Where to travel in December, which is really two different months
December before the 18th is one of the year's best-value windows. After it, everything doubles. Eight destinations, split by which December you are booking.
Photo · Janusz Mitura · Pexels
December is not one month. It is two, and the boundary falls at about the 18th.
Before it: one of the best-value windows in the year. European cities are quiet, Southeast Asia is in its dry season, and flights are cheap because nobody has started travelling yet.
After it: flights and hotels double, some destinations go above their summer peak, and a run of countries do not just fill up but close.
So the first decision in a December trip is not where. It is which December.
The cheap December, up to about the 18th
1. Southern Vietnam
December to April is the dry season in Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong delta, and December is the front of it: warm, low humidity, clear skies, and before the Christmas and Tet pricing arrives.
The catch: the north is cold and often grey, and the centre is still damp. This is a southern trip. The regional breakdown is here.
Who it suits: food travellers, and anyone who wants Southeast Asia at the front of high season rather than the middle.
2. Thailand's Andaman coast
The cool season is under way and the Andaman side comes properly good from about mid-November, so early December is dry, clear and calm on Phuket, Krabi and the Phi Phi islands.
The catch: the Gulf islands are in their wettest stretch, October through December, so Samui, Phangan and Tao are the wrong half of the country this month. Thailand's two-coast structure is doing exactly what it is supposed to.
Who it suits: anyone who wants a guaranteed beach and can travel before the Christmas fortnight.
3. Morocco
Quiet, cheap and underrated. Days in Marrakech and Fez sit around 18 to 20 degrees and sunny, which is excellent for walking a medina, and the Sahara is inside its October to April season.
The catch, and it is the one that catches everyone: the nights. Marrakech is at altitude on the edge of the desert and drops toward 5 degrees or lower, riads are built to shed heat, and desert camps get close to freezing. Ask about heating before you book.
Who it suits: people who want winter sun that is genuinely warm by day and are prepared to own a coat.
4. Italy and Spain, in the first three weeks
European cities in early December are quiet, cheap and at their most liveable. Museums have space in them, restaurants have tables, and the northern Italian Christmas markets run through the month without the crowds of the last ten days.
The catch: short days, real rain in the north, and everything reverses around the 20th. The Italian seasonal picture is here.
Who it suits: second-time visitors, and anyone who found Rome in July intolerable.
The lean-into-it December
5. Finnish Lapland, and this is the headline
December is inside the aurora season, which runs September to March, and it has something no other month has: darkness. Near the Arctic Circle the nights run up to twenty hours, which is an unusually long window to be looking at the sky.
The odds are genuinely good rather than a lottery: stay at least three consecutive nights in a decent viewing area and you are into the region of 70 to 80% probability.
The catch: it is expensive, it is the peak of the Christmas market for Lapland specifically, and cold at this latitude is a different category of cold. It also means accepting that you will barely see the sun.
Who it suits: families doing it once, and anyone for whom the lights are the whole trip rather than a bonus.
A catalogue note: we cover Helsinki rather than Rovaniemi, so we cannot show you rooms in Lapland itself. Helsinki is the connection and the honest starting point.
6. Japan, until about the 28th
December in Japan is dry, cold and bright, the ski season is opening in Hokkaido and Nagano, and the cities are quiet and cheap for most of the month.
Then it stops. From roughly 29 December to 3 January, New Year does not just fill Japan, it closes it: restaurants, small museums, family-run shops and some attractions shut for several days. The shrines, on the other hand, are extraordinary, because the entire country is at one.
The catch: book flights that land before Christmas or after the 4th. Who it suits: skiers, and anyone who wants Japan without the autumn crowds. The full picture is here.
7. Cape Town and the southern summer
The other hemisphere's July. Long, dry, blue days in the mid-twenties.
The catch: this is South Africa's own peak holiday season and December is the start of it, so it is the one destination on this page where the second half of the month is not a value question but a booking-well-ahead question.
Who it suits: anyone escaping a northern winter who wants a real summer rather than a tropical one.
8. Bali, in the first half
Bali in early December is wet season, green, quiet and cheap, and the east coast surf is turning on as the wind reverses.
Then it becomes the most expensive fortnight of the Balinese year. From about the 20th, southern-hemisphere school holidays and the New Year rush push villas and flights up 30 to 50%.
The catch: the wet season is real, arriving as afternoon downpours. Who it suits: anyone who can travel in the first fortnight.
What to avoid in December
The Greek islands. Closed, with ferries down to a few sailings a week. Athens and Thessaloniki are open, mild and excellent value.
Fiji and the South Pacific. The cyclone season opened on 1 November.
Thailand's Gulf islands. Their wettest stretch, October to December.
Japan between 29 December and 3 January, unless the New Year shrine experience is specifically why you are going.
Anywhere at all between about 19 December and 2 January, if value matters. That is not a destination recommendation, it is the whole point of this page.
The school-holiday note
December is the month where the two hemispheres collide rather than alternate, and it produces the sharpest price spike in the calendar.
Northern-hemisphere schools break for roughly two weeks from the third week of December, which drives the European and North American surge.
Southern-hemisphere summer holidays start in mid-to-late December and run for six weeks, which is why Bali, Fiji and the South African coast are at their most expensive from about the 20th and stay that way into January.
Both spikes land at once. That is why the 18th is the line, and it is the single most useful date on this page.
Before you book
Where to travel in January picks up on the other side of the spike, and is where to look if what you actually want is the cheap version of this trip. Where to travel in October is the best month in the year if your dates are not fixed by a school calendar.
Full seasonal guides for the countries above: Vietnam, Morocco, Italy, Japan, Bali and Greece. The when to go hub collects them, the December month page shows the whole catalogue, and the converter turns every local price here into your own money.
Seasons, aurora probabilities and holiday windows checked September 2026 against national tourism bodies including Visit Finland and the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Aurora viewing is a probability rather than a booking, and cyclone and monsoon windows are climatological averages. Here is how we research and re-check guides.
