Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. If the thought of tourist crowds and soaring airfare and hotel prices put you off visiting well-known destinations, it shouldn’t. Shift your preconceptions about what season to travel in, and suddenly some places become a whole lot more attractive.
Lower prices and fewer people are among the big benefits of low or shoulder-season travel, but that’s not all. Paris is low on crowds in the winter months. Credit: iStock You might get better weather, interesting festivals, and a more local atmosphere.
If you’re a repeat visitor, you’ll discover different seasons allow for quite different experiences, and sometimes you’ll end up seeing familiar places with entirely new eyes. Travel in the off-season benefits the budgets of low-income tourism workers too, who might otherwise have work only during particular times of year. Crucially, it can relieve pressure on community services such as water supply and rubbish removal, and helps diffuse the impact of seasonal overcrowding on the planet.
Your overall footprint might even be lessened in off-seasons, when you don’t have to resort to endless hotel air-conditioning. Adjust your calendar and preconceptions, and get going. Here are just a few of the places where it pays to have a change of season.
Spring gets all the hype, but autumn in Japan can be just as beautiful. Credit: Getty Images The lowdown In autumn, Japan’s landscape comes in glorious Technicolour. Ga.
