Best places to visit in November

The first two days belong to the cemeteries, and the villages in the valley do it with more seriousness than the city does. Marigolds fill the markets and the comparsas run through the neighbourhoods after dark. Once the fifth passes the city empties and the weather stays exactly as it was.

This is the month Athens is handed back to people who want to walk it. The marble is no longer too hot to stand on, and the queue at the top is a queue rather than a siege. Tavernas move indoors and the cooking gets better for it.

The heat has gone out of the medina and the Atlas is visible from the roof terraces on most mornings. The presses in the villages south of the city are running the new olives. Late in the month the film festival brings a different crowd, and the riads price accordingly.

The cool season starts here, and the hills north of the city are as green as six months of rain can make them. This is the window before February turns the whole valley grey with smoke. The lantern nights fall on the November full moon and the city is at its fullest for them.

The Mekong is still high and brown and the hills behind the town are as green as they get all year. Mornings are cool enough that the alms round is comfortable rather than endurable. The high season has not properly started, which is the entire argument for coming now.

For about three weeks the avenues turn blue and the whole city moves its tables onto the pavement. It is late spring, so the summer heat has not become punishing yet and the parks are usable all afternoon. Ninety minutes out of town the gauchos hold their own festival.

This is when the desert becomes walkable. Red Rock, Valley of Fire and the canyons a few hours out are cool by day and quiet mid-week. The city is the cheapest bed in the American West and the least interesting part of the trip.

Two seasons start on the same island this month. The humpbacks arrive from Alaska, and the north-facing shores begin taking the winter swell that makes the North Shore what it is. The south side stays calm, which is where you actually swim.

Everything else lines up — mild days, dry skies, the wedding season — and then the smoke arrives and stays. Diwali fireworks land on top of the crop burning, and the city spends weeks under emergency restrictions with schools moved online. This is not a bad week you can plan around.

November is when Iceland stops being a country you drive around. The highland roads closed weeks ago, the daylight is collapsing, and the weather changes faster than a plan survives. The aurora is the only argument for going, and the aurora is not a schedule.

This is when the lagoon comes up into the city, most reliably around the highest tides. The barriers hold the worst of it back now, and on the days they close, the port closes with them. Fog does the rest of the work.

This is the odd one on the list: the numbers are fine and the island is closing anyway. Caldera hotels shut for the winter, the ferry timetable thins, and what stays open is what the islanders use. Come for that if you want it, not for the postcard.

The village spends November as a rain gauge while the snow piles up above it, out of reach. The mountain has a target opening date and does not always make it. Booking the first three weeks is paying alpine prices for a walk in the woods.