The Best Summer Travel Destinations to Skip the Crowds

And just like that it’s summer again. The time when vacation fever takes control and when most people start looking forward to getting away from it all. I think we were programmed as kids. That time of year when school was out and you had the freedom to do more than just go to school. Now somehow as adults, this programming has remained and everyone starts searching for the perfect summer travel destination. Here is what nobody is going to tell you until it is too late: the most popular destinations in the world are at their worst in July and August.

Overcrowded. Overpriced. Overheated. The places that look magical in photographs become something else entirely when ten thousand other tourists are standing in the same frame, sweating through the same experience, paying the same inflated prices simply for the privilege of being there.

Where to go this Summer

I have been to over 60 countries and have made the mistake of going to the wrong place at the wrong time of year. I have also learned there is no such thing as a bad season just bad timing. Choosing the wrong destination for summer is one of those things I’ve learned the hard way. Some of the best trips I have ever taken happened in June, July and August. Seriously, I was in Rio de Janeiro in June. My trick, I just don’t go where everyone else is going.

This is not a list of obscure destinations nobody has heard of. These are real places with real infrastructure that welcome international travelers. They are simply better versions of the trips you are already considering. Less crowded, more personal and in most cases easier on your budget.

Here is where I would go this summer. And where I would not.

But head south of the equator to South Africa’s wine country and you’ll find a totally different experience. And summer in the Northern Hemisphere is the perfect time to go, because June through August is winter in South Africa. Mild temperatures. Far fewer international tourists. Prices that actually make sense.

I stayed at Babylonstoren, one of the oldest Cape Dutch farms, set at the foot of Simonsberg in the Franschhoek wine valley. They have been growing food and wine on the same land for over three hundred years. When I arrived, there was wine waiting in my room. Not a minibar. Actual bottles selected for the stay. In the morning, breakfast was served from a spread that included fresh honey still in the honeycomb, produce pulled from the farm’s own garden and bread that had no business being as good as it was. I worked up a morning sweat riding a bike through the vineyard and spent the afternoon chilling in the spa.

If wine travel is on your list this summer, South Africa is doing it better right now than anywhere else I have been. And at a fraction of what France will cost you in peak season.

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Argentina and Chile offer something Spain simply cannot match right now. And because it is their winter when it is our summer, you arrive when the weather is cooler and the tourists are thinner on the ground.

Both countries produce wine that competes seriously with anything Europe offers. The Malbecs coming out of Argentina’s Mendoza region and the wines from Chile’s valleys are extraordinary and the cellars that produce them are genuinely worth visiting. The landscapes in both countries are dramatic in ways that are hard to prepare for. It’s the kind of scenery that makes you pull over and stand still for a moment because you need to.

The food culture in Argentina in particular is serious. I ate at Don Julio in Buenos Aires which is listed as one of the top restaurants in the world. The beef is unlike anything available at home. The ritual around a meal there lines up perfectly with everything I shared in my post about dining internationally. This is a place that takes its table seriously.

Spain has soul and I am not dismissing it. But in August, with those temperatures and those crowds and those prices, Argentina and Chile are the real heroes of a better trip right now.

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Rio de Janeiro offers something Italy cannot easily give you in summer: room to breathe.

The coastline in the Rio de Janeiro is one of the most beautiful stretches of water I’ve ever seen. Framed by the mountains Morro Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers). These distinctive, two-pronged granite towers are the dominant, iconic backdrop to the west of Ipanema and Leblon beaches.

But what stayed with me most about Rio was the food. Specifically the fish. Fresh seafood served simply grilled, dressed with good olive oil, accompanied by bread that needed nothing added to it. There is a directness to Portuguese cooking that I find deeply satisfying. Nothing performed. Nothing over-constructed. Just honest food made from the soul.

That feeling of standing somewhere extraordinary without a crowd around you is increasingly rare in summer travel. But since Rio is in their winter, it still has it.

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I visited Budapest years ago and what surprised me most was the experience of having a local show us around. He took us to the places he actually eats. Not the restaurants in the guidebooks but the neighborhood spots where the food is extraordinary and the prices are a fraction of what you would pay anywhere in Western Europe. That gap between what tourists experience and what locals experience is much smaller in Budapest than in most major European cities.

The thermal baths deserve their reputation. Széchenyi is the largest in Europe. It is a grand nineteenth century bathhouse with indoor and outdoor pools where locals and visitors mix without ceremony. This is not a tourist attraction in the way that most tourist attractions are. It is a living part of the city that happens to be open to anyone.

Budapest also runs cooler than most Western European capitals in summer which means it is more comfortable for walking and exploring than cities further west that bake in July and August. And the cost of a day in Budapest compared to a day in Paris or Rome is a conversation that tends to end the same way: people wish they had gone to Budapest first.

My Perspective

You don’t have to take summer travel off of your list. You just need to be strategic about where you travel during the summer. It almost certain you will feel the pull of the places you have heard about your whole life. Paris. Rome. Barcelona. The Amalfi Coast. Those places are extraordinary and I am not telling you to skip them entirely. I am telling you that summer is the hardest time to experience them well.

The version of those places you have seen in photographs; the quiet piazza, the empty vineyard road, the coastal village with space to move through it exists. It just does not exist in June, July and August. It exists in April. In October. In the shoulder seasons when the light is still good and the crowds have thinned. Read my blog on Shoulder Season in Europe to understand why this is the best time to travel to these amazing cities.

Summer is for going somewhere that is at its best when everyone else is somewhere else. South Africa in winter. Argentina and Chile when it is their quiet season. Budapest when Paris is exhausted.

You deserve a summer travel destination experience that belongs to you. Not a photograph that looks like a thousand other photographs.

Every destination in this post is somewhere I have personally been. Not researched from a list. Been to, eaten in, walked through and remembered long after I came home.