The Best Time To Take A Bike Tour In Europe?
Summer is not always the best time to take a bike tour in Europe.
Despite what some may believe, summer is not necessarily the best time to take a bike tour in Europe. Here are a few reasons why:
Paris in the springtime. Park Buttes Chaumont, Paris (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Avoid the peak travel season. While summer may be appealing to you because it coincides with school holidays and warmer weather, it is also the time that everyone else is going on vacation. That includes the Europeans. So you’ll not only be competing with North Americans traveling to Europe for hotel rooms and airline tickets, you’ll also be faced with Europeans looking for lodging, buying train tickets and traveling by car too.
- Save money. This goes hand in hand with peak travel season. As demand for hotel rooms and flights go up, so does the price.
- See Europe without all the tourists. While our In Situ bike tours avoid most of the heavily trafficked destinations anyway, we’re referring to your time while not on our bike tour. Take for example Paris – a gateway city to several of our bike tours in France. In the month of August, not only is the city awash with foreign visitors, but the Parisians themselves have fled the city to go on vacation. What visitors are left with is a city without many of its inhabitants. Similarly, if you visit the south of France during the same time, expect to meet Parisians, Dutch, Belgians, English, etc., but maybe not too many locals.
- Spring and Fall are fantastic months. Despite some lingering false perceptions that Europe has poor weather outside of summer, the shoulder seasons of Spring and Fall are excellent times for a bike tour in Europe. You’ll miss the staggering heat of summer, the number of visitors in each region will be a fraction of their summertime peak and the pace of life will be closer to normal. You’ll have a better chance at getting an authentic local experience.
So as you’re planning your next European Bike Tour, why not think beyond the summer months?
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