Hi, I'm Patrick. I've spent twenty years figuring out the when of travel.
Most travel sites tell you where to go. They're good at it — Lonely Planet has a hundred writers. What they don't tell you is exactly which week to be there. That's what this site is for.
The trip that started this site.
In August 2009 I drove down to New Orleans for what was supposed to be a four-day jazz trip. I'd booked a small guesthouse in the Marigny, three blocks from Frenchmen Street. The flights were cheap. The hotel was cheap. The reason for both did not occur to me until I stepped out of the airport.
It was 94°F at nine in the morning. The humidity sat on you like a wet wool blanket. We made it from the Quarter to Café du Monde and gave up — sat in the air-conditioned rental car eating beignets that turned to glue in the heat. The musicians on Royal Street had packed it in by 11am. Locals had retreated indoors. Bourbon Street at noon was a parade of sunburned bachelorette parties and steam rising off the pavement. By night two I'd developed prickly heat. By night three I was Googling flight changes.
I came back the next March — first week. Same city. Different planet. The temperature was 72. The doors of every bar on Frenchmen Street were propped open to the sidewalk. Brass bands played outside. People sat on stoops in the Marigny drinking iced coffee in the evening. The St. Charles streetcar wasn't packed. Tickets to the Spotted Cat were $5 and you could actually find a seat.
I started writing about it on a small blog in 2010. Twenty years and sixty-one countries later, this site is what came of it.
A calendar dressed up as a travel site.
Monthly Travel Guide covers about 150 destinations across the world — but the angle is always temporal. For every place we cover, you'll find:
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01
The weather window Actual temperatures, humidity, rain probability — not the brochure version. Numbers from meteorological records, not a tourism board's press kit.
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02
The festivals and events worth planning a trip around And the ones worth deliberately avoiding. Holi week in Pushkar is magical. Holi week in central Delhi is a logistical disaster.
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03
The shoulder weeks The 4–6 week windows when prices drop but the place still works. Most destinations have two or three of these per year. Almost no one writes about them.
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The month locals will tell you to come Which is rarely the month tourists pick. Iceland in September. Tokyo in late November. Oaxaca in October. New Orleans in March.
400+ guides. 3 books. One philosophy.
Over fifteen years on this site and the ones before it, I've written more than 400 destination guides — about three a month, more in the years I had the time. The strongest material I've pulled into three deeper resources for travelers who want a reference, not a feed.
The Emergency Vault
When To Go
The AI Command Center
Plus the Library — five smaller bundles (monthly calendar, itinerary library, packing systems, solo toolkit, year-round library) for travelers who want one specific tool instead of a full reference shelf.
How I write — and what I won't.
Travel writing on the internet has gotten lazy. A few rules I keep to, mostly so you know what you're getting:
If I've been somewhere, I write in the first person.
Where I stayed. What I paid. What I'd skip. What surprised me. The point of a personal byline is to make a claim — not to hide behind passive prose.
If I haven't been somewhere, the guide says so at the top.
I'll still cover the destination, because some places are worth researching even if I haven't pressed my own feet against them. But you'll know before you read a word of it. No one should pretend to a familiarity they don't have.
No "hidden gems." No "bucket lists." No "must-sees."
These phrases mean nothing. Everyone uses them. The point of writing is to say something specific — about a place, a season, a meal, a price, a small fact most travelers miss.
Prices and dates get refreshed twice a year.
Travel writing decays faster than most things. Hotel rates change. Visa rules change. The café you loved closes. I update or I delete. Posts older than 24 months without a refresh get pulled.
Affiliate links are disclosed above the link, not in a footer.
If I'd earn a commission from a click, you'll see that before you click. More on how the site makes money below.
Where I've been.
I keep a running list because I think you should be able to check.
How the site makes money.
I think readers deserve to know. Four streams, in order of size:
What I don't do
I don't take money from tourism boards. I don't accept sponsored trips. I don't write a destination guide because a hotel paid me to. If I ever do any of these — say, a press trip I think readers would actually benefit from hearing about — the article will say so at the top, in bold, and I'll probably lose readers over it. That's fine. That's the deal.
What I'm working on.
Through 2026 I'm slowly rewriting every destination guide on the site — pulling out lazy 2018 posts, adding real photos, anchoring each guide to the right month. There are about 400 guides on the site right now. The goal is 300 of them — fewer, better, current.
The 12 monthly hub pages — Best places to visit in January through December — get refreshed on the first of each month with that month's standout destinations.
If you spot something wrong, dated, off, or just confusing — write to me. I respond.
Find me.
I read every email. I'm slow to reply when I'm on the road, which is most months. Worth the wait.
Patrick Smith
Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Monthly Travel Guide
Based in Asheville, North Carolina — between trips.