BARCELONA - Summer might be the most popular season for tourism to Europe, but it hardly promises a calm, cool and collected experience. Who can forget this summer’s protests against overtourism in Barcelona and Mallorca, the wildfires that raged across Greece during the country’s hottest June and July on record and selfie stoplights to help control crowds on the clogged streets of Rome and Florence? For travelers looking to avoid all that as well as break less of a sweat literally and financially welcome to Europe’s secret season. From roughly mid-October to mid-December, shoulder season for travel to Europe comes with fewer crowds, far more comfortable temperatures in places that skew scorching hot during the summer months and plunging prices on airfare and accommodation. “The cheapest time to fly to Europe is typically from about the middle point of October to the middle point of December,” said Hayley Berg, lead economist at travel platform Hopper. “Airfare prices during those eight or nine weeks or so will typically be about an average of 40% lower than prices in the peak of summer in June.” Hopper’s data shows that airfare to Europe from the United States during the period between October 20 and December 8 is averaging between $560 and $630 per ticket — down 9% from this time last year and 5% compared to the same timeframe in 2019. The data also shows that average nightly accommodation rates in the top 10 cities for travel in Europe (including places like Amsterdam, Paris and Munich) drop by 27% in December compared to June, when tourism is at its peak.
For Americans not beholden to a family and turkey-centric holiday in the US, even Thanksgiving week can be considered shoulder season for European travel, said Katy Nastro, of travel site Going. “Because so many folks are focused on domestic travel due to the Thanksgiving holiday, domestic prices shoot upward,” she said. “But the upside to that is international travel, namely over to Europe, gets downright cheap due to airlines cutting fares in hopes to fill seats.” The in-between period starting the last week in November and into the first two weeks of December is another sweet spot for airfare from the US and accommodation deals in European destinations, Nastro said, citing this period as “the calm before the storm of winter holiday business.” She advised trying to travel before the week of December 16, when prices across the board begin to creep up. Jack Ezon, founder of EMBARK Beyond travel agency, said he’s seen a 22% shift recently from clients who traditionally traveled to Europe during the summer months now choosing to visit during the shoulder seasons of spring or fall instead. He attributes this trend to the fact that summers have become unbearably hot in many places, prices are roughly 40% to 50% higher in popular European destinations during the summer and the fact that overtourism has plagued so many places.