Beach

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Phuket Without the Rookie Mistakes We booked our first Phuket trip for late September, because the flights were almost embarrassingly cheap. The taxi driver from the airport laughed when we said we wanted to snorkel Phi Phi the next day: “Sea is big this week. Maybe Tuesday.” He was right — the west-coast beaches had red flags out, the speedboats were bouncing, and we spent two days in Old Town cafés waiting for the swell to drop. We still had a great trip. But we learned the one thing this Phuket travel guide is really about. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Rhodes, Beyond the Cruise-Ship Day Trip The first time we came to Rhodes we nearly made the classic mistake: book mid-July, base ourselves in a packed resort, and “do” the Old Town in the two hours before a beach afternoon. A friend who’d summered here for years talked us out of it. “Come in September,” she said, “stay where you can actually walk into the medieval town at night, and save Lindos for the morning before the buses arrive.” She was right on every count. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Sardinia Travel Guide on a Budget: The Island That Rewards Patience I nearly went to Sardinia in August. I had the tab open, a decent-looking apartment in the Costa Smeralda, and my finger hovering over the checkout button — and then I saw the price for a hire car. More than my flight. I closed the tab, went back in September instead, and spent ten days driving empty roads to empty beaches for less than I’d have paid in August for three nights in a resort hotel. Sardinia in the shoulder season is not a compromise. It is the correct answer. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Seminyak, Without the Tourist Markup We booked our first Seminyak trip thinking we’d be a two-minute walk from a quiet beach and a cheap bowl of noodles. The beach part was true. The cheap noodles weren’t — not on the beachfront, where the same plate cost three times what it should. A guesthouse owner finally set us straight: “Walk one street back. That’s where we eat.” She was right, and that single tip reshaped the whole trip. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Australia, in One Sentence The first time I tried to book Australia, I did it backwards. Literally. I assumed a December trip meant packing fleeces and rain jackets, the way it would back home, and almost booked a wardrobe for the wrong hemisphere. Then a friend who’d lived in Sydney laughed down the phone and said, “Mate, you’ll be on Bondi in boardshorts on Christmas Day.” That single sentence rearranged my whole plan, and it’ll probably rearrange yours. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Brazil, in One Sentence It was a Tuesday in late September when I finally understood Rio. We’d climbed up to the Mirante Dona Marta at sunset, the air warm but no longer sticky, and below us Copacabana curved off into a gold haze while the Christ statue caught the last light behind us. No crushing crowds, no Carnival surcharge, just a perfect spring evening — and a hotel bill that would have made a February visitor weep. I’ll come back to that bill later, because it changed how I think about timing this country entirely. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Colombia, in One Sentence A friend who’d been three times told me flatly: “Don’t go in October, the whole country drowns.” So naturally I went in October, because the flights into Cartagena were almost half what they’d cost over Christmas. And here’s the thing nobody warned me about: the rain came, sure, but it came as a single furious twenty-minute downpour each afternoon, the kind you watch from a balcony with a cold limonada de coco, and then the old walled city steamed dry under a gold late-day sun. We had the ramparts almost to ourselves at sunset. I’ll explain why that “drowning” month was secretly the smart move further down. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Costa Rica, in One Sentence I booked Costa Rica in October because it was all I could afford, and a well-meaning relative warned me I’d spend the whole week trapped under a rain cloud. Instead, I got sunlit mornings hiking around Arenal with the volcano sharp against a blue sky, then warm, theatrical afternoon downpours I learned to plan around with a coffee and a book on the porch. The rainforest was almost violently green, the lodges were half-price, and I had the hanging bridges nearly to myself. That so-called bad season turned out to be the best-value trip I’ve ever taken. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Malaysia, in One Sentence I had the Perhentian Islands circled on the map in red pen for months. White sand, clear water, hammocks, the works. Then a dive-shop owner I emailed wrote back one short line: “We’re closed December to February, monsoon, sorry.” I stared at it for a while. The whole east coast of the peninsula effectively shuts down half the winter, and I had been about to book straight into it. We pivoted to the west coast and Langkawi instead, sat under blue January skies, and saved the islands for the following June. Malaysia taught me fast: the country has two coasts, and they take turns being wet. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Mexico, in One Sentence I almost let the calendar talk me out of the trip that ended up being my favorite. We were eyeing late October for Mexico City, and three different friends warned me it was still “rainy season, basically a coin flip.” I booked anyway, mostly because the fares were a steal. Then we walked into the Zocalo two days before Day of the Dead, marigolds spilling off every altar, the whole city smelling of copal smoke and pan de muerto, and the afternoon sky stayed a flat, perfect blue. The rain that everyone warned me about never showed. I’ll tell you why that gamble paid off lower down. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit the Philippines, in One Sentence The ferry captain just shrugged. We’d shown up in El Nido in late August expecting island-hopping paradise and instead got a sky the colour of wet concrete, a typhoon warning two islands over, and boat trips cancelled for the third day running. We’d booked on price alone, and the price had a reason. I sat on the hostel porch watching the rain and made a promise to come back in the right season — which, six months later, I did, and the difference was night and day. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Sri Lanka, in One Sentence We almost cancelled. Three days before flying to Sri Lanka in July, a friend messaged a photo of Galle Fort under sheets of grey rain and asked why on earth we’d booked the monsoon. What he didn’t know was that we weren’t going west at all — we were heading to Arugam Bay on the east coast, where July is bone-dry, the surf is glassy, and the sun barely quits. That single quirk of geography is the most important thing to understand about this island. ...