The best month to travel is the one everyone skips

Ask a hotelier in Seville, a waiter in Santorini, or a museum guard in Florence what their favorite month is, and you'll get the same answer, in different accents: the one just after the crowds leave. They're right, and every year I find it harder to understand why we all travel at the same time anyway.

What shoulder season actually buys you

The advantages are so consistent they feel like a loophole. Prices for the exact same rooms drop — often by a third — within a week of the high season ending. Restaurant tables appear without reservations. The weather in most of the northern hemisphere in May and early October is, frankly, better for walking around in than the furnace of August. And the light is kinder: lower, warmer, better in photographs than the flat glare of midsummer.

There's a subtler difference too. Places that spend their summer being a destination go back to being a place. The shop that was selling fridge magnets starts selling to neighbors again. You talk to people who have time to talk.

• Some seasonal things will be closed — beach clubs, certain ferries, the odd mountain road. Check before you promise anyone a sunset swim.
• Weather is a coin with more sides. Pack a layer and check the averages, not the highlights.
• Days are shorter in autumn. Plan the daylit anchors first and let evenings be slow on purpose.

How to make the switch

If you've only ever traveled in July and August, the move is easier than it looks. Pick the trip you were going to take anyway and slide it by six weeks in either direction. Keep the same number of days — you'll simply get more out of each one, because you'll spend less of them waiting in lines that only exist for two months a year.

The high season exists for good reasons, to be fair — school holidays, guaranteed sun, the way annual leave works. But if your calendar is your own, the best gift you can give a trip is a month with nobody else in it.