Where to go in February?

France · Corse-du-Sud

☀️ 8.6 h/day · 🌧️ 48 mm/month · 🌡️ 11°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

When to go to Bonifacio? →

France · Pyrénées-Orientales

☀️ 8.2 h/day · 🌧️ 30 mm/month · 🌡️ 11°C

The bell tower of Notre-Dame-des-Anges was a lighthouse before it was a steeple, and it has stood in the water making the postcard ever since Matisse and Derain invented Fauvism here — a marked trail sets their canvases where they were painted. The royal castle closes the bay, anchovies are still salted in town, and the Côte Vermeille runs on in coves to the Spanish border.

• Royal castle on the shore
• Notre-Dame-des-Anges and its lighthouse belfry
• Fauvism trail (Matisse, Derain)
• Coves of the Côte Vermeille

When to go to Collioure? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Bouches-du-Rhône

☀️ 8.5 h/day · 🌧️ 46 mm/month · 🌡️ 9°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)

When to go to Marseille? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Gard

☀️ 8.2 h/day · 🌧️ 28 mm/month · 🌡️ 10°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

When to go to Aigues-Mortes? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Vaucluse

☀️ 8.4 h/day · 🌧️ 44 mm/month · 🌡️ 6°C

Dry stone is the material of the whole plateau: Gordes stacks its pale houses up a spur above the Luberon, lanes curling towards the castle and long views over the valley. Below, Sénanque abbey stands in its lavender field, and the Village des Bories preserves beehive huts built without mortar. A short drive away, Roussillon's ochre quarries turn the same landscape orange.

• Listed hilltop village (one of the finest)
• Sénanque abbey (lavender in July)
• Village des Bories (drystone huts)
• Roussillon and ochre cliffs (day trip)

When to go to Gordes? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Bouches-du-Rhône

☀️ 8.3 h/day · 🌧️ 41 mm/month · 🌡️ 9°C

Under the Alpilles, Saint-Rémy keeps Glanum at its southern gate: a Greek then Roman town whose arch and mausoleum never fell, standing right by the road. Next door, the cloister of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole is the asylum where Van Gogh painted more than a hundred and fifty canvases in a single year. On Wednesdays the market takes the whole centre.

• Glanum archaeological site
• Saint-Paul-de-Mausole cloister (Van Gogh)
• Alpilles hiking trails
• Wednesday market

When to go to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Hérault

☀️ 8.0 h/day · 🌧️ 31 mm/month · 🌡️ 9°C

Life converges on the Place de la Comédie, a wide sweep of pale stone where café terraces face the opera house. Behind it, the oldest botanical garden in France keeps its shaded alleys and glasshouses, and the Musée Fabre holds centuries of painting. Walk east and the register changes completely: Antigone's monumental neo-classical concrete, drawn by Ricardo Bofill.

• Place de la Comédie
• Jardin des plantes (France's oldest)
• Fabre Museum
• Antigone district (Ricardo Bofill)

When to go to Montpellier? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Gard

☀️ 8.0 h/day · 🌧️ 31 mm/month · 🌡️ 9°C

Roman stone is simply part of the street plan here. The amphitheatre still fills for concerts, and the Maison Carrée keeps the clean lines of a temple among ordinary shopfronts. The Jardins de la Fontaine climb in shaded terraces towards the Tour Magne and its view over the tiled roofs, while a short drive away the Pont du Gard carries its tiers of arches across the river.

• Nîmes Arena (Roman amphitheatre)
• Maison Carrée (Roman temple)
• Jardins de la Fontaine and Tour Magne
• Pont du Gard (day trip, UNESCO)

When to go to Nîmes? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

Spain

☀️ 9.9 h/day · 🌧️ 12 mm/month · 🌡️ 18°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

When to go to Fuerteventura? →

Spain

☀️ 9.9 h/day · 🌧️ 15 mm/month · 🌡️ 18°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

When to go to Lanzarote? →

Spain

☀️ 10.2 h/day · 🌧️ 28 mm/month · 🌡️ 18°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

When to go to Tenerife (Santa Cruz)? →

Morocco

☀️ 9.3 h/day · 🌧️ 39 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)

When to go to Agadir? →

Spain

☀️ 10.0 h/day · 🌧️ 52 mm/month · 🌡️ 18°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

When to go to Las Palmas? →

Tunisia

☀️ 9.1 h/day · 🌧️ 18 mm/month · 🌡️ 15°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)

When to go to Djerba? →

Morocco

☀️ 9.2 h/day · 🌧️ 46 mm/month · 🌡️ 16°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)

When to go to Essaouira? →

Spain

☀️ 8.8 h/day · 🌧️ 17 mm/month · 🌡️ 14°C

Bicycles, salt pans and the white sand of Ses Illetes: Formentera keeps things deliberately simple. The lighthouse at Cap de Barbaria stands at the end of a stony road with nothing beyond it but the Mediterranean, and the long wild strands of Migjorn and Llevant take whatever wind is going. Sant Francesc Xavier is the small, sun-bleached centre.

• Ses Illetes beach
• Cap de Barbaria lighthouse
• Migjorn and Llevant (wild beaches)
• Sant Francesc Xavier (village)

When to go to Formentera? →

Chile

☀️ 12.6 h/day · 🌧️ 4 mm/month · 🌡️ 22°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)

When to go to Santiago? →

Australia

☀️ 12.5 h/day · 🌧️ 6 mm/month · 🌡️ 25°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)

When to go to Perth? →

Australia

☀️ 11.7 h/day · 🌧️ 15 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

When to go to Uluru (Alice Springs)? →

India

☀️ 11.3 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 27°C

Boulders the size of houses tumble across the landscape at Hampi, and among them stand the temples of the old Vijayanagara capital. Virupaksha works as a temple rather than a ruin, with flower offerings and drums at dusk, while the stone chariot at the Vittala complex remains the image everyone carries away. Late in the day the granite turns amber and every rock becomes a viewpoint.

• Archaeological site (UNESCO, former Vijayanagara empire)
• Virupaksha Temple
• Stone chariot (Vittala Temple)
• Granite boulder landscape

When to go to Hampi? →

India

☀️ 11.0 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 25°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)

When to go to Mumbai? →

India

☀️ 11.0 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 26°C

Portugal left its churches at Old Goa, vast and whitewashed above the Mandovi, and its street plan in Fontainhas, where the houses are painted ochre, blue and green with tiled name plates. The beaches then take over: Baga busy, Anjuna with its Wednesday flea market, Palolem a calm crescent in the south. Vindaloo, xacuti and feni round it off.

• Old Goa (Portuguese churches, UNESCO)
• Fontainhas (Latin quarter)
• Anjuna, Baga and Palolem beaches
• Anjuna flea market (Wednesday)

When to go to Goa (Panaji)? →

Colombia

☀️ 11.2 h/day · 🌧️ 10 mm/month · 🌡️ 28°C

Cartagena's old town sits inside its Caribbean ramparts, a grid of ochre façades, bougainvillea and balconies that catch the last of the light. Castillo San Felipe de Barajas rises on its hill above the bay, all stone ramps and tunnels. Getsemaní next door is painted walls and busy squares, and the Islas del Rosario lie an hour offshore in water clear enough to read through.

• Fortified old town (UNESCO)
• Castillo San Felipe de Barajas
• Islas del Rosario (day trip)
• Getsemaní (colourful quarter)

When to go to Cartagena? →

Chile

☀️ 12.0 h/day · 🌧️ 1 mm/month · 🌡️ 18°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)

When to go to Valparaíso? →