When to Travel

Adventure is a State of Mind

When is the best time to travel? Now! How long should your trip be? Is “forever” a realistic answer?

Actually, reality almost always creates constraints, and the act of mapping out the timeline of a trip can be stressful for many. But if done right, planning can become the fun, alchemical process of turning a dream into a reality.

It’s All About Time

There is a joke about travel tours that goes something along the lines of “if it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium….” (Which, funny enough, is also the name of a movie from 1969.) The breakneck pace of some tours can make your head spin. One of the reasons I love independent travel is that I can build in time to take things at a slower pace. That way I can spend more time enjoying the activities that are important to me and less time doing the activities that aren’t as important to me. In order to do this, however, I have to be realistic about the timing of travel.

When a trip is still in the fantasy stage, it’s not too difficult to imagine spending hours in your favorite museum. Or to imagine eating a long leisurely lunch with good friends while sharing an excellent bottle of wine. It is harder, however, to remember that there may be long lines for that museum. Or that extra time is needed to travel to the restaurant. Or to realize that if you want to see the Northern Lights in Iceland, you have to make sure to visit when they actually have more than just a couple of hours of darkness at night.

The problem we have with planning is if you are making plans to go someplace you’ve never been before, how can you know how much extra time you need to add into your itinerary so that you don’t feel rushed and flustered?

There’s also the consideration of when is the best time to do the things you want to do — what time of day does the sun set over the Aegean Sea on the day you plan to visit Santorini? When are the tulips in the Netherlands at their peak? When do the cherry trees flower for Sakura (cherry blossom season) in Japan? All of these are time-related questions that may make the difference between an okay trip (or worse, a disappointing trip) and the trip of a lifetime.

And then there is the most dangerous risk of all — the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.

Randy Komisar

Limitations

How to schedule your days is addressed in another post. Right now, let’s start with the overall decision of when to travel. Sometimes we don’t have much of a choice. For example, teachers are likely to restrict their travel to the summer months due to having limited time off during the school year.

If you have flexibility, however, think about what you are wanting to do. If your goal is to ski and spend time playing in the cold and snow, obviously you want to travel to an area during the winter. (Remember that winter in the southern hemisphere occurs during summer in the northern hemisphere and vice versa.) Sometimes you may be traveling to attend a certain festival or event which will consequently define and somewhat limit when you plan to travel.

Seasons

Most places in the world have a time period that is considered their “high” tourist season, which is when the area is the most heavily visited. Many people assume that the high season is when it is the best time to visit because so many tourists are there then, but this is not always the case. For many areas, high season is in the summer primarily because this is the time of year when families with school-aged children are free to travel. Consequently the number of tourists increases during the summer. The truth is that other times of year besides summer may actually have all of the same sight-seeing opportunities with nicer weather and smaller crowds.

The opposite of the high season is the “low” season when an area is the least visited by tourists. Usually there are logical reasons for this — for example, a ski resort is not going to be as busy in the summer as in the winter. Often places frequently visited by tourists, such as museums, parks, and restaurants, will have reduced hours or even close during the low season. It’s not necessarily a bad idea to travel to an area during its low season, but it is important that you thoroughly research the area to make sure that the activities you want to do will be available.

Personally, my favorite time to travel is during the “shoulder” season. This is the two to three months in between the high season and the low season. In most parts of the world, the shoulder seasons are during the spring and fall, although there are always exceptions to this.

The reason I prefer to travel during the shoulder season is that usually everything is open but the lines are not as long because the tourist crowds have thinned significantly. Also, the weather is less extreme than in the summer or winter (although spring and fall can bring more unpredictable weather), and personally, I love the extra pops of color that both spring and fall bring to the countryside. I’ve also found, especially when it comes to lodging and airfare, that there are bargains to be found when traveling during the shoulder or low season.

It’s All Up to You

If you have the freedom to choose when you travel, consider what kind of “lifestyle” you want during your adventure. Are you drawn to the high energy of crowds during the high season or do you prefer the calm and quiet and shorter lines of the low season? The weather also becomes a consideration — is your favorite weather hot or cold or something in between?

Once you’ve figured out the time of year in which you want to travel, the next step is figuring out more specifically how you want to spend your days which is covered in this post.

What time of year do you like to travel? Do you prefer different seasons in different locations?