CNN —
It may be impossible to find a traveler who enjoys crowds and long queues, but they are part of the price most visitors to the world's most famous destinations must pay, especially during peak times.
In the past, budget travel seekers could count on traveling in the off-season or low season: Italy was more affordable in the fall, for example, and Hong Kong was cheaper during the sweltering summer.
But the pandemic has rendered many of these traditional travel wisdoms moot: Many offices and schools switched to online-only environments, giving people a rare opportunity to leave their homes for extended periods of time. Even after the pandemic ended, some companies kept these remote-work policies in place, giving employees more opportunities to explore the world while still getting paid.
But such tourism has consequences.
There are almost daily news reports about measures to combat overtourism, such as hotel bans in Amsterdam, photo barricades in Japan, and mass protests in the Canary Islands. According to the United Nations, global travel will return to pre-pandemic levels in 2024 and could even go higher.
That raises the question: Does an offseason even exist anymore?
“On the one hand, global travel is becoming busier,” explains Olivier Ponty, director at ForwardKeys, a Spain-based travel data and analytics company.
“We still have some peak seasons and those peak seasons remain very busy, but the low seasons are also getting busier and busier.”
Recently, ForwardKeys analyzed data from three of the world's most popular beach resorts: Thailand, Hawaii, and the Maldives. Doing the math, we took the total number of tourists per year and divided it by 12 to get a monthly average of 8%. We can then plot a graph to see which months are above or below that total and determine when peak season is.
“In Thailand, the off-season is usually from April to September, and April and May are really hot,” Ponty said. “Each month during this off-season accounts for more than 7% of the annual total, which means there is very little seasonality.”
So what? “There's no off-season in those places anymore.”
Angelos Tzortsinis/dpa/Picture Alliance/Getty Images
Athens has been forced to close its most famous tourist attraction, the Parthenon, multiple times due to extreme heat.
Perhaps the biggest factor affecting “peak season” travel is the weather.
“A lot of people assume that low season is the time of year when the weather is the worst,” says Ged Brown, owner of a tour company called Low Season Traveler.
But climate change is changing the definition of that “worst” weather.
According to a 2023 survey by the European Travel Commission, European travellers cite weather as the biggest factor when deciding on a holiday destination, with 8% of respondents saying they are concerned about extreme weather in European destinations.
Last summer, heatwaves caused crises in southern European countries, including Italy, Spain and Greece, and the trend is only continuing, with several foreign tourists going missing or dying in Greece due to extreme heat so far this season.
In 2022, Europe experienced its hottest summer on record, with more than 62,000 people dying from heatstroke. In response to this tragic news, ForwardKeys data shows a surge in searches for summer flights to Northern Europe, including Denmark and Sweden.
Mikey Sadowski, director of communications for travel company Intrepid Travel, said the company had had to cancel or reschedule some of its most popular tours because of climate change.
In Nepal, “We're currently experiencing a longer monsoon season. The snow is melting faster, the glaciers are melting faster, the water is flowing faster, and roads that were previously passable are now impassable. So, in fact, [travel] Try to avoid heavy monsoon periods by visiting at different times of the year.”
Sadowski said the CEO of Intrepid canceled an Italian cruise with his mother because of concerns about the heat.
David Silverman/Getty Images
As tourists return after the pandemic, bucket list trips like South African safaris are filling up.
While climate may be an important factor when booking a vacation, it's not the only one.
Forward Keys' Ponti, a father of two himself, noted that many travellers have to plan their trips around school schedules.
Some families choose to homeschool their children as a way to experience other parts of the world without being tied to a schedule.
Parents who choose to “world school” can teach their children about different cultures while traveling during the off-peak season.
But every family is different. Families whose children are grown and out of home, or who don't have any children, have more opportunities for flexibility when booking travel.
Anne Woodward, a childless American who has been living in Mexico for the past three years, makes sure to check the school schedules in her area and plan accordingly.
“I basically try not to move during that time, not to get on a plane, not to get on a bus, not to go to tourist sites – I call it hiding out, actually,” she laughs.
Woodward has a pension from her previous job in the US and can afford to travel for months at a time, preferring to rent an apartment in one destination rather than jetting around. For her, it's not just about saving money, it's about knowing your physical and mental limitations.
“Things that were tolerable and enjoyable in my 20s and 30s no longer seem tolerable,” she says.
“For me, over the last five years or so I've put a lot more emphasis on healing my nervous system. To be honest, I think I neglected my nervous system when I lived in New York. When I was younger and living in New York, I pretty much ignored the cues my body was giving me. So while a normal person might think, 'Wow, this park is really crowded today,' or 'There are a lot of people in this photo,' I would just turn around and walk away as soon as I got there. I wouldn't engage with it at all.”
Still, Woodward acknowledges that he's in a privileged position: He spent a lot of time traveling in his younger years, and has already “been” to many of the places on his bucket list, getting to smaller towns and less crowded areas, even outside peak times.
But traveling in high season has its advantages, especially in terms of infrastructure: Some flights and train routes operate only or more frequently during high season, and travelers to less crowded areas may find that shops and restaurants have shorter opening hours or close completely once the tourist hordes have left.
Those without flexible schedules shouldn't feel like their future holds nothing but long, muggy lines in crowded cities.
Low Season Traveler Brown creates itineraries for adventurous travelers looking for destinations their friends haven't been to yet, as well as those looking for a less hectic experience in classic old-school places.
“If your main motivation for traveling is great weather, then yes, you're going to pay a premium for that. And then the other premium is that it's going to be busy, there's lines everywhere, it's going to be hard to get reservations, etc.,” Brown said.
“The challenge for me is to find joy and find the gold nuggets during the slow season.”
