I book most of our trips a few weeks outside the season everybody else is booking. The same place costs less and I like it better.
Greece in October instead of August. Cape Town in February instead of December. One August in Bansko, which is a ski town in Bulgaria, with no snow anywhere and the lifts sitting still.
That gap on either side of peak season is where most of our travel happens now, and it’s the easiest change you can make to what a trip costs.
What shoulder season actually is
It’s the few weeks on either side of a destination’s busiest stretch.
It’s not the off season, which is a different thing and many times a bad idea. The shoulder is the part where the weather mostly still works and the prices have already come down.
The gap is usually about a month either side, and it moves a lot depending on where you’re going. Greece shoulders in April and May, then again in October. Southeast Asia runs on rain rather than temperature, so its shoulder sits just before or just after the monsoon season. Cape Town’s peak is the whole southern summer, November into February, which puts its real shoulder in March and April.
Then there is Italy, which is where this backfires, but also proves the point. May, June, September and October used to be shoulder season there. But then everyone started recommending those months for Italy because it was cheaper and cooler. And now they’ve been recommended for so long that they have actually become peak on both price and crowds. Rick Steves calls all four of them peak season. Italy’s genuinely quiet stretch is now November through April, and you pay for it in shorter opening hours, more lunchtime closures, and coastal towns like the Cinque Terre and the Amalfi Coast mostly shut.
That’s why you check instead of assuming. Shoulder season is not a set of months. It’s whenever a particular place is between crowds, and that moves once enough people have been told about it.
How to find it for a place you’ve never been
Find out when the crowds peak, not when the weather is best. Those are two different questions and only the first one sets the price. Peak is usually school holidays, a dry season, or one festival everybody flies in for.
Step back one month from that. That’s your first candidate week, and it’s usually the one.
Then check the three things that actually close. Transport schedules first, because ferries and regional flights thin out before anything else does. Then whatever you’re specifically going for, on its own website rather than a travel blog. Then the seasonal restaurants and beach places, which is the hardest to check and the one that changes how a town feels.
Look at historical weather averages for that month rather than a best-time-to-visit list. The lists are written to be reassuring. The averages are written by a weather station.
Then price the same rental twice, once in peak week and once in your candidate week. That number is the whole argument, and it takes about two minutes.
What you get
The price drops. Flights and lodging both come down, and lodging usually further, because an owner looking at an empty calendar is a different person than an owner with a waiting list. The harder a place leans on one short season, the bigger the gap. We’ve had our best discounts in Greece, Bulgaria, Malta, Portugal and the Caribbean, all of them outside peak.
A quiet month is also the best possible time to ask a host directly for a better rate, which is its own skill and it’s in my free guide How to Negotiate Airbnb Prices and Fees. If you want somewhere to start looking, Whimstay is built around last-minute and off-season rental pricing, and it’s worth a look before you book anywhere else.
You get room. We’ve walked through Greek island villages in October where the same street in August would have been shoulder to shoulder. Restaurants had tables. The ferries were manageable. That’s a different trip, not the same trip cheaper.
And you get people’s time. When the person behind the counter isn’t slammed, you end up in an actual conversation. Some of the best ones we’ve had in Greece, Italy, Portugal and South Africa happened in months nobody else had chosen.
What you give up
All of that is real and so is this, and anyone who tells you shoulder season has no downside hasn’t done much of it.
Things are closed. Beach clubs, ferries, tours, rooftop bars, the seasonal restaurants a town is known for. A quiet island can feel peaceful or it can feel shut, and the difference is whether you checked. Opening dates are usually on the business’s own page and almost never on the tourism board’s.
Shoulder season is also when a schedule change or a storm is most likely to move your plans, which is the argument for carrying travel insurance rather than hoping. We use World Nomads, and what the policies do and don’t cover is in my free guide Does Travel Insurance Actually Cover That?
The weather stops being a safe bet. You might get the same sunshine as August. You might get wind, rain, cold water, or three grey days in a row. If your trip only works in guaranteed beach weather, book peak and pay for it.
Otherwise, pack for both. That’s the actual shoulder season skill and it’s mostly about layers rather than more clothes.
Transport thins out. Fewer ferries, fewer direct flights, reduced train schedules. You can save real money on the apartment and hand it straight back in awkward connections. Check how you’re getting there and getting around before you book the place, not after.
For flights, the shoulder weeks are also where fare alerts earn their keep, since prices move more when demand is soft. How I search is in my free guide How to Use Google Flights to Find a Cheaper Flight. And because plans move more in these months, it’s worth checking Booking.com as well, where the cancellation and pay-later terms tend to be the friendliest.
And the energy changes. Some places are built around being busy. A party island in October is a quiet island. A ski town in August is a hiking town, which is what Bansko turned out to be, and we liked it more than we expected to. Whether that’s a problem depends entirely on what you came for.
The three questions I ask before I book
Is peak season about the weather, or about everybody else’s calendar?
If a place is busiest because the weather is genuinely only good then, the crowds are the price of the trip. If it’s busiest because that’s when school is out, the crowds aren’t buying you anything and the shoulder wins easily.
Would the closures actually ruin it?
If you’re going for one specific thing and that thing shuts, there’s no discount big enough. If you’re going to walk around a city and eat, very little of what closes will matter to you.
Am I going for energy or for room?
This is the honest one. Some trips want the noise. Most of ours want the room, and once I admitted that, the dates got easy.
Where it has worked best for us
Greece, late September into mid-October
The sea is still warm from the summer and the islands have emptied out. Shoulder season there ends gradually. Through October the ferry schedules thin out and the seasonal hotels and restaurants start closing, and the smaller islands go first. Early in that stretch you get a calmer version of summer. Late in it you’re gambling, and the smaller the island the bigger the gamble.
Turkey, late September into late October
We spent exactly that window in Antalya, arriving at the end of September and leaving at the end of October. Antalya’s peak runs June through September, so we caught the last week of it and then a month of the shoulder.
The sea is the reason to go then. It sits at around 77F (25C) right through October, and the swimming is comfortable the whole month. The air drops out of the nineties, where July and August live, into the seventies and eighties (22 to 30C).
The thing to plan around is rain. September is close to dry. October is when the rain shows up, and November roughly doubles it again. That’s why this window closes when it does, and it’s why the end of October is the edge of it rather than the middle.
Croatia in September
The sea is at its warmest of the entire year in September, the crowds fall away after the first week, and the cruise ships have gone. Everything is still open, which is what separates September from October here. We rented an apartment in Motovun, up in Istria, and Istria runs a shorter season than the Dalmatian coast does, so it empties out earlier. From November most of the coast closes down, so this is a narrow window rather than a season.
Malta in October
This is the clearest example I can give you of what the numbers actually look like. October runs about 72F in the air and 73F in the sea (22 and 23C), and the swimming holds up through the first couple of weeks. Mid-range hotels come down from the 120 to 160 euro range to 75 to 100 a night, and flights run twenty to forty percent under summer. The museums, the restaurants, the buses, the Gozo ferry and the dive schools all run normally.
What does go is the Comino ferry, which drops off sharply after the middle of the month, the beach kiosks, and some of the boat operators, who move to weekends only. That’s the trade, and in Malta in October it’s a good one.
Portugal, May and June or October
Lisbon and Porto in July and August are hot and full. In May, June or October they’re neither, and the prices are noticeably better. April is quieter again and wetter, so treat that as the gamble version of the same idea.
Thailand, either edge of the rains
We spent late-season time on Ko Lanta and liked it. The humidity was climbing, the rates had dropped, and the beaches were quiet. High season there runs November through April and the rains run May through October, so late spring is the shoulder you leave on and October into November is the shoulder you arrive on. If you’re after long-stay rates the second one is better, because the weather is getting better rather than worse.
Two things have changed since the old advice. A lot more resorts, restaurants and dive shops stay open year round than they used to, so the warnings about everything shutting down are out of date. And Ko Lanta now gets genuinely busy in August, in the middle of its own low season, because that’s when Europe takes its summer vacation. Even a low season can have a busy month in it.
Cape Town, and this one is my exception
I go to Cape Town in peak season on purpose. We spend about a month there most years, in late January or February, and that’s not shoulder season by anybody’s definition. Cape Town’s peak runs November through February, January is one of the busiest months of the year, and February has calmed down a little without being quiet.
I pay peak prices for it and I’ll do it again, because a month there in February is worth it to us. If you want the actual Cape Town shoulder it’s March and April, once the wind has dropped and the harvest is on, or September and October on the other side. Everybody has one they pay full price for.
The bottom line
Find out when the crowds peak rather than when the weather is best, step back a month, check what closes and how you’ll get around, then price the same rental in both weeks.
Most of the time you’ll get the same place, the same beach and the same old town for less, with room to stand in it.
The rest of the time you’ll look at what shuts down that month and decide it isn’t worth it, which is also a useful thing to know two minutes into planning instead of on day three of the trip.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find a specific destination’s shoulder season? Work out when it’s busiest, which is usually school holidays, a dry season or one big festival, then look at the month either side of that. Check historical weather averages for those weeks rather than a best-time-to-visit list, and check that the transport you need is still running.
How much does it actually save? It varies too much for me to give you one number honestly. Malta in October is the clearest example I have: mid-range hotels come down from the 120 to 160 euro range to 75 to 100 a night, and flights run twenty to forty percent under summer. Lodging usually moves further than airfare, and the harder a place leans on one short season, the bigger the gap.
Is shoulder season the same as off season? No, and the difference matters. The shoulder is the few weeks either side of peak, when most things still run. Off season is the dead part of the year, when a lot of places close entirely. Off season is cheaper again and it’s a much bigger gamble.
What if the weather is bad? Then you have a trip with some grey days in it, which is the actual trade you’re making. Pack layers and have one or two indoor things you’d be happy to do. If a trip only works in guaranteed sunshine, book peak season and pay peak prices.
Will I be able to see the things I came for? Check each one on its own website before you book anything. Tourism boards list a season, individual businesses list actual dates, and those two disagree constantly.
Is it a good idea for a first international trip? Yes, with one caveat. Fewer crowds and lower prices make everything easier, and the thinner transport schedules are the part to plan around. Book the travel between places before you book the places.
Are there places where this doesn’t work? Italy is the one I’d warn you about. May, June, September and October have been sold as Italy’s shoulder for so long that they are now its peak on price and on crowds. Its quiet months are November through April, and you trade for them in shorter opening hours and closed-up coastal towns.
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