SeasonMapWhat's on around the world in August
In August, 2600 seasonal things are on across 1247 destinations: 288 natural spectacles, 1146 seasonal conditions, 364 festivals and cultural dates, 311 mass holidays and 491 hazard seasons. The seasons doing the most work this month: School holidays, Sea warm enough and Extreme heat. Every entry links to that place's full August climate breakdown.
Things to travel for
Blossom, foliage, whales, the light itself — the short windows worth booking a month around.
Columbine on the Cathedral Lake and Crater Lake trails from the first week of July, later and better the higher the trail starts.
Source: aspensnowmass.com
The one time of year the males fight, standing up against each other on the trails.
The ski runs and the Wasatch Crest trails flower through July, later the higher you start.
Balsamroot and lupine on the Adams Gulch and Pioneer Cabin trails through July, later the higher you start.
Iberian orcas come into the strait in July and August behind the bluefin tuna migration and work alongside the hand-line boats.
Columbine and paintbrush come up on Shrine Pass and above the gondola from early July, a couple of weeks later the higher you go.
Source: bettyfordalpinegardens.org
The subalpine meadows at 2,600 metres flower for about six weeks once Tioga Road opens, and the mosquitoes peak with them.
Columbine and paintbrush in the basins above town, best on the Bear Creek and Bridal Veil trails in the second half of July.
The herd bunches up on the Sage Creek grasslands and the bulls bellow through the afternoon.
Sunshine Meadows and the Healy Pass benches flower for about a month once the last snow patches go, usually from mid-July.
Paradise and Sunrise flower for about a month once the snowpack finally clears, usually from mid-July.
The summit meadows flower for about a month once the snowpack finally leaves, usually from the last week of July.
Bulls bellow, wallow and fight through the Hayden and Lamar valleys in high summer, and they stand in the road while they do it.
The park is a designated International Dark Sky Park and August's meteor shower is the busiest night of its year, with the pullouts along Park Boulevard taken by dusk.
Source: nps.gov
The heaths north of the town go purple for about five weeks in late summer, at the same time as the ponies are at their most visible on the open ground.
Source: hiwwt.org.uk
Namaqualand and the West Coast reserves flower after the winter rain, peaking between mid-August and mid-September.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
The second of the two annual shows at Lalbagh, built around a different theme and running to 15 August.
Source: karnatakatourism.org
The dune heath in the Braderuper Heide and along the eastern side goes purple from the middle of August for about a month, which is the island at its best on foot.
The yellow ipes come out across the city and the Tijuca forest in late winter, weeks before anything else looks like spring.
The reef spawns on the nights after the late-summer full moons and the shops run boats out at nine or ten.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Leatherbacks haul out overnight on Turtle Beach and Stonehaven Bay from March, peak between April and July, and the hatchlings run through August.
Whale sharks feed along the outside of the reef from March into August, spotter plane overhead and a licensed boat below.
The Precipice, Jordan Cliffs and Valley Cove trails shut while peregrines nest on the cliffs above them, usually from mid-March until the chicks fledge.
Source: nps.gov
White storks nest on the Byzantine aqueduct arches in the middle of town and clatter their bills over the tea gardens all spring.
The Abernethy birds are back on the nest from early April to late August, watched from the RSPB centre down the road.
The salt lagoon between the city and Poetto beach holds one of the Mediterranean's larger breeding colonies, close enough to reach on foot from the centre.
The Barbary macaques on the Upper Rock have their young from spring into summer, and the troops are at their most defensive with them.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Three species work the bay year-round and the boats out of Marina Bay run several trips a day through the summer.
Source: visitgibraltar.gi
Fur seal pups leave the colony through the colder months and swim up the streams north of town to play in the pools under the waterfalls.
Winter brings the wandering and royal albatross north with the colder water, and the pelagic boats put more species behind the stern in a morning than the rest of the year manages.
Green turtles haul up on the quieter beaches through the open season and the ranger station moves clutches to a fenced hatchery.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
The reserves either side of the park are among the darkest measured places on earth, and the dry months put the core of the Milky Way overhead on cloudless nights.
The park sits inside the Aoraki Mackenzie dark sky reserve and the galactic core rides highest on the long cold nights from autumn to early spring.
Source: darkskyreserve.org.nz
Herring gulls nest on the chimney stacks from spring and defend the chicks in July by dive-bombing anyone under them.
Source: rspb.org.uk
The town sits inside a dark sky reserve with its street lights shielded for the observatory.
Source: darkskyreserve.org.nz
The cold months are when trackers find them: fewer visitors, snow that holds a print, and long low light at both ends of the day.
The colonies come ashore in late April and are gone by late August; the ones reachable from town are on the islands in the bay rather than the south coast.
Humpbacks work the length of the fjord through the summer and the boats leave from the town quay rather than a separate harbour.
Condors ride the first thermals out of the Colca between eight and ten in the morning, and the dry months are the ones without cloud in the canyon.
Licensed hides in the forests around the town take bookings from spring to early autumn, through guides rather than on the day.
…and 248 more in this group. Open any destination's page for its own month-by-month calendar.
The state of the place
Monsoon, dry season, lifts open, sea warm enough — what the weather is actually doing.
Through July and August the Baths stay open into the evening and the terrace is lit by torches.
Source: romanbaths.co.uk
Most of the year's rain falls in these two months, in heavy short storms that flood underpasses and clear the air for a day afterwards.
The etesian blows down the Aegean most afternoons in high summer.
Haeundae, Gwangalli and Songjeong are staffed with lifeguards and swimming zones for the two summer months only; outside them the water is technically off limits.
Source: visitbusan.net
The northerly blows down the Aegean into high summer and this is the coast it hits.
Only 500 people a day may start the trail, guides and porters included, and the June to August dates go five or six months ahead.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
The sea at Sopot and Brzezno is swimmable for about two months and no longer.
The plateau takes most of its rain in July and August and most of it falls overnight, so the days often stay clear.
The dry north wind can blow for three or four days without a break in high summer.
The windmills on the hill are not decoration.
The north wind is why the kite and windsurf schools sit at Mikri Vigla.
The palm gardens are picked through high summer and the falaj channels run to keep them alive.
Paros sits in the strongest of it, which is why the windsurf and kite schools are on the east coast at Chrissi Akti.
The summer north wind gets up most afternoons and blows for days at a stretch.
The etesian blows hard down the Aegean through high summer.
Weaker here than in the Cyclades but strong enough to stop the boat trips to Skopelos and to bend the landing approach into the airport, which is why people stand at the end of the runway to watch it.
Most of the year's rain falls in these weeks as heavy afternoon showers, and the dirt tracks out to the ger camps turn to mud and river crossings rise.
A handful of gondolas run for walkers and bikes for about eight weeks from the start of July.
Source: les3vallees.com
Danes take their holiday in one block, and a good share of the small restaurants, bakeries and galleries simply close for three weeks.
Source: visitcopenhagen.com
Europe's earliest vintage, picked by hand from single vines sunk in ash pits behind semicircular stone walls.
Sand, deckchairs and pools go down along the Seine and the Bassin de la Villette for about eight weeks, free and busiest in the early evening.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Tokyo's hot-weather escape since the 1880s, and the population multiplies for six weeks.
The Malayalam month the resorts sell as the right time for a treatment course, on the reasoning that the damp opens the pores.
Source: keralatourism.org
A kilometre of Odori Park becomes an outdoor beer hall for about four weeks, seating thirteen thousand, and it is the whole point of a Sapporo summer.
Source: sapporo.travel
Drum roasters appear outside every supermarket and roadside stand from August, and the whole city smells of it for two months.
The park authority shuts the bay for two months every year so the reef and the beach can recover.
Source: thethaiger.com
Late summer is the only stretch when the Pacific here is worth getting into without a wetsuit, and it lasts into the first half of October.
The water lags the air by about two months, so late August into September is the best of it.
The world tour event runs on a waiting period at the reef pass an hour and a half down the coast, so it is called day by day.
Source: worldsurfleague.com
Crowberry, blueberry and cloudberry come on across the tundra in August and the mushrooms follow.
The berry crop on the avalanche slopes brings black and grizzly bears down to trail level for six weeks.
The Pacific here takes all summer to warm up and only gets comfortable without a wetsuit in August and September, which is also when the marine layer has finally gone.
The assyrtiko vines are trained into baskets on the ground against the wind, and they come in early here, usually starting in the first half of August.
The Kucuk Menderes valley behind the town is fig country, and from August the fruit is laid out to dry on trays beside the road.
Kraftskiva runs through August: paper hats, schnapps, songs between courses, and more ceremony than dinner.
Congress goes home, the lobbying and lawyer city empties with it, and downtown restaurants that live on expense accounts run their quiet weeks.
Drum roasters appear in supermarket car parks and the whole town smells of burnt chile skin for six weeks.
The oldest running surf contest in the country takes the oceanfront for a week in late August, with skate and volleyball events strung along the boardwalk beside it.
Source: surfecsc.com
The vines grow on limestone rubble on the slopes below Ainos and are picked from late August.
The harvest is marked in the city and, better, up at Estreito de Camara de Lobos, where the grapes are still trodden in public and the year's wine is sold in the street.
Source: visitmadeira.com
…and 1106 more in this group. Open any destination's page for its own month-by-month calendar.
Festivals & culture
The festivals a place is known for, and the weeks the streets belong to them.
Eight weeks of concerts under the tent at the Benedict Music Tent, hundreds of them free or cheap, with students practising in the open all over the west end.
Source: aspenmusicfestival.com
Two months of concerts and opera, much of it in the open-air Krizanke, which is the summer programme the city plans around rather than a fringe event.
Source: ljubljanafestival.si
Six firework shows fired from a barge in the bay across July and August, one country a night, judged as a competition.
Five weeks of theatre, dance and Arab music at the open-air amphitheatre in the cypress gardens, running from early July into August.
Source: festivaldehammamet.com
Four Fridays in the Ashada month bring hundreds of thousands up to the Chamundeshwari temple.
Source: deccanherald.com
A month of small-room jazz in July, much of it in the Dracula Club, which seats about a hundred.
Source: festivaldajazz.ch
A boat convoy and a fireworks set piece over the Rhine on a Saturday evening in summer, watched from both banks.
Source: cologne-tourism.com
Forty-seven days of theatre, opera and concerts staged in courtyards, on Fort Lovrjenac and on the island of Lokrum, using the town itself as the set.
Source: dubrovnik-festival.hr
A Blessing of the Fleet opens whale season in July, and the festival proper lands on the last weekend of August: a family day, an illuminated night parade and a paddle-out tribute to the whales.
Source: herveybaywhalefestival.com.au
Five weeks of concerts in the Roman amphitheatre above the sea, running from mid-July into August.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
A two-day monsoon fair around Fateh Sagar with swings, food stalls and folk stages.
Source: utsav.gov.in
Three weeks of concerts under tents at the Mundenhof on the edge of the city, from circus to jazz.
Source: zmf.de
A month of opera, drama and ballet staged in the palace itself, with the Peristyle as the main auditorium.
Source: visitsplit.com
Not one parade but a fortnight in which each village stages its own night: ole time wedding at Moriah, folk theatre, the salaka feast.
Source: visittobago.gov.tt
Berlin's Pride parade takes a long route through the west of the city on a Saturday in late July and finishes at the Siegessaule.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Ten days of exhibition, midway and nightly fireworks starting the third Friday of July.
Source: k-days.com
The world tour has come to the Jandia lagoon every summer for nearly four decades, timed for the strongest trades of the year.
Source: fuerteventura-worldcup.org
One morning in high summer the strait is closed to all shipping and a few thousand swimmers cross from Kanlica down to Kurucesme.
Source: olimpiyat.org.tr
Pine torches outside every door on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth lunar month, usually late July or early August.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Three weeks of events ending with the Grande Parade along Lakeshore on the Saturday of the August civic long weekend.
Source: torontocarnival.ca
Two and a half weeks of classical music at 1,500 metres in midsummer, with masterclasses and free morning rehearsals that are often better than the ticketed evenings.
Source: verbierfestival.com
A month of beer tents on the West Coast site and in the old brewery district.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Six weeks of opera and theatre that double the price of every bed in the city, with Jedermann played outdoors on the cathedral square as the fixed point of it.
Source: salzburgerfestspiele.at
Ten days from late July into August with most of the programme free and outdoors in the squares and shopping streets, which makes it the easiest festival in the city to stumble into.
Source: birminghamjazzfestival.com
Three nights of R&B and soul at Paycor Stadium in late July, drawing tens of thousands from out of state.
Source: cincymusicfestival.com
Africa's longest-running film festival takes over the city's cinemas for the back end of July into early August, in the dry, mild middle of winter, which is the best time to be in Durban anyway.
Source: cca.ukzn.ac.za
The Hungaroring is twenty kilometres out of town and the race takes the city's hotel stock with it; rooms go at two or three times the usual and the M3 crawls for three days.
Source: hungaroring.hu
Ten nights of tusker elephants, whip-crackers, fire dancers and drummers processing through Kandy, three hours inland.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Eight days of sail canoes racing village to village, crews hanging off wooden poles to keep them upright.
Source: tourdesyoles.com
North Germany's biggest funfair runs on the Heiligengeistfeld three times a year, five weeks each, with fireworks every Friday.
Source: hamburg.de
Twelve days at the Expo Center at the turn of the month, one of the biggest state fairs in the country and the reason the north side is solid traffic for a fortnight.
Source: ohiostatefair.com
Three weeks of stalls through the old town, running since the thirteenth century and now one of the biggest street fairs in Europe.
Source: jarmarkswdominika.pl
Street theatre, circus and free stages through the Merchant City over the last two weekends of July, spilling into the first days of August.
Source: glasgowlife.org.uk
Ten days of constitution celebrations across the country.
Source: cookislands.travel
Ten days of constitution celebrations that fill the National Auditorium with island-by-island dance and song.
Source: cookislands.travel
Street performers take over the Halifax and Dartmouth waterfronts for the last weekend of July, free to watch and run on hat money.
Source: buskers.ca
Five weeks of baroque opera and concerts in the Hofburg's Giant Hall and the courtyard at Ambras, running since the 1970s.
Source: altemusik.at
Ten days of constitution celebrations, with island teams competing in dance and song every night.
Source: cookislands.travel
…and 324 more in this group. Open any destination's page for its own month-by-month calendar.
Holidays that swamp a place
Mass holidays: full trains, closed shops, the year's dearest fortnight.
July and August carry most of the year's visitors.
The town runs on the northern European school calendar rather than the Portuguese one, so the fortnight either side of the end of July is the hardest to book and the dearest to fly into.
Source: gov.uk
Canada Day starts it and the school year ends it.
Source: parks.canada.ca
A town of five thousand hosting several million park visitors a year does most of it now.
Tbilisi, Yerevan, Baku and half of eastern Turkey come here for the summer, and the boulevard and the casinos run at capacity.
The Cascais line runs standing-room only at weekends once the schools break, and the town is as much a Lisbon suburb on holiday as a resort.
Source: cascais.pt
Slea Head Drive is single track with coaches going one way round it, and in July and August the peninsula runs at capacity.
Source: dingle-peninsula.ie
Lisbon is forty minutes away and comes here at weekends all summer, on top of the surf camps.
Source: cm-mafra.pt
Anyone who can leave the inland heat does, and Essaouira is where they go.
The airport handles the whole region's charter traffic and July and August are what it was built for.
Source: visitalgarve.pt
July and August carry most of the year's visitors, and the park shares them with Yellowstone up the road.
Charter season at full stretch and Tunisian families on top of it.
Yachts double-park in the harbour, the town square is a queue and prices are Croatia's highest.
Weekend traffic from the city fills the road and the riverside cafes in the valley.
The Fairy Pools and Storr car parks fill by mid-morning and the single-track roads run on passing-place etiquette that half the traffic does not know.
Source: isleofskye.com
Jackson is the south gate to two national parks and takes the full American summer: parking full by nine at the popular trailheads, and lodging priced accordingly.
Source: nps.gov
Beaches, the Kenting Street night market and every room on the strip run at capacity most weekends.
Source: eng.taiwan.net.tw
Coaches run the Ring of Kerry anticlockwise, so the day trip has to be timed around them, and Muckross and the Gap of Dunloe take the overflow.
Source: killarneynationalpark.ie
Excursion boats from Dubrovnik and Hvar unload into a walled town the size of a few streets, and the Marco Polo house queue forms by eleven.
Northern European school holidays and the Portuguese August land together, and the cove beaches here are small.
Source: visitalgarve.pt
Fifteen thousand day visitors can land on a good July day on an island of five hundred residents.
Source: mackinacisland.org
Population multiplies by five, the car ferry is booked out months ahead and dinner needs a reservation two weeks early.
Source: steamshipauthority.com
Summer schools take the empty colleges and the coach tours take the centre, so Broad Street and the Bodleian queue are at their worst exactly when the colleges are most open.
Source: experienceoxfordshire.org
The second peak and a different crowd: Dominican, Latin American and Spanish families on school holidays rather than the winter sun crowd.
The Rimini beach resorts send coaches up all summer, and between eleven and four the duty-free shops on the main street are what most people see of the country.
Spanish holidays and the busiest Camino months land together.
Eight kilometres of hotels running at capacity on northern European school holidays, with the bar strip loud until four in the morning.
The E10 runs nose to tail with campervans in July, the Reine and Hamnoy viewpoints have queues, and beds in Svolvaer are booked months out.
Source: lofoten.info
July and August carry more than half the park's annual visits.
Source: nps.gov
Peak domestic season, in heat and humidity that make the stair sections unpleasant.
Source: china-briefing.com
Millions of pilgrims walk the Haridwar-Rishikesh road through Shravan to carry Ganga water home, and the highway is closed to other traffic for stretches of it.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
The school break puts the whole country on the mountain for three weeks and this is the busiest, dearest stretch of the year in town.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
School is out across the country and the bay fills again with families driving down from the interior.
Source: educacionbasica.sep.gob.mx
This is the Balkans' beach: coaches and cars come down from Belgrade and Sarajevo and the town's population multiplies.
Half of Paris takes the island for the school holidays and everything crosses the same toll bridge.
Source: larochelle-tourisme.com
Everything that comes to Svaneti comes in these seven weeks, and the guesthouses in the tower villages take booking months out.
The Chilean and Argentine school breaks fall inside the best snow of the season, which makes the middle of July to early August the dearest and the first weeks to sell out.
One road in, and in August it can take an hour to cover the last few kilometres of it.
Source: sainttropeztourisme.com
Chilean and Brazilian school breaks land on the best snow of the season, so the middle of July to early August is the busiest and dearest fortnight and the lift queues show it.
…and 271 more in this group. Open any destination's page for its own month-by-month calendar.
Hazard seasons to know about
Not forecasts — the seasons in which the risk exists. Most weeks pass quietly.
Most summers bring stretches where the town moves indoors until six and the fountains are the only shade worth having.
Source: vigilance.meteofrance.fr
Avignon sits in one of the hottest corners of France and the festival plays straight through it: the stone courtyards hold the day until well past midnight.
Source: vigilance.meteofrance.fr
The city sits in a closed basin with mountains on three sides and regularly runs hotter than anywhere in Italy for a week at a time.
Source: provincia.bz.it
The plain around the city bakes and the concrete holds it overnight; the met service issues red warnings most summers and the terraces do not fill until nine.
Source: meteoromania.ro
The national weather service issues heat alerts most summers and the city holds it: stone, no sea and little shade on the Pest grid.
Source: met.hu
The Aude valley takes the worst of the southern summer, and the walled city has almost no shade in it.
Source: vigilance.meteofrance.fr
One of the country's furnace cities: the mountains around the basin hold the heat in and it barely lets go after dark.
Source: chinahighlights.com
Fes sits in a bowl with no sea breeze, and the medina alleys hold the heat well into the night.
The city sits in a bowl in the Arno valley with no breeze and stone that holds the day's heat overnight.
Source: protezionecivile.gov.it
Small jellyfish drift through on some moon cycles and July and August take the worst of it.
Source: en.wikivoyage.org
The valleys are treeless and the tuff throws the heat back at you, so walking Rose or Pigeon valley is a dawn job.
The city sits in a basin under the mountains and bakes through July and August, though nights cool more than in Seville or Cordoba.
Source: aemet.es
This inland plain is one of the hottest places in Greece and the rock radiates it back.
Source: emy.gr
The city sits in a river corridor that traps the heat, and most summers bring a run of days when the Presqu'ile is unwalkable in the afternoon.
Source: vigilance.meteofrance.fr
The Sassi are cut into a south-facing tufa gorge with almost no shade and stone that holds the day's heat into the night.
Source: protezionecivile.gov.it
When the sirocco comes off North Africa the city sits under dust-hazed African air for days at a time and the markets close by noon.
Source: protezionecivile.gov.it
The city shuts itself behind shutters from lunchtime and comes out after nine.
Source: aemet.es
South-east Sicily records some of Europe's highest temperatures when the sirocco pushes up from Africa, and the archaeological park has no shade at all.
Source: protezionecivile.gov.it
A closed gulf and a city of concrete make July and August heavy rather than merely hot, and the still nights are the hard part.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Flat, humid and airless in high summer, which is exactly why the Arena performances start at night.
Source: protezionecivile.gov.it
Siena is a hill town with brick that holds heat and a shadeless main square.
Source: protezionecivile.gov.it
Humid heat off the Caspian sits on the old city, and anyone who can leaves for the peninsula or the mountains at Quba.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Hungary has the heaviest ragweed load in Europe and the count peaks over late summer; if you react to it at home, you will know about it here within a day.
Source: nnk.gov.hu
Busan takes the brunt of the systems that reach Korea.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Kyushu sits in the path more often than anywhere else on the main islands.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
August is the month the peaks disappear behind smoke from local or regional fires, and a fire inside the park can close a valley or the road itself.
Source: nps.gov
The Inland Sea is sheltered compared with the Pacific coast, but a system tracking through stops the Miyajima ferry and the shinkansen for a day.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
The island sits on the track rather than beside it.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Late summer is when a system tracking up the archipelago stops the trains for a day.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Kansai Airport sits on a man-made island in the bay and shuts when a serious system comes up the coast.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Smoke from Cascade and Gorge fires settles in the Willamette valley for days at a time in late summer, usually on the hottest and otherwise clearest weeks of the year.
Source: oraqi.deq.state.or.us
Late summer smoke from fires in eastern Washington, Oregon or British Columbia settles into the basin and can hold for days.
Source: ecology.wa.gov
Late summer systems track up from the south; most weaken before Seoul, but one a year is enough to stop the trains and flood the Han riverside parks.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Bavaro and Macao face east into the drift and take the brunt of it; hotels rake at dawn and the sheltered coves clear faster.
Source: caricoos.org
The east and south-east coasts collect the weed through the summer, and the smell as it rots keeps people off Bathsheba and Crane for days.
Rafts of brown seaweed pile up on the east-facing beaches, worst between May and August.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
The windward coast around Vieux Fort and Micoud takes the weed and the smell that comes with it.
…and 451 more in this group. Open any destination's page for its own month-by-month calendar.
Windows are the usual ones and move a little each year — lunar feasts and blossom most of all. Hazard seasons are the months in which the risk exists, not a forecast. Check a live source before booking.