When Is the Best Time of Year to Travel? Here’s What to Know

Hey, fellow travelers. Mark here with the Wolters World. Today we're in Helsinki, Finland, and today we're going to answer one of your questions, and that is, hey, Wolters World, when's the best time to travel? Well, I'll be honest with you, the best time to travel is anytime you can actually travel. And I'm not joking, you got to travel when you can go, whether it's based on the price, whether it's based on your schedule. It's you taking the time to go travel, that's gonna be the best time. I'm here in Finland, and it's cold, it is not the best time to go. But I could get a ticket for $500. I can see my family when I'm here, and I can enjoy the indoor activities, then it does work. So it's a perfect time to travel. But if you want to be more kind of realistic in terms of the best times to travel, for me, I recommend traveling in shoulder season. Shoulder season, if you think about it, like in the Northern Hemisphere, Europe, the US, that is your, you know, September, October, the kids are back in school, you still might be able to get some decent weather, some things are still going on, but it's a lot calmer. And what happens then is tickets, the flights are cheaper, the hotels are cheaper, the lines are shorter, because people are only really traveling on the weekends, not during the weeks, that can be a great time to go. And if you're looking for shoulder season in the spring, it's usually April, early May, that's kind of your shoulder season when you're going to get a good deal. I know for us, that's why every October, we always take a big family trip. Because instead of spending 1200 or $1300 to fly to Europe from the US, we're spending four or $500 per person. So now the whole family is going for almost the price of one person in the summer. So something to kind of think about those shoulder seasons, great times to travel. Now another great time to travel, especially if you're going to come here to Europe, or if you're going to be going in the US is late May and early June. Why? Well, in the US, lots of kids are still in school at that time, some are out, some aren't, so the families haven't started coming from there. Also in Europe, the kids don't get out of school usually until July. So you can get like lovely spring weather or summer weather when you're here, have a nice time, nice stuff. The prices have come up, the flights are more expensive than shoulder season. But it's not as bad as that peak July and August season when it oh my god, it's so packed, it's so hot. It's just not necessarily an enjoyable experience traveling sometimes. That's why a lot of times what I'll do is right when school gets out, because I'm a professor, I go do a filming trip right away. I'll go for three weeks from like the first week of May through the, you know, end of May, get all that done. And it's just me and my mom or me and Jocelyn or the boys. And it's just a nice trip to have. And I still get the nice weather, though it is a little more expensive than shoulder season. Also, I think it's important to mention the shoulder seasons and this, you know, late May, early June, if you're coming to Europe, don't think that the cheap airlines are flying to all their destinations at that time. Okay, because if you're thinking of going to like the Greek Islands, low cost airlines probably don't start there until July or maybe late June. So it's good to know that and kind of check that beforehand. Because if all of a sudden you got to take a higher price domestic, you know, national carrier, maybe that discount isn't there. Maybe it's not worth it so much. But the thing is, is one thing I see people talk about when they talk about travel is, oh, you got to travel as cheap as possible. Yes, I did get a cheap ticket to get here. However, it's actually the weather's not so bad. It's a little cool, but I'm having a good time. And I want you to think about this. Why is it so cheap? Those tickets, those hotel rooms sometimes when you come, well, think about it. If you're going to be going to India or, you know, Philippines during monsoon season, you don't want to be there then. It's so much rain, things are flooded all over. You're going to go to Cartagena in December, you think, oh, I'll go spend Christmas there. You realize Cartagena floods in December, right? Like you have to think about that because just because it's the cheapest time to go doesn't mean it's a time you should go. And that's why sometimes you had to think about and say, hey, look, I need to save up to make it worthwhile on this trip because there's been times I've wanted to travel places and we actually decided not to even with a great deal because it wouldn't have been worth it for me to fly to the Philippines to see my awesome editors to help me with my videos if it would have just been raining all the time. I couldn't have seen all the beautiful stuff. So something to kind of think about because when it's the cheapest, cheapest prices, there's usually a reason for that. And honestly, in those cheap seasons, we're talking hotels, restaurants, museums, activities might be closed. I mean, I remember we were in Santorini in February and it was my mom, my dad, myself, and the donkeys. That was it, which was cool. However, there were no restaurants, no restaurants. Most of the places were closed. We luckily met some locals that told us to walk to the backside of the island where there were some place to eat. So that's one of the things you have to think about. Cheap doesn't necessarily mean a good time to go. But honestly, the best time to travel is whenever you can fit it into your schedule with if you got your kids, you go and you can take the kids. If you don't have kids, you go and enjoy these other times. But there's so many different possibilities you can have that even if it is the cheapest time to go and it's the baddest, worstest weather, there's probably still some museums you can enjoy, fantastic food you can have, and also wonderful people to meet. So those are my tips on the best times to travel. No, there's not one particular day. It's just different times of the year. So wish you all the best. Remember, depending where you're going in the world, those shoulder seasons, those high seasons, those low seasons, those, oh my god, don't come here seasons might be a bit different. Anyway, I wish you all the best. I'll say bye from here in Helsinki, Finland. And I'll say the worst time to come here would be November. The best time to come here is July and August. Bye.