Shoulder Season

Shoulder season is a travel industry term for the time periods before and after a tourist area's peak season. You can take advantage of the shoulder season and find fire-sale discounts on perfectly good rooms and flights to inspiring destinations worldwide. We give you some tips on how to find the shoulder season. Once you try the shoulder season, you'll likely find it's the best time to travel. A general rule of thumb for picking a shoulder season is to avoid school holidays and the "obvious" times to travel, but to keep as close to high season as you can.

Travelguides

Most travelguides and country-specific Web sites have a section about "When to Go". This section describes the best time to visit a destination, as well as the best time to avoid that area. Between those two seasons, you'll find the shoulder season.

Wheather

Typically, the weather during shoulder season may not be optimal, but it will be better than low-season weather. Fall is shoulder season in many regions, travel deals for these regions start popping up around late August and September, and last until mid-December, before the holiday season kicks in.

Flights

Most airlines begin peak or high-season pricing with departures from June, so if you could depart the last week of May, or even possibly before mid-June, you are more likely to find a seat at shoulder-season prices, since outbound date determines fare (pricing) season. Airfare prediction sites, can give you a rough idea of how flight prices fluctuate and will also show you the best deals from your own airport in any given month.