Where to go in November?

France · Pyrénées-Orientales

☀️ 7.5 h/day · 🌧️ 37 mm/month · 🌡️ 14°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 · Alpes-Maritimes

☀️ 7.6 h/day · 🌧️ 59 mm/month · 🌡️ 13°C

Lemon groves climb the hills behind the town, and the baroque old quarter stacks pastel façades above a bay that already feels Italian. Serre de la Madone gathers plants from several continents across its terraces, while the Palais Carnolès keeps its paintings in a former princely summer residence ringed by citrus trees. The scent of zest carries surprisingly far.

• Baroque old town
• Serre de la Madone Garden
• Carnolès Palace
• Lemon groves

When to go to Menton? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Alpes-Maritimes

☀️ 7.6 h/day · 🌧️ 67 mm/month · 🌡️ 13°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

When to go to Nice? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Corse-du-Sud

☀️ 8.0 h/day · 🌧️ 95 mm/month · 🌡️ 16°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 · Alpes-Maritimes

☀️ 7.5 h/day · 🌧️ 72 mm/month · 🌡️ 13°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)

When to go to Cannes? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Alpes-Maritimes

☀️ 7.5 h/day · 🌧️ 72 mm/month · 🌡️ 13°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

When to go to Antibes? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

France · Bouches-du-Rhône

☀️ 7.4 h/day · 🌧️ 65 mm/month · 🌡️ 13°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 · Bouches-du-Rhône

☀️ 7.4 h/day · 🌧️ 66 mm/month · 🌡️ 13°C

White cliffs fold into inlets of green water, and the coastal path towards En-Vau delivers one drop after another. Back in the harbour, boats moor a few metres from the wine bars, where the local white, grown on terraces above the sea, is the obvious order. Garrigue scents the lanes between one swim and the next.

• Calanques (UNESCO)
• Cassis harbour
• En-Vau cliffs
• Cassis AOC vineyards

When to go to Cassis? →

🚆 By train🚌 By bus

Morocco

☀️ 9.9 h/day · 🌧️ 2 mm/month · 🌡️ 21°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 · 🌧️ 7 mm/month · 🌡️ 22°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? →

Tunisia

☀️ 9.6 h/day · 🌧️ 12 mm/month · 🌡️ 20°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? →

Spain

☀️ 10.0 h/day · 🌧️ 5 mm/month · 🌡️ 21°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? →

Morocco

☀️ 9.8 h/day · 🌧️ 2 mm/month · 🌡️ 19°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? →

Morocco

☀️ 9.3 h/day · 🌧️ 4 mm/month · 🌡️ 19°C

You walk into the medina with a budget and a firm resolve, and mislay both somewhere around the third glass of mint tea. The souks arrive in colours that make sunglasses feel like a moral decision, which is why the Majorelle Garden exists: a cool blue pause before you plunge back towards Djemaa el-Fna. Even the palm trees look as though they are negotiating for shade.

• Djemaa el-Fna
• Medina and souks
• Majorelle Garden
• Bahia Palace

When to go to Marrakech? →

Morocco

☀️ 9.7 h/day · 🌧️ 3 mm/month · 🌡️ 16°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)

When to go to Ouarzazate? →

Tunisia

☀️ 9.3 h/day · 🌧️ 18 mm/month · 🌡️ 18°C

Sousse's medina still works as a medina, its walls enclosing the souks, the austere Great Mosque and the Ribat, whose watchtower gives the best view over the rooftops and out to sea. Roman mosaics fill the archaeological museum up in the kasbah. North of town, Port El Kantaoui adds a marina, golf and a long stretch of beach.

• Medina (UNESCO) and Great Mosque
• Ribat (fortress)
• Archaeological museum (mosaics)
• Port El Kantaoui (marina)

When to go to Sousse? →

Argentina

☀️ 12.5 h/day · 🌧️ 8 mm/month · 🌡️ 23°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

When to go to Mendoza? →

India

☀️ 10.4 h/day · 🌧️ 2 mm/month · 🌡️ 27°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? →

Botswana

☀️ 11.7 h/day · 🌧️ 31 mm/month · 🌡️ 28°C

Maun is where the tarmac ends and the delta begins: light aircraft on one side, mokoro poles on the other. Gliding through the reed channels, you travel at the speed of the water, past palm islands and the elephants of the Moremi Reserve. A scenic flight makes sense of it all, tracing the Okavango's shifting arms from above.

• Okavango Delta (UNESCO)
• Mokoro safaris (dugout canoes)
• Moremi reserve
• Scenic flights over the delta

When to go to Maun (Okavango)? →

Chile

☀️ 12.7 h/day · 🌧️ 1 mm/month · 🌡️ 19°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)

When to go to San Pedro de Atacama? →

United Arab Emirates

☀️ 10.0 h/day · 🌧️ 2 mm/month · 🌡️ 28°C

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is the set piece: white marble, inlaid flowers and reflecting pools that double everything at dusk. On Saadiyat, the Louvre Abu Dhabi shelters its galleries under a perforated dome that filters the light into a slow rain of dots. The Corniche unrolls beach and cycle path along the whole waterfront, while Yas Island keeps the theme parks and the Grand Prix circuit.

• Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
• Louvre Abu Dhabi
• Abu Dhabi Corniche
• Yas Island (Ferrari World, F1)

When to go to Abu Dhabi? →

Egypt

☀️ 10.7 h/day · 🌧️ 1 mm/month · 🌡️ 23°C

The Nile is at its most photogenic at Aswan: granite boulders, white sails and desert on both banks. Philae stands on its island, columns and pylons rising straight from the water, while Abu Simbel and its colossi lie upriver to the south. In town the souk sells hibiscus, spices and cotton, and Elephantine Island is a short ferry hop away.

• Abu Simbel (day trip, UNESCO)
• Philae Temple (island)
• Nile cruise
• Aswan souk and Elephantine Island

When to go to Aswan? →

Egypt

☀️ 10.6 h/day · 🌧️ 0 mm/month · 🌡️ 23°C

Ancient Thebes spreads over both banks of the Nile, and a felucca is still the sensible way between them. Karnak's hypostyle hall is a forest of columns you walk through rather than look at, while Luxor Temple is best after dark, when the lighting picks out the reliefs. On the west bank lie the Valley of the Kings and the terraces of Hatshepsut's temple against the cliff.

• Karnak Temple
• Valley of the Kings
• Luxor Temple
• Temple of Hatshepsut

When to go to Luxor? →

United Arab Emirates

☀️ 9.9 h/day · 🌧️ 8 mm/month · 🌡️ 27°C

Two cities, really. There is the Burj Khalifa and the mall at its foot, where the fountains perform against the tallest tower in the world, and there is old Dubai over the creek, reached by wooden abra. Bastakiya keeps its wind towers and courtyard houses, the gold and spice souks keep their haggling, and offshore Palm Jumeirah curls into the Gulf with Atlantis at its tip.

• Burj Khalifa (world's tallest tower)
• Dubai Mall and Fountains
• Old Dubai (Bastakiya, gold and spice souks)
• Palm Jumeirah and Atlantis

When to go to Dubai? →