Today marks the start of the Great Christmas Getaway, where millions will be making their travels to see family, or get some winter sunshine.

If you want to brief (and brace) yourself for what to expect on the roads, rails and the runways then read our summary of the busiest spells below.

Planes

As many as four million Britons will be going abroad over the festive season, slightly more than last year, according to Abta.

The peak travel days are predicted to be December 20, 21 and 28 with popular destinations including the Canary Islands, Tunisia, Morocco, Dubai, and Mexico.

Many airports are expecting the busiest Christmas getaway in their history, including Heathrow and Gatwick.

But with the mass departure starting earlier this year, the passenger numbers are spread over a week, rather than concentrated into one or two peak days.

Bournemouth Airport is also expecting one of its busiest spells of the year this weekend. 

Trains

The railways will be much busier than normal this weekend, too. The Eurostar's peak days to Paris and Brussels are Friday 19, 23, and 30.

On East Coast Trains, the busy spell is on Saturday December 27, with many services already sold out.

South West Trains will be running trains with extra coaches on Christmas Eve to compensate for the extra numbers of passengers travelling.

There will be no services running on Christmas Day or Boxing Day, though.

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Arthur Pretorius, Customer Service Director for South West Trains, said: "We know train services are very important for people around Christmas and New Year and whether it is getting to and from work or travelling to see friends and family, our network will keep people moving.

“We are also using the usual Christmas Day and Boxing Day shut down to get a head start on the vital works at Wimbledon, which will continue on weekends through January and early February.”

And Automobiles...!

Today - Friday December 19 - is set to be the busiest day of the Christmas period.

But thankfully for motorists travelling around Bournemouth, the council will be suspending the majority of roadworks taking place in the area to ease disruption over the Christmas period.

Around 10 million cars will be taking to the roads for the Christmas getaway.

Two of the next busiest days will be Monday December 22 and Tuesday December 23.

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For those travelling to London, they will have to negotiate 16 separate roadworks on the M25, two of which are expected to add 30 minutes to journey times.

Other busy routes will be the A30 and A303 heading westwards and the M5 and M6 towards the North.

Edmund King, the AA's president said: “The Christmas getaway could be a long drawn-out ordeal this year with a particularly busy start today. This is because most schools break up today, Christmas shopping gets going in earnest and consumers have more money in their pocket because of low pump prices.”

He continued: “The AA Populus poll shows that more drivers will be making a trip of more than 20 miles today compared to any other day over the Christmas period. Even so, a third say they will be doing more big mileages through the first half of next week before settling down to their Christmas celebrations.”

The Highways Agency has also announced that nearly 400 miles of their roadworks will be lifted over Christmas and New Year to help festive journeys go smoothly. The Agency aims to complete or suspend 156 schemes by December 23, leaving 3% of the network with roadworks still in place.

The M27 junction 3 near Southampton will be one of the roadworks to remain in place with a 50mph speed restriction with narrow lanes for half a mile. Only slight delays are anticipated, though.