In our age of overtourism, travelling in low season should be a no-brainer. Prices can be lower, accommodation easier to find, crowds thinner. You might bag a bargain safari in Africa, snag last-minute tickets for Machu Picchu, or discover new facets of familiar destinations – ski resorts in summer, say, or popular European cities in winter.
Of course, there’s no point getting drenched or freezing if it’s going to be miserable. But it can pay to think outside the season, even by just a little. Optimal moments often come in shoulder months, those windows before or after the peak.
The trick is knowing how to find each destination’s decisive moment. So how do you get the timing just right? Never fear – here are 10 recommendations we’ve extracted from Lonely Planet’s new book Offseason, to help plan your next off-peak adventure.
The lowdown As the birthplace of nouvelle cuisine, Lyon – sitting pretty at the meeting of the Rhone and Saone rivers – knows how to warm up travellers in the winter off-season. The city’s traditional dishes are hearty: moreish grattons (a kind of Frenchified pork crackling), battered tripe, doughnut-like bugnes and abundant andouillette (offal sausages, much less awful than they sound). Across the cobblestone alleys of Vieux-Lyon, Croix-Rousse and the river-hemmed Presqu’ile district lie hundreds of traboules. These snaking covered passageways, originally built for silk weavers, offer perfect shelter for grazing at cosy cafes and boutique-hopping away from the elements. And when you’re warm inside with a pile of pike dumplings or a big glass of Beaujolais, the cold’s no issue.
