Where to Go, Month by Month

THE TRAVEL CHRONICLE · WHERE TO GO, MONTH BY MONTH

The month is half the destination. The same Lisbon is a furnace in August and a soft-lit bargain in October; the same Everglades is a wildlife amphitheater in February and a mosquito convention in July. So we treat the calendar as geography: every month gets its own full guide: where the weather opens, where the crowds close, what nature has scheduled, and what the school calendar does to prices.

Pick your month

All twelve months are live. The country-level detail sits alongside them, for Portugal, region by region and Lisbon in detail.

Live now

The winter and spring months are live as well: January, 16 trips from Jamaica to Patagonia and Iceland; February, 16 from Costa Rica and Upper Egypt to Rio; March, 14; April, 12 compared, from Upper Egypt’s dry heat to Kyoto’s rain; and May, 14 from Marrakech and Crete to Iceland.

So is the summer half: June, 15 trips from Crete and the Algarve to Patagonia’s winter; July, 14; August, 14 from San Diego and Crete; and September, 14 compared.

Where to Go in November, 13 destinations: the month Luxor drops to 90°F, Kyoto’s maples are forecast to peak on the 27th, and the Atlantic hurricane season finally closes on the 30th.

Where to Go in October, 16 destinations with their temperatures, rain days and fixed dates: the warmest sea of the Jamaican year, the ten days New England actually peaks, the Balloon Fiesta, and the three trips October is the wrong month for.

Where to Go in December, the full winter map: 25 trips compared and ranked, from Aruba’s contractually guaranteed sun through the Alps’ snow-sure altitudes to the southern hemisphere’s high summer, with the polar-night aurora window and the school-calendar price trap both quantified. If your only free week falls between Christmas and New Year, start here — that’s exactly the week the guide is hardest on.

The calendars already live, destination side

Month guides answer “it’s December, where do I go?” The destination calendars answer the reverse: “it’s Portugal, when do I go?” Nine are live:

• Portugal, the 12-month verdictWeather, crowds and the sea
• Portugal in October, region by regionThe four Octobers
• Lisbon in October, day by dayThe city in its best light
• The Everglades, season by seasonWildlife, crowds, mosquitoes
• Cancun, month by monthCheap in September, at 8 inches of rain
• Punta Cana, month by monthTrade winds all year, rain in September
• Honolulu, month by monthRain, surf and crowds peak apart
• Las Vegas, month by monthA 104.5°F July, a mild December
• Rome, month by month54.3°F in December, dark at 4:41 pm

How we call a month

Every verdict on these pages stands on the same three legs: thirty-year climate normals (1991–2020, computed city by city from ECMWF’s ERA5 archive, not “average highs” copied from a brochure), official crowd data (monthly lodging statistics from Eurostat and national park services, so “shoulder season” is a number, not a vibe).

The third leg is the calendar’s fine print: school holidays, festival dates, hurricane seasons, the things that turn the same month into two different trips. The full recipe, including what we do when sources disagree, is on the methodology page.

The last word

Most trips get planned backwards — destination first, dates squeezed in around work. These pages exist for the luckier question: you know when you can leave, and the where is still open. That’s the best version of trip planning there is. Start with the month, and let the map surprise you.