An independent travel publication built around one question — when to go.
Founded in 2010 by a small group of travelers tired of guidebooks written by people who'd never been there in the wrong month. Sixteen years on, a team of more than twenty writers across the globe, publishing for trip planners in 140 countries.
A travel publication, built by travelers.
Monthly Travel Guide started as a single observation, made in New Orleans in the wrong month, in 2009: the difference between a city in August and the same city in March wasn't the city — it was the calendar. Most travel sites refused to write about that difference. So a small group of travelers decided to.
What began as one writer covering a handful of destinations grew over fifteen years into an editorial operation. Today the publication runs on the work of more than twenty travel writers, organized by the only variable most guidebooks ignore: the month. Together they have published over 400 destination guides across every continent.
We are not a tourism board. We are not a booking platform. We are not a travel agency. We are an editorial publication — independent of the destinations we cover, the hotels readers stay in, and the operators they book through. That independence is the entire point.
The four things every destination guide on the site answers.
Generic "best things to do in [city]" coverage is owned by larger publications. We compete on a different axis. Every destination guide on Monthly Travel Guide answers four questions in plain language:
- 01The weather windowActual temperatures, humidity, rain probability, hours of daylight — pulled from meteorological records, not from a tourism board's press kit.
- 02The festivals and events worth planning a trip aroundAnd the ones worth deliberately avoiding. Holi week in Pushkar is magical. Holi week in central Delhi is a logistical disaster.
- 03The shoulder weeksThe four-to-six-week windows when prices crater but the destination still works. Most places have two or three of these per year. Almost no one writes about them.
- 04The month locals will tell you to comeWhich is rarely the month tourists pick. Iceland in September. Tokyo in late November. Oaxaca in October. New Orleans in March. The list goes on for 150 destinations.
What we publish, every week.
More than 400 destination guides currently live on the site, covering 150 destinations on every continent. Twelve monthly hub pages — Best places to visit in January through December — anchor the editorial calendar, refreshed on the first of each month with that month's standout destinations.
Behind every article: original reporting from a writer who has spent serious time in the place; verified weather data from meteorological records; current price points re-checked against booking platforms within the last six months; festival and event dates confirmed against official sources. We refresh content twice a year and pull anything that hasn't been updated in 24 months rather than let it mislead readers.
No article on this site is AI-generated. No article is sponsored. No article is written by a contributor who has not been to the destination in question — or, where they haven't, the article opens with that exact disclosure under the byline.
The Library.
Our digital library extends what readers can find through articles into reference-grade resources. Three flagship books address the planning questions readers ask repeatedly. Five focused bundles consolidate planning tools by category. A growing catalog of seasonal planners, country deep-dives, and regional workbooks fills out the rest.
Flagship books
The Emergency Vault
When To Go
The AI Command Center
The wider catalog
The Library Bundles
Month-by-Month Calendar, Itinerary Library, Packing Systems, Solo Toolkit, and the full Year-Round Library — for travelers who want one specific tool rather than a full reference shelf.
Monthly Trip Planners
Fillable PDF planners for each calendar month — itinerary scaffolds, budget worksheets, packing checklists, and pre-trip task lists, tuned to the season.
Country Deep-Dives
Single-country reference PDFs running 40–80 pages — covering every region, every season, every entry point. Released throughout the year.
Regional Workbooks
The Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, the American Southwest, and Patagonia — each a full reference workbook covering the regional travel calendar in detail.
Festival Calendars
Global event guides refreshed quarterly — every major festival, the right week to arrive, the right week to leave.
Trackers & Worksheets
Visa expiry trackers, vaccination logs, budget worksheets, gear inventories, packing-day checklists — the fillable PDFs we use ourselves on every trip.
The gear we use ourselves.
Beyond our own work, our writers recommend specific products they travel with personally. The list below is the result of fifteen years of collective field-testing across the team. Items earn their place through performance, not promotion.
The platforms we book through.
Same standard, different category. These are the services our writers use themselves when they travel — the booking platforms, insurance providers, connectivity tools, and operators we keep returning to. Inclusion on this list is editorial, not transactional.
More than twenty writers. One standard.
Our writers are working travelers, not professional bloggers. Each covers destinations and topics where they've spent real time. The full roster — with every byline, every article, and links to each writer's work — lives at monthlytravelguide.com/writers. A few of the most prolific:
David Chen
Liam Anderson
Sophia Johnson
Amanda Wilson
Peyton Adams
Christopher Williams
Plus sixteen more contributing writers — including Isabella Davis, Ava Garcia, Emma Brown, Olivia Martinez, Noah Wilson, Charlotte Thomas, Harper Jenkins, Ruby Price, Hunter Foster, Quinn Stevens, and more. See the full team at /writers.
The standards every writer agrees to.
Before a writer's first byline runs on Monthly Travel Guide, they sign off on five rules. These rules are the entire editorial line.
First-person reporting on first-person experience.
If a writer has been to the destination, the guide is written in the first person — where they stayed, what they paid, what they would skip. The point of a personal byline is to make a specific claim, not to hide behind passive prose.
Honest disclosure when first-person experience doesn't exist.
If a writer hasn't been to a destination, the guide opens with that fact, plainly, under the byline. We still publish the piece — some destinations are worth covering with rigorous research alone — but readers know what they are reading before they read it.
Specific claims, not influencer vocabulary.
No "hidden gems." No "bucket lists." No "must-sees." No "breathtaking." These phrases mean nothing and everyone uses them. The point of writing is to say something specific about a place, a season, a meal, a price, a fact most travelers miss.
Refresh or remove.
Travel writing decays faster than most categories. Hotel rates change. Visa rules change. The café you loved closes. We refresh content twice a year. We pull anything that hasn't been updated in 24 months rather than let it mislead readers.
No paid editorial.
We do not accept payment from tourism boards, hotels, airlines, or operators in exchange for editorial coverage. We do not publish sponsored articles. If any piece on the site is ever based on a press trip, sample product, or comped stay, the article will say so at the top, in bold, before the body content begins.
The person behind the operation.
Monthly Travel Guide is led by a Founder and CEO who oversees editorial strategy, partnerships, and long-term direction. Day-to-day reporting and editing sit with our team of more than twenty writers.
Patrick Smith
Patrick Smith is the Founder and CEO of Monthly Travel Guide. Passionate about travel, culture, and destination discovery, he leads the publication's mission of providing travelers with trusted guides, practical insights, and inspiration for exploring the world.
Based in Asheville, North Carolina.
Reach us.
Reader questions, pitches from writers, press inquiries, partnership conversations, corrections — all of it goes to the same address. Replies typically within three business days.
Monthly Travel Guide
An independent travel publication — founded 2010.
