Best Time to Travel 2026: Reading Climate Tables

So when is the best time to travel, really? That question starts almost every plan – and usually gets answered on gut feeling: in summer, when there’s time off. Yet timing decides the weather, the price, the crowds and ultimately how restful a trip turns out to be. Learn to read climate tables properly and you’ll travel more calmly – very much in the spirit of slow travel.

A quick word on accuracy: Climate tables show long-term averages, not weather. An “averagely warm” month can be rainy or scorching in any given year, and climate change is shifting familiar patterns noticeably. The climate figures here come from official normals for the 1991–2020 reference period; for Palma and Tenerife, the Spanish weather service AEMET still publishes only the older 1981–2010 period at station level, which is flagged in the table. The figures on tourist nights, prices and open establishments, by contrast, are single-year values from Eurostat and INE statistics – they describe one year, not an average. Check the current forecast before you travel.

Why timing matters more and more

Two trends make the choice of travel season more important today than before. First, the heat. According to the EU climate service Copernicus (C3S), the European summer of 2025 was 0.90 degrees above the 1991–2020 average – the fourth warmest since the underlying ERA5 record began. In mainland Spain, the weather service AEMET recorded a mean temperature of 24.2 degrees, the warmest summer since the series began in 1961, with heatwave conditions on 33 days.

Second, the crowds. Eurostat data shows that in 2025 roughly 31 per cent of all EU tourist nights fell into just two months – July and August, in every single member state. In Croatia the figure is 54.5 per cent, in Germany 24.0 per cent.

The honest catch: the shoulder months aren’t immune. September 2025 was 1.23 degrees above its own long-term mean, the summer only 0.90 degrees above its own. That doesn’t mean September was hotter – in absolute terms it stayed far cooler. It means the shoulder months are warming too, and the familiar gap to high summer is shrinking. October 2025 in Spain, too, sat 2.1 degrees above its own mean.

How to read a climate table properly

Most people look at just one number: the maximum temperature. Yet the real value lies in the interplay of several figures.

• Day and night temperature: Only together do they reveal whether it cools down in the evening or the night stays oppressive. Per IPMA normals, Faro averages 15 nights above 20 degrees in August, and 8 in September.
• Rainy days rather than rainfall: Ten short showers feel different from a single all-day downpour. In Lisbon the number of rainy days rises from under one in July to roughly nine in October – an almost rain-free month turns into one with rain every third or fourth day.
• Hot days rather than the mean: How often it climbs past 30 degrees says more about summer comfort than the average maximum. Faro records 13 days above 30 degrees in July but just 3 in September – with a daily maximum only 3 degrees lower.
• Water temperature: Crucial for a beach holiday – and it doesn’t track the air. According to NOAA’s World Ocean Atlas 2023 (1991–2020 averaging period), the sea off the Balearics sits at 26.9 degrees in August and still 25.2 in September – against just 22.5 in June. Off Crete and in the western Baltic the pattern is the same. These are gridded open-water averages, not readings taken at the beach.
• Hours of sunshine: A good indicator of how a month actually feels – and often surprising. Per Met Office normals, May is Edinburgh’s sunniest month at 195 hours, ahead of July’s 170.

Seven destinations by the numbers

Daily maximum temperature and rainy days, May and July to October (highlighted: September)

Destination	May	July	August	September	October
Lisbon	23.1 °CRainy days 5.8	28.2 °CRainy days 0.6	28.8 °CRainy days 1.1	26.6 °CRainy days 3.8	22.8 °CRainy days 8.7
Faro / Algarve	23.5 °CRainy days 3.8	29.4 °CRainy days 0.2	29.2 °CRainy days 0.2	26.4 °CRainy days 1.9	23.3 °CRainy days 6.0
Funchal / Madeira	22.0 °CRainy days 3.3	25.4 °CRainy days 0.3	26.8 °CRainy days 0.4	26.6 °CRainy days 3.1	25.2 °CRainy days 7.0
Florence	24.5 °CRainy days 7.8	32.2 °CRainy days 3.0	32.5 °CRainy days 3.8	27.1 °CRainy days 6.6	21.6 °CRainy days 8.6
Edinburgh	14.9 °CRainy days 9.6	19.3 °CRainy days 11.5	19.1 °CRainy days 10.4	16.9 °CRainy days 9.9	13.4 °CRainy days 11.7
Palma de Mallorca1981–2010	23.7 °CRainy days 3.8	31.2 °CRainy days 0.5	31.3 °CRainy days 1.7	27.9 °CRainy days 4.3	23.9 °CRainy days 6.1
Tenerife South1981–2010	23.9 °CRainy days 0.3	27.7 °CRainy days 0.0	28.4 °CRainy days 0.2	27.9 °CRainy days 0.6	26.8 °CRainy days 1.6

30 °C and above24–29 °C20–23 °C15–19 °C10–14 °C

Two patterns stand out. On Madeira and Tenerife, October is warmer than May and sits a little over a degree and a half below August – there the shoulder season is, in climate terms, simply the better high season. Florence, by contrast, drops off in October: from 32.5 to 21.6 degrees, with more than twice as many rainy days as in August. For Tuscany, September is the better shoulder month.

What the shoulder season really buys you

The crowd advantage is measurable. Eurostat recorded around 26.0 million tourist nights on the Croatian Adriatic in August 2025 – but only 3.1 million in October, a factor of more than eight. In Tuscany the August-to-October ratio is 2.6 (2025), in the Balearics 1.7 (2024).

Mediterranean and southern Europe

For coasts and cities in the south, May to early June and September and October are usually the better choice: warm but not scorching, the sea warmer than in early summer.

Northern and central Europe

In the north, summer delivers the long, bright days – though Edinburgh shows that May wins on light. For city breaks in central Europe, spring and autumn are the pick.

Year-round destinations – where the argument doesn’t hold

In the Canaries August and October barely differ, and Lisbon too is booked evenly all year (Eurostat 2024). There the shoulder season buys you no noticeable calm – but reliably good weather.

The honest catch: what the shoulder season costs you

Less light. On Mallorca, AEMET figures show sunshine falling from 342 hours in July to 203 in October – a drop of more than 40 per cent. Instead of an almost rain-free July, expect rain on around six days in October. Edinburgh is subtler: the number of rainy days barely differs between July and October, but sunshine hours collapse by 42 per cent. The northern European shoulder-season penalty is light, not rain.

Closed for the season. Figures from Spain’s statistics office INE show around 165 accommodation establishments open in Calvià on Mallorca in August 2025, still 134 in October – but only 14 in November. So for September and October the problem is small; from November it is large. And it doesn’t hit every resort: in Arona on Tenerife, the number of open establishments varies only between 39 and 42 all year.

Thinner connections. The 2026 timetable for the state-run Croatian ferry line Vis–Split explicitly distinguishes three seasonal tiers: high season ends on 20 September, the seasonal fare on 27 September. Off-season, two weekday crossings run instead of three – but the fare drops from €9.10 to €7.20.

And the price? The advantage is real but smaller than you’d think. According to the EU consumer price index for accommodation services, August 2025 prices across the EU sat 8.5 per cent above May and 8.4 per cent above October; in Croatia the gap to May is 31 per cent. In Italy, however, September 2025 was more expensive than August, and in Germany there is virtually no seasonal difference at all. The idea that the shoulder season is cheaper holds country by country – not as a rule.

In our view: the best compromise

There is no perfect time to travel, only the best compromise between weather, price and crowds. For most Mediterranean destinations that compromise, for us, is September: the sea is still almost as warm as in August and far warmer than in early summer, hot days drop off sharply against July and August, crowds do the same – and businesses are still open. October is the riskier bet; it pays off above all where the climate barely dips – on Madeira and in the Canaries. You won’t get calm thrown in there, though; what you’re buying is pure weather.

If even September stays too warm for you, turn the question around and look for the cooler destination rather than the better month: coolcationing moves the summer holiday north or uphill for good. And if you’re planning a city rather than a beach anyway, the simplest way around peak season is the city-break secrets off the tourist trail.

For some travellers the number of hot days isn’t a comfort question but a safety one. Anyone travelling with a dog reads the climate table differently – there, heat decides rather more than the mood of the holiday.

In short

The best time to travel is rarely the obvious one. Read climate tables as a whole – hot days and warm nights, rainy days, water and sunshine hours rather than just the highs. For most Mediterranean destinations September is the best compromise: a sea still near August levels, far less heat and far fewer crowds, businesses still open. But check destination by destination what you’re trading away – light above all, and in places your connections too. And don’t count on a price advantage everywhere.