Where to go in December?
In December, the sun doesn't shine the same way everywhere. Bonifacio and a handful of other destinations come out on top: here's our pick of breaks, ranked by the average climate recorded over the last three years. Estimated from 3 years of data (sunshine, rain, clear skies, temperature), across 414 destinations.
Breaks in France
No passport needed: the corners of France where the sun puts in overtime in December.
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Bonifacio 61
France · Corse-du-Sud
☀️ 7.7 h/day · 🌧️ 78 mm/month · 🌡️ 12°C
Limestone cliffs carry the citadel right to the edge, houses leaning out over a straight drop to the sea. Inside the walls the lanes are narrow enough to funnel the wind, and the King of Aragon's staircase cuts down the rock face in one long diagonal. Boats cross the Straits to coves that can be reached no other way.
- White limestone cliffs
- Citadel and old town
- Strait of Bonifacio
- King of Aragon's staircase
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France · Corse-du-Sud
☀️ 7.6 h/day · 🌧️ 72 mm/month · 🌡️ 11°C
Umbrella pines come down almost to the sand at Palombaggia and Santa Giulia, where the water shades from glass-clear to deep blue. Above the gulf, the upper town keeps its Genoese fortress and a grid of narrow streets that only fill after dark. Maquis scrub scents everything in between: rock rose, myrtle, juniper, warmed all day by the sun.
- Palombaggia beach
- Santa Giulia beach
- Gulf of Porto-Vecchio
- Genoese fortress
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Marseille 59
France · Bouches-du-Rhône
☀️ 7.1 h/day · 🌧️ 60 mm/month · 🌡️ 10°C
The Vieux-Port sets the rhythm, with boats, fish stalls and the whole city sloping down towards the water. Notre-Dame de la Garde watches from her hill, the MuCEM stands on the quay behind its concrete lacework, and the stairways of Le Panier smell of frying panisses. Then the Calanques begin: Sormiou, Sugiton, Morgiou, white limestone dropping into green water.
- Vieux-Port
- Notre-Dame de la Garde (la Bonne Mère)
- Calanques (Sormiou, Sugiton, Morgiou)
- MuCEM and Le Panier (old town)
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Calvi 59
France · Haute-Corse
☀️ 7.6 h/day · 🌧️ 100 mm/month · 🌡️ 13°C
The Genoese citadel holds the headland, and below it six kilometres of sand curve round the bay towards the pines. Fishing boats and café terraces share the old port, while the chapel of Notre-Dame-de-la-Serra, on a hill inland, takes in the whole gulf and the mountains behind at once. Boat trips run north to the red cliffs of Scandola, a UNESCO reserve.
- Genoese citadel
- Calvi beach (6 km)
- Scandola (UNESCO reserve nearby)
- Notre-Dame-de-la-Serra chapel
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France · Gard
☀️ 6.7 h/day · 🌧️ 38 mm/month · 🌡️ 9°C
Complete ramparts enclose the whole town, a grid of straight lanes anchored by the Tour de Constance. Step outside the gates and the Camargue takes over: salt pans tinted pink, flamingos picking through the shallows, white horses standing in the marsh grass. The light coming off all that water is what people remember afterwards.
- Medieval ramparts (Constance tower)
- Salins du Midi (flamingos)
- Camargue
- Pedestrianised old town
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Cannes 59
France · Alpes-Maritimes
☀️ 7.2 h/day · 🌧️ 71 mm/month · 🌡️ 10°C
Pose on the steps of the Palais des Festivals and, for one glorious moment, the red carpet is yours alone — as is the queue behind you. Le Suquet's cobbled lanes and whitewashed walls exist mainly so you have somewhere handsome to put down your third coffee of the morning. The Lérins islands quietly outclass the Croisette, though it would be kinder not to mention that to anyone still photographing themselves on it.
- Palais des Festivals
- La Croisette
- Lérins islands
- Le Suquet (old town)
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Antibes 59
France · Alpes-Maritimes
☀️ 7.2 h/day · 🌧️ 71 mm/month · 🌡️ 10°C
Sea walls take the spray on one side of the old town; on the other, the Provençal market fills every morning with herbs, olive oil and cheese. The Château Grimaldi, where Picasso once worked, now hangs the paintings he left behind, the sea framed in every window. Beyond the harbour, the coastal path around the Cap threads pines, rock and small coves.
- Old town and ramparts
- Picasso Museum (Château Grimaldi)
- Cap d'Antibes (coastal path)
- Provençal market
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Nice 59
France · Alpes-Maritimes
☀️ 7.2 h/day · 🌧️ 67 mm/month · 🌡️ 9°C
On the Promenade des Anglais, joggers in shorts weave past visitors in espadrilles sighing at every ripple as though the Mediterranean had been laid on personally for them. Vieux-Nice answers with socca, candied lemons and lanes too narrow for two opinions at once. Castle Hill rises behind it all, utterly unmoved, daring you to climb it after your third ice cream of the day.
- Promenade des Anglais
- Vieux-Nice and cours Saleya
- MAMAC
- Castle Hill
Close to home
A few hours by train or plane, and the sky already looks different in December — no need to cross the planet.
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Spain
☀️ 9.5 h/day · 🌧️ 11 mm/month · 🌡️ 19°C
Wind is the point on Fuerteventura. The dunes of Corralejo shift in slow golden waves behind the beach, Sotavento draws kitesurfers to its lagoon, and Cofete runs on and on beneath bare cliffs with barely a building in sight. The Atlantic stays a startling turquoise, and the island keeps its desert quiet.
- Corralejo beaches and dunes
- Cofete (wild beach, 12 km)
- Sotavento (kitesurf)
- Corralejo dunes nature park
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Lanzarote 77
Spain
☀️ 9.4 h/day · 🌧️ 10 mm/month · 🌡️ 19°C
Lanzarote looks like nowhere else: the lava fields of Timanfaya stretch out in rust and black, still warm just below the surface. César Manrique opened the island's volcanic tubes to visitors at the Jameos del Agua and the Cueva de los Verdes, and cut the Mirador del Río into a cliff above the sea. Art and geology working the same seam.
- Timanfaya National Park (volcanoes)
- Jameos del Agua (César Manrique)
- Cueva de los Verdes
- Mirador del Río
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Spain
☀️ 9.4 h/day · 🌧️ 33 mm/month · 🌡️ 19°C
Everything on Tenerife arranges itself around Teide, a volcano that pushes through the cloud layer and turns the land at its feet into red-black desert. Down on the coast, Playa de las Américas keeps up its noise and its sunloungers, while the Anaga range holds dripping laurel forest under near-permanent mist. Loro Parque adds tropical colour and birdsong.
- Teide National Park (UNESCO)
- Playa de las Américas
- Loro Parque
- Anaga laurel forest
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Ouarzazate 73
Morocco
☀️ 9.3 h/day · 🌧️ 4 mm/month · 🌡️ 11°C
The road from Marrakech drops out of the Atlas into a wide ochre plain, and Ouarzazate begins where the palm groves do. Aït-Ben-Haddou, a stacked earthen ksar above the river, has stood in for half the ancient world on film, and the Atlas Studios next door keep the sets. In town the Kasbah Taourirt holds its rammed-earth towers; north-east, the Dadès gorges narrow to red walls.
- Ait Benhaddou (ksar, UNESCO)
- Atlas Studios (Hollywood of the desert)
- Taourirt kasbah
- Dadès gorges (day trip)
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Essaouira 72
Morocco
☀️ 8.9 h/day · 🌧️ 33 mm/month · 🌡️ 17°C
Atlantic wind is the defining fact here. It keeps the town cool, fills the bay with windsurfers and rattles the blue shutters of the medina, whose ramparts and cannon look out from the Skala over a working fishing port where sardines go straight onto the grill. In June the Gnaoua festival takes over the squares, and the trance rhythms carry well past midnight.
- Fortified medina (UNESCO)
- Sqala du Port and cannons
- Beach and windsurf spots
- Gnaoua Festival (June)
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Agadir 72
Morocco
☀️ 8.9 h/day · 🌧️ 41 mm/month · 🌡️ 18°C
Ten kilometres of sand curve round the bay, backed by promenade cafés and dependable sunshine. Above it all, the hilltop kasbah of Agadir Oufella gives the widest view of the coast, especially at the end of the day. Souk El Had trades in argan oil, spices and pottery behind its walls, and Paradise Valley hides palm-shaded river pools further inland.
- Agadir beach (10 km)
- Agadir Oufella kasbah (ruins, panorama)
- Souk El Had
- Paradise Valley (day trip)
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Djerba 72
Tunisia
☀️ 8.6 h/day · 🌧️ 27 mm/month · 🌡️ 16°C
Flat, sandy and full of date palms, Djerba does island life at low volume. Houmt Souk trades pottery, silver and sponges under whitewashed arcades, while Sidi Mahrès unrolls a long strip of shallow warm water. Inland, the village of Erriadh has been covered in murals by artists from around the world, and the Ghriba, one of North Africa's oldest synagogues, keeps its painted blue interior nearby.
- Houmt Souk (medina and souks)
- Ghriba Synagogue
- Sidi Mahrès beaches
- Erriadh (Djerbahood street art village)
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Las Palmas 71
Spain
☀️ 9.4 h/day · 🌧️ 73 mm/month · 🌡️ 19°C
Las Palmas has a proper city beach: Las Canteras, a long golden arc where the Atlantic rolls in gently, surfers at one end and swimmers at the other. Inland, the Vegueta quarter keeps its cobbles, colonial balconies and the Casa de Colón, while the Viera y Clavijo botanical garden gathers the island's subtropical flora into a single ravine.
- Las Canteras beach
- Vegueta old town
- Casa de Colón
- Viera y Clavijo Botanical Garden
Further afield
If you have time to spare, here's where in the world summer is hiding in December.
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Mendoza 91
Argentina
☀️ 12.9 h/day · 🌧️ 7 mm/month · 🌡️ 25°C
Vines run right up to the foot of the Andes here, and Malbec is what they are for. The bodegas of Maipú and Luján de Cuyo pour it a short drive from Mendoza, usually with a long lunch attached. When the tasting is done the cordillera takes over, with Aconcagua within a day's reach and Parque General San Martín keeping the shade in town.
- Wine route (Malbec)
- Maipú and Luján de Cuyo wineries
- Andes (Aconcagua, day trip)
- General San Martín Park
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Santiago 90
Chile
☀️ 13.3 h/day · 🌧️ 3 mm/month · 🌡️ 21°C
The Andes close off the end of most streets here, and from Cerro San Cristóbal you get the city with the snowline behind it. The Mercado Central is where lunch happens: conger eel, sea urchins, whatever came up the coast that morning. Between the Plaza de Armas with its cathedral and bohemian Bellavista, where Neruda's La Chascona is open to visitors, the capital changes register block by block.
- Cerro San Cristóbal (panorama)
- Plaza de Armas and cathedral
- Bellavista (La Chascona, Neruda's house)
- Mercado Central (seafood)
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Perth 89
Australia
☀️ 13.3 h/day · 🌧️ 8 mm/month · 🌡️ 23°C
Kings Park looks over the Swan River and the skyline from a ridge of bushland big enough to get lost in, eucalypts and wildflowers included. Cottesloe takes care of the Indian Ocean swim, and the ferry to Rottnest Island delivers bicycles, white bays and quokkas that pose without being asked. Fremantle, down at the port, keeps its limestone warehouses and its working-town character.
- Kings Park (panorama and botanical garden)
- Cottesloe Beach
- Fremantle (historic port)
- Rottnest Island (quokkas, day trip)
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Australia
☀️ 11.6 h/day · 🌧️ 36 mm/month · 🌡️ 29°C
Uluru changes colour through the day and does something extraordinary at sunset, when the whole rock turns deep red against the desert. The domes of Kata Tjuta lie further west, walkable through the gorges between them, and after dark the Field of Light spreads its glass stems across the sand. This is Anangu country, and the stories attached to the rock are told by its traditional owners.
- Uluru (Ayers Rock, UNESCO)
- Kata Tjuta (the Olgas)
- Field of Light (light installation)
- Sunset over Uluru
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Chile
☀️ 12.9 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 20°C
An adobe village in the world's driest desert, San Pedro sends visitors out in every direction: to the sculpted ridges of the Valle de la Luna at sunset, to the El Tatio geysers steaming in the cold before dawn, to the flamingo lagoons of the Salar de Atacama. After dark the sky is so clear that the observatories queue up for it.
- Valle de la Luna
- El Tatio geysers (sunrise)
- Salar de Atacama (Andean lagoons)
- Stargazing (clearest skies)
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Valparaíso 85
Chile
☀️ 13.1 h/day · 🌧️ 6 mm/month · 🌡️ 16°C
Valparaíso stacks its painted houses up a ring of hills facing the Pacific, linked by creaking funiculars that still charge a few coins. The lanes of Cerro Concepción and Cerro Alegre work as an open-air gallery, murals covering walls, stairways and garage doors. Neruda's La Sebastiana stands high above the harbour with the best window in the city.
- Historic centre (UNESCO, colourful cerros)
- Ascensores (funiculars)
- Street art (Cerro Concepción, Alegre)
- La Sebastiana (Neruda house museum)
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Mumbai 84
India
☀️ 9.9 h/day · 🌧️ 1 mm/month · 🌡️ 26°C
Mumbai runs on the sea and the timetable. The Gateway of India faces the harbour where boats leave for the Elephanta Caves and their rock-cut Shiva, and Marine Drive curves away in a long arc that switches on at dusk. Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus is Victorian Gothic at full volume, while Chowpatty handles the rest: bhelpuri, kulfi and the evening crowd.
- Gateway of India
- CST station (UNESCO)
- Marine Drive and Chowpatty
- Elephanta Caves (UNESCO, day trip)
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Cape Town 83
South Africa
☀️ 13.0 h/day · 🌧️ 38 mm/month · 🌡️ 20°C
Table Mountain drops its flat grey wall straight into Cape Town, and the cable car up it takes minutes. Beyond, the peninsula road winds past beaches and baboons to the Cape of Good Hope, while Bo-Kaap's lime, pink and cobalt houses climb the slope behind the centre. Boats cross the bay to Robben Island and its museum.
- Table Mountain
- Cape Peninsula and Cape of Good Hope
- Robben Island
- Bo-Kaap district
For a getaway right now: where to go this weekend?
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