Traveling in the "Off" Season

The Upside Down Travel View of Phoenicians

I know I've written this before, but with record crowds now traveling again it feels like a good time to repeat it.

Much of my travel and recreation activities include riding a bike. And in Arizona, with our upside down seasons, we cycle as much as possible in late fall, all winter, and during spring. We ride like crazy while the rest of America hibernates. 

So when winter begins to melt into spring and the rest of America starts tuning up their bikes for summer, we feel the dread of putting our bikes away as we prepare to endure another nuclear summer. 

For us, summer is a good time to go somewhere else. But summer is precisely when many of the world's most scenic places become overpriced, hot, and obscenely overcrowded. 

So I grudgingly trade some of my own ideal winter cycling season for some off-season travel to the places I'd prefer to experience without the company of a zillion other hot tourists. 

For example, this year, in my quest to avoid excessive crowds, I'll be biking in Tuscany in late April and on Greece's Pelopponnesian Penninsula in late October.

And, I admit it, even when not riding a bike, I've come to seek out some cold places for mid-winter travel. 

Paris and Rome are especially beautiful in winter. 

 

One fond wintertime Parisian memory was the Sunday afternoon my daughter and I spent just hanging out among Parisian families in the Luxembourg Gardens. They were all wrapped up in their stylish puffy coats pushing baby strollers, chatting and playing cards around its glaciated fountains. 

 

To me that Sunday defined the true spirit of the City of Light.

 

And, spending a frosty foggy winter day strolling among the rows of severely pruned trees in Versailles was equally ethereal. There was something just magical seeing the morning steam rising from the Palace's fountains and waterways as some heroic white and black swans slowly paddled by.

 

A February Day in Versailles

On bitterly cold winter days in Brugge cafes put out big blazing fire pots. The pots flank their front doors to tempt you in for Moules et Frittes (steaming bowls of mussels accompanied by a pile of crisp french fries). There is something kind of perfect about that.

On a winter trip to New York City the sight of the snowy Bethesda (Angel's in America) Fountain in Central Park patiently awaiting new life to begin in spring felt uplifting.

Although winter visits deprive us warn days and blooming flowers, I'll happily wear a hat, scarf and ear muffs to join rosy cheeked Londoners as they cheer for jugglers and street performers in Covent Garden.

And on one bright and crisp December morning I sat all bundled up on a bench in Rome's Borghese Gardens and watched the passing walkers and cyclists. The imagery was pure Edward Hopper.

A December Morning in the Borghese Gardens

So travel in the off season. Whether you visit Prague, Madrid, Rome, Athens or Berlin, you will have a much better chance of rubbing shoulders with locals on a cold winter day than any day in summer.

And, those are the days that will help you to truly discover the soul of a place. 

Once my kids hit the age when travel was no longer confined by the tyranny of school calendars, I discovered crowd-free off-season travel.

And you should too!

 

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