: 56 litres, £97. Driven on the full cost of a car, at the 57.5p a mile of our Annual Cost of Motoring report, the same six routes cost £688 - depreciation does the sightseeing too.

Where the money really moves is the pump you choose. On the corridors we mapped - every live station within a few miles of each route - the spread between the cheapest and dearest fill-up reaches 38.0p a litre on the Snowdonia and the North Wales Coast, which is £21 on a single 55-litre tank. And the road trip is the electric car's worst case: on public rapid charging, all six routes cost £267 - £41 more than petrol, the only place in our research where the EV loses.

This half term is also dearer than the last: petrol is up 39.5p a litre since October 2025 in our series, so the six routes together cost about £51 more in fuel than a year ago - the price of a night's accommodation on the road.

The season: half term on the road

The October half term is one of the three great weekends of British leisure driving - the RAC counts about 19.4 million separate leisure journeys between the Friday and Sunday of the getaway, and 72% of half-term travellers stay within 200 miles of home. The favourites are Devon and Yorkshire, 8% each - which is why this edition's routes lean where the traffic actually goes.

19.4m

leisure trips at half term

RAC Breakdown research

72%

stay within 200 miles

of half-term trips, by destination

3 a year

seasonal editions

Easter, July peak, October half term

What makes this October different is the price of getting there. Petrol closed last October at 134.7p a litre in our series; this edition it is 174.2p, up 39.5p. The routes in this report are driven for the scenery, but they are paid for at the pump - and this year the pump is the story. Each edition re-prices the same six routes on the same bases, so the archive becomes a year-round record of what Britain's great drives cost.

The routes, priced

Six routes, all four nations, on the report's stated bases. The electric column is public rapid charging - the honest rate for a road trip, because road trips charge away from home. The all-in line carries every cost of the car, not just the fuel.

Six UK road trip routes priced in petrol, diesel, public rapid electric and all-in, October 2026.
Route Miles Petrol Diesel Electric All-in
North Coast 500 516 £97 £99 £115 £297
Causeway Coastal Route 130 £25 £25 £29 £75
Lake District Loop 120 £23 £23 £27 £69
Yorkshire Dales and Moors 150 £28 £29 £33 £86
Atlantic Highway 110 £21 £21 £25 £63
Snowdonia and the North Wales Coast 170 £32 £33 £38 £98
The six, together 1,196 £226 £230 £267 £688

Petrol and diesel at our UK-average 174.2p / 199.2p, at 42 and 47 mpg; electric at Zapmap's public rapid rate (about 80p a kWh, 3.59 miles per kWh); all-in on the petrol profile from the Annual Cost of Motoring report. Distances: the official signed route for the NC500; route guides elsewhere (approximate).

Read the electric column with its honesty: rapid charging is the most expensive way to power any car, and on these routes it shows. The all-in column is the other honesty: the full cost of carrying the car over 1,196 miles is £688 - the accommodation budget's rival.

The fill-up economics

Our own contribution: we mapped every live station within a few miles of each route - 311 stations across the six corridors - and asked what the same tank costs at the cheapest and the dearest pump on the route. The arithmetic is unforgiving because the tank is big.

The tank rule, on every corridor

The tank
55 litres
The biggest gap
38.0p/l = £21 a tank
The NC500 gap
16.1p/l = £9 a tank
The diesel gap, NC500
21.1p/l = £12 a tank
Fill where it is cheap
not when it is empty

A 55-litre fill at Parc Service Station, Denbighshire (187.9p) costs £103; at Shell, Porthmadog (149.9p) the same tank is £82.

One caveat, stated plainly: these are the prices our stations last filed, and rural independents can lag the pump by days or weeks. The corridor averages - built from every sane price on the route - are the steadier signal; the named cheapest and dearest are the sharp edges of it.

The strategic advice falls out of the table: fill at a supermarket before the scenic miles begin - Kendal or Skipton for the Lakes and Dales, Barnstaple before the A39, Inverness or Wick for the far north - and treat the single-pump villages as emergencies, not habits. The cheapest fuel in Britain this edition is on the Porthmadog corridor of the Snowdonia route: 149.9p.

Route by route

The cheapest and dearest fill-ups on each corridor, as our map last filed them. Prices in pence a litre.

North Coast 500

Scotland

Inverness - Applecross - Ullapool - Durness - John o' Groats - Inverness · 516 miles

Cheapest on the corridor

Morrisons, Alness

172.9p · diesel 197.9p

Dearest on the corridor

Bettyhill General Merchants, Thurso

189.0p · diesel 219.0p

Corridor average, spread

177.2p across 43 stations

16.1p/l · £9 a tank

Petrol £97 · diesel £99 · electric £115 · all-in £297

Almost exactly one tank of petrol, and the dearest fuel in Britain at the far end. Fill in Inverness or Wick before the long coasts; the Bettyhill-to-Thurso stretch is where tanks go to empty.

Causeway Coastal Route

Northern Ireland

Belfast - Carrickfergus - Cushendun - Ballintoy - Portrush - Derry · 130 miles

Cheapest on the corridor

Larkhill Service Station, Coleraine

153.9p · diesel 172.9p

Dearest on the corridor

Circle K, Coleraine

169.9p · diesel 196.9p

Corridor average, spread

165.3p across 119 stations

16.0p/l · £9 a tank

Petrol £25 · diesel £25 · electric £29 · all-in £75

The cheapest corridor of the six: Northern Ireland's prices again, about 7p under the UK average in our Affordability report. The tightest spread too - 16p - so the fill matters least here.

Lake District Loop

England

Kendal - Windermere - Grasmere - Keswick - Honister - Ullswater - Kendal · 120 miles

Cheapest on the corridor

Texaco, Kendal

152.9p · diesel 165.9p

Dearest on the corridor

Shell, Penrith

175.9p · diesel 201.9p

Corridor average, spread

172.1p across 26 stations

23.0p/l · £13 a tank

Petrol £23 · diesel £23 · electric £27 · all-in £69

A short, dense loop: 26 stations within four miles of the route. Essar in Windermere undercuts Penrith's Shell by 23p; both are viable, which on this route is the luxury.

Yorkshire Dales and Moors

England

Skipton - Hawes - Richmond - Helmsley - Pickering - Whitby - Scarborough · 150 miles

Cheapest on the corridor

Bridge Garage, North Yorkshire

164.9p · diesel 193.9p

Dearest on the corridor

Esso, North Yorkshire

199.9p · diesel 217.9p

Corridor average, spread

172.3p across 40 stations

35.0p/l · £19 a tank

Petrol £28 · diesel £29 · electric £33 · all-in £86

The widest gap on the map. Esso North Yorkshire at 199.9p against Bridge Garage North Yorkshire at 164.9p - and Whitby is where the coast part of the route ends, so the cheap fill is the last fill.

Atlantic Highway

England

Barnstaple - Bude - Wadebridge - Newquay - Truro - St Ives · 110 miles

Cheapest on the corridor

Gulf, Cornwall

165.9p · diesel 191.7p

Dearest on the corridor

Shell, Bude

180.9p · diesel 204.9p

Corridor average, spread

174.5p across 51 stations

15.0p/l · £8 a tank

Petrol £21 · diesel £21 · electric £25 · all-in £63

Asda Barnstaple is the last supermarket before Cornwall; after Bude the A39 runs dear. Newquay and St Ives offer scenery, not relief.

Snowdonia and the North Wales Coast

Wales

Llandudno - Betws-y-Coed - Llanberis - Porthmadog - Barmouth - Bala - Llangollen · 170 miles

Cheapest on the corridor

Shell, Porthmadog

149.9p · diesel 165.9p

Dearest on the corridor

Parc Service Station, Denbighshire

187.9p · diesel 204.9p

Corridor average, spread

175.3p across 32 stations

38.0p/l · £21 a tank

Petrol £32 · diesel £33 · electric £38 · all-in £98

Porthmadog's Shell at 149.9p is the cheapest fuel on any corridor this edition; Betws-y-Coed's is 38p dearer. The mountain passes are free - the pumps are not.

Electric on the road

Every other report in this series finds the electric car cheaper to run. This one does not - because a road trip is charged in public, at the rapid rate of about 80p a kWh, not at home on the price cap. Across the six routes the electric bill is £267 against petrol's £226.

The same NC500, three ways to power it

Petrol, 42 mpg
£97
Electric, rapid
£115
Electric, at home
£38
The road-trip premium
+£18

The premium is the charging, not the car: the same loop powered at the home rate would cost £38 - cheaper than petrol by half. Plan the plugs like you plan the pumps. For the full electric arithmetic, see the Annual Cost of Motoring report, where the EV wins everywhere except here.

This half term vs last

A year ago our series had petrol at 134.7p and diesel at 142.8p. This edition: 174.2p and 199.2p. Every route in this report is dearer than its last-autumn self. For the family that drives to half term instead of flying, that is the inflation nobody announced.

October 2026 against October 2025, our series

Petrol and diesel prices and route costs, this October against last.
Measure 2025 2026 Change
Petrol 134.7p 174.2p +39.5p
Diesel 142.8p 199.2p +56.4p
The NC500, petrol £75 £97 +£22
The six routes, petrol £174 £226 +£51
A 55-litre fill, petrol £74 £96 +£22

The mitigation is the fill-up tables: the spread between pumps on a single corridor is up to 38.0p a litre - larger than the year's rise in some places. A driver who fills at the right pump on the Snowdonia and the North Wales Coast beats last October's prices without moving an inch of scenery.

For what the fuel takes from a household's income region by region, see our Regional Fuel Affordability report; for what the car costs across a whole year, the Annual Cost of Motoring; for the daily version of this arithmetic, the Commuting Cost report. This series is the fourth view of the same pump.

Methodology, in brief

Fuel prices.

UK-average petrol and diesel from this edition's 3 weekly regional snapshots - the same station-weighted series that powers the Fuel Price Index and the Affordability report. Corridor prices are the prices our mapped stations last filed, screened to sane values (100-250p a litre); stations whose town we cannot print cleanly are counted in averages but not named.

Routes and corridors.

Six fixed routes across editions; a station is on a corridor when it sits within about four miles of the driven line (five on the NC500, where the far north is sparse). Distances: the NC500's 516 is the official signed route; the rest are rounded from published route guides and stated as approximate.

Consumption and cost bases.

Petrol at 42 mpg, diesel at 47 mpg - the typical-car figures used across this series. Electric at 3.59 miles per kWh (HMRC's sales-weighted figure) at Zapmap's public rapid rate of about 80p a kWh, because road trips charge away from home. The all-in line carries the Annual Cost of Motoring report's petrol profile onto these miles at 57.5p a mile. The tank is 55 litres.

The season, and what this is not.

Half-term trip counts are RAC Breakdown research; year-on-year comparisons use our own monthly series. Editions land at Easter, the July peak and the October half term. This is not a booking tool: named cheapest and dearest stations are a snapshot as our map last filed them, and rural independents can lag. Excluded on purpose: tolls, parking, ferries and the ice creams.

Using this data

Free to cite, with attribution. The preferred citation:

Road Trip Fuel Cost Research - FindPetrol.

https://www.findpetrol.co.uk/reports/road-trip-fuel-cost

Figures update with each seasonal edition; archived editions remain citable at their dated addresses. When citing a corridor price, name the edition: prices on our map change daily. Full methodology. Corrections: [email protected].

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