For decades, a summer trip to Europe has been considered a must for travelers in the know. And a summer visit to Paris? Une très bonne idée.
But Jason Stevens’ August trip to Paris was anything but “bon.”
“It was crowded, it was hot, in the middle of the day you were looking for shade, I was constantly looking to buy water,” he says. “The major attractions were oversold. I couldn’t get Eiffel Tower tickets — they were booked out for two weeks.”
Even the tickets he did manage to buy — for the Louvre — turned out to be fakes sold from a scam website.
It would be enough to ruin anyone’s vacation. But Stevens wasn’t there to relax. As CEO of the luxury travel company Wayfairer, he was in Paris to see what peak season has become. What he found confirmed what his clients have been telling him: Summer in Europe is no longer the dream — it’s the ordeal.
Now, the well-heeled travelers who once flocked to the continent in July and August are pushing their trips back. “They don’t want sweltering temperatures, or crowds, or lots of Americans outside of America,” says Stevens, whose clients — about two-thirds of them American — are increasingly choosing fall over summer for their big European getaways.
And after his nightmare August in Paris, Stevens thinks they’re right.
He’s not alone. Across the industry, travel insiders say autumn is becoming a new high season for Europe — a shift driven by rising temperatures, overtourism, and a post-pandemic appetite for quieter, more meaningful travel.
“It was an emerging trend in 2024; now it’s become strong,” he says. “Last-minute bookings are bigger than this year, too. We’re now constant year-round.”
For years, the travel industry has dreamed of expanding the peak summer, and for years, travelers not tied to school vacations have quietly ventured to the still-swimmable Mediterranean Sea in September and October.
The climate crisis is an increasing issue as well. The fact that Europe is the fastest-warming continent on the planet, with 2025 seeing the worst year on record for wildfires, and multiple summer heatwaves, has made the shoulder season more attractive.
Talk of fall being Europe’s “secret season” has only increased its popularity. “It’s no longer shoulder season — it’s a season,” says Stevens, who claims that there’s “absolutely not a chance in hell” that he’d willingly return to Paris in August.
Where Stevens’ luxury travelers go, the rest of us follow. “Fall travel from the US to Europe is up 25% year-on-year,” says Tim Hentschel, CEO of booking website HotelPlanner. “Shoulder season is becoming peak season, and prices are reflective,” he says, starkly.
A general desire to escape the summer crowds and heat has been compounded this year by a strong dollar, meaning Americans are keener to cross the Atlantic. “It’s been a huge driver,” says Hentschel, who likens it to the heady days around 15 years ago, when Europeans flocked to the US to take advantage of the weak dollar.
Many travel companies have noted the influx. The Leading Hotels of the World group has notched up a 20% year-on-year increase in revenue this fall. “Over the past year, travelers have increasingly embraced shoulder-season travel,” says president and CEO Shannon Knapp.
It’s not just Americans. Advantage Travel Partnership, a UK-based network of travel agents, has witnessed a staggering increase in sales of UK clients traveling to the continent, with September-October sales up 28%. Commercial director John Sullivan says it’s indicative of a “shift in holiday habits.”
The Virtuoso Luxe Report: UK and Ireland — a study of tourism industry patterns — notes that nearly three quarters of travel advisers affiliated with the Virtuoso global hotel network say that clients are opting for “shoulder season or off-peak travel.” Flight consolidator Skyscanner’s recently published Travel Trends report for 2026 notes that nearly a third of travelers “plan to visit popular places only in shoulder seasons.”
Certainly, those in the industry who risked summer in Europe this year tend to sound like survivors when talking about their trips. “I went to Florence during the summer and ran for the train out of town after half a day — the heat and crowds were just too much and even the gelato didn’t offer relief,” says Melanie Fish, spokesperson for travel giant Expedia. The firm’s data shows that bookings in the Tuscan city were up 110% this fall. Its neighbor, Siena, has also seen a 60% spike — which would explain the sold-out hotels and remaining rooms costing $700 that CNN tracked on the first weekend of October.
Undeterred by her summer trip to Florence, Fish returned in the fall. “What a difference — the streets were quiet at night, I could take in the Arno glowing at sunset, and I wasn’t afraid of getting hacked in the head with a selfie stick on the Ponte Vecchio,” she says. “Now I recommend to anyone who will listen they spend time in Florence but in the off-season only.”
Hentschel believes that part of the shift is down to changing travel demographics. “It’s baby boomers getting older,” he says. “Who would ever in their right mind travel over summer with the huge spike you get in prices? Whenever school’s out, travel prices go up 100 or 200%. When my kids get older, I’m looking forward to taking advantage of the shoulder season.”
It looks like those shifting demographics might be subtly changing the summer crowds, too, as high-spenders shift their trips to later in the year. “I have the feeling that so-called ‘upscale’ tourism was a bit lower than the previous year,” Florence tour guide Lucia Lazic says of summer 2025.
“I heard a five-star hotel in the historical center had half the guest numbers of previous years. And we’ve had availability when it comes to guides. Last year there were many times when we had so many requests that we didn’t have enough guides. This summer there were always two or three available.”
Lazic said that a guide in Venice had told her at the end of June that they were less busy than in 2024. Her data is anecdotal, of course, but it follows the picture being painted by the agents.
Rome also saw a slow summer, according to Andrea Girolami, founder and president of AG Hotels, which has six hotels in the capital. May and June “used to be our peak months,” he says, but this year their occupancy declined during the summer.
In contrast, he says, “this fall completely turned the usual trend on its head. October is definitely not the ‘shoulder season’ anymore. I can honestly say I’ve never seen an autumn like this one.” September and October have outperformed May and June in terms of occupancy and revenue for his hotels.
In Croatia it’s the same picture. Data compiled by the national tourist board shows that visitor numbers in July and August this year were at a “historic low,” according to a spokesperson. 2025 has been “a breaking point in generating record tourism growth primarily in the off season,” they tell CNN.
Europe’s ever-increasing heatwaves are increasingly claiming lives, too. In 2024, British celebrity doctor Michael Mosley died on the Greek island of Symi after getting lost on a walk in searing heat. In August, Roman tour guide Giovanna Maria Giammarino collapsed and died while giving a tour of the Colosseum in blistering heat. Her death prompted the Associazione Guide Turistiche Abilitate, a national union of tour guides, to request that opening hours at main sites be extended to enable tours in the cooler hours of summer. The World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations had previously issued a warning in June to European tour guides, urging them to protect their own health by monitoring weather reports and changing their plans if necessary.
But while fall in Europe almost certainly means avoiding scorching temperatures and even wildfires, if everyone has the same idea, it doesn’t necessarily mean fewer crowds.
“October was an unexpectedly busy month — even busier than September,” says Antonis Pothitos, a guide on the Greek islands of Mykonos and Delos.
“Normally we expect some traffic until the first week of October and then a slow fading until early November, but it has been nonstop.” His schedule was full with two tours a day until the end of the month, when he finished his season and transferred to the mainland. It was, he says, the busiest October he has ever known.
In Rome, October has always been a high-ish season, but this year it feels higher, says guide Agnes Crawford. “Romans have spoken of the ‘Ottobrate Romane’ for centuries — it has always been a super time to visit,” she says. But she feels it’s busier this year. “It’s never been a particularly quiet time, but certainly ever more people are visiting the city year-round, spilling over now into formerly quiet November.”
Meanwhile, the must-see sights are experiencing higher visitor numbers, too. Florence’s Uffizi Galleries saw its busiest September ever, with numbers up more than 26% on pre-pandemic figures, from nearly 400,000 to just under 500,000. (In contrast, however, October numbers were down year-on-year.)
And in Athens, the crowds were still piling onto the Acropolis, with long lines forming to climb the hill and then enter the sacred areas on top when CNN visited in October.
“It changed after Covid,” says Athens tour guide Kelly Bourni, who adds that both fall and spring have become high season in Athens. Her theory is that the shock of lockdown has prompted people to be more footloose now they’re relishing their freedom. “Now people say, ‘Let’s go to Greece (in fall): the weather is fantastic, the food is fantastic, we can swim and go to the islands.”
The Greek Ministry of Culture didn’t respond to a request for visitor numbers to the Acropolis, but according to the Greek National Tourist Board in the UK, the season is pushing even later: November 2024 saw the highest ever number of UK visitors to Greece — 98,361, almost double the 52,000 of 2023. Overall visitor numbers are trending upward too: from 5.1 million in September 2023 to just under 5.5 million in 2024, from 3.1 million in October 2023 to 3.4 million in October 2024, and from just over a million in November 2023 to nearly 1.3 million in November 2024.
Flight capacity to Greece for this year’s winter season, which runs from November to March, has increased nearly 12% year on year, according to data from the Institute of the Greek Tourism Confederation.
There’s a downside for those traveling in search of a bargain shoulder-season break. Demand is increasing, but infrastructure isn’t, meaning hotels are fuller and prices are higher. HotelPlanner’s data shows that average nightly rates in Europe have risen by a whopping 25% year-on-year this fall, to $250.
“The rate really starts to spike when you get to 90% occupancy,” says Hentschel — which explains the $300 rooms in three-star hotels being offered in a nearly sold-out Prague earlier in October when CNN tracked last-minute availability.
Hotels have raised their “shoulder-season” prices “to the price level of summer,” says Jozef Verbruggen, owner of Netherlands-based Untamed Travelling. He says that’s not just happening in popular cities, but in typically summer destinations, like Scandinavia. “Many European destination have moved from a two-month peak season in the summer, including peak-pricing that lasts from May until September or even October,” he warns.
Andrea Girolami won’t share details of the fall price rises in his six Rome hotels, but he calls his Q4 forecasts for this year “encouraging” and says that thanks to the busier fall period, it looks like they’re on track to “compensate the decreased performance recorded during the summer.”
“November isn’t quiet anymore, either,” he says. “What use to be the start of the low season has become one of our most solid months. The city is full right through autumn.”
But while the last-minute travelers might be suffering, those who booked ahead of time have likely saved themselves a wad of cash.
Traditionally, prices in Europe drop as soon as August turns into September and the school holidays finish. Expedia’s Fish says that those who booked in advance still benefitted from that price drop — some hotels listed on Expedia lowered their prices by up to 50% for late September stays booked in advance, compared to their prices in July and August. And Hentschel says that HotelPlanner’s data shows that airfares from the US to Spain have almost halved since their summer peak. Booking in advance can still reap rewards, even in this new high season.
The travel industry has long dreamed of stretching out the peak season — not just to earn more, but to make peak-season crowding less of an issue, create more stability for tourism jobs, and smooth out hotel occupancy and rates. Take Greece, for example, which has traditionally seen visitor numbers fall off a cliff once the calendar flips into September. Now, says Bourni, “from March it’s high season.” For the past three years she’s been leading tours on 31 December. “I’m going to do it again this year,” she says. “Then they go home on January 1, and on January 2 I have other visitors.” She emphasizes that she loves the longer season, adding that there’s no anti-tourism feeling in Athens as there is, say, in Barcelona or Venice. “Here in Greece we don’t have the problems that Spain has. Don’t confuse us with Barcelona — we want tourists,” she says.
So what’s next? There’s a similar move to late spring and early summer trips, according to travel companies, though it’s not — yet — so pronounced. May to June sales are already up by 11% year on year for the Advantage Travel Partnership agencies.
The season for active vacations is shifting slightly later, too. September was always the busiest month in Europe for Explore Worldwide, which offers adventure group trips around the world, but October is “hot on its heels” this year, says program manager for Europe, Tom Wilkinson, with bookings up by 40% going right through to December. The company has had to lay on extra capacity.
Meanwhile, in the peak summer months, expect to see travelers begin to switch the scorching Mediterranean for cooler, less traditionally sought-after climes. The Leading Hotels of the World has seen a growing demand for what it calls “coolcations,” and Virtuoso’s UK and Ireland report says that 73% of travel advisors say that clients are preferring “destinations with moderate weather.”
Hentschel is one of these travelers, having swapped his usual summer Spain vacation for Jackson Hole this year. “The heat made the mountains more enjoyable,” he says. Instead, they saved Mallorca for late October, during the kids’ school holiday.
While numbers are on the rise, there are still ways to sightsee in peace. Perhaps obviously, both Bourni and Crawford point out that experienced guides can time visits to avoid the crowds, giving their guests a more peaceful experience. Bourni leads her guests up the slopes of the Acropolis when the masses are at lunch or between cruise ship changeovers; Crawford says that “crowds tend to be concentrated in a handful of places.”
“I honestly think there’s no bad time of year to visit, just bad ways of doing it,” she says. If the numbers continue to grow, we can only hope she’s right.
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